Monday, July 10, 2006

Travels with a sketchbook in..........the southwestern states of the USA

This time tomorrow morning I start my next big trip with a sketchbook (and the rest!) when I board a plane heading for California.

During July, I'm going to be:
- visiting San Diego and Southern California
- attending a pastel workshop (next weekend) with Dianna Ponting SFCA PPC, MPAC, PSA
- travelling with friends across Arizona to New Mexico in order to..........
- stay in Albuquerque to attend, as a member, the 14th Annual Convention and Exhibition of the Conference of the Coloured Pencil Society of America (CPSA) and hopefully do some pastel sketches as well
- visit Santa Fe
- and then return to California and, hopefully, fly up north and then drive back down the central coast visiting Monterey, Carmel, Big Sur, and San Luis Obispo en route.

The whole trip will be recorded - with photos and sketches and maybe pastel paintings - in this blog - "Travels with a Sketchbook in.........". What actually gets posted in the next three weeks (as opposed to when I get home) is rather going to depend on access to the internet and facilities to download photos and scan and process sketches. We'll.....or rather you'll see, or not as the case may be! ;)

In the meantime I had a large packing problem before I left London! My cat Cosmo decided that he was going to occupy the space reserved for the pastels!

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8 comments:

  1. You may get to California and find that Cosmo has hitched a ride. Jeanne

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  2. Have a great time! Hope the weather is wonderful and that you eat in lovely restaurants. I KNOW you'll make fabulous drawings and paintings!
    L(lines)
    Oops, better subscribe to this blog before I forget!

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  3. Thanks Jeanne and Laura. Cosmo is currently working on getting on the good side of my mother so he can get her trained in his daily routines.

    The weather according to my friend Louise was 95 degrees yesterday!

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  4. Katherine, Will you be checking your email while traveling? I haven't finished that blog post with painting spots. I guess I should just publish as draft and update as I have time. I'm pretty busy this week. I'm off the Lake Tahoe to paint Thurs a few days, then Chicago.

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  5. Ours has been 95 to over 100 for a few weeks now. Hottest in July and Aug. Probably cooler on the coast. Not sure about the bay area but probably cooler there too. We are in a valley north of Los Angeles a couple hours or so away. Jeanne

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  6. Just saw your piece in Ann Kullberg's web mag, From My Perspective...fascinating! I'm a colored pencil artist, and for years I've been keeping travel journals and field studies in ink/watercolor. Because my typical work in colored pencil is so layered and laborious, I thought using them for journals would be bordering on masochistic, if possible at all. What's more, I've had opportunities to participate in plein air events and have passed them up on the same principle: Finish in 3 hours? With colored pencils? Surely you jest!!

    Very inspiring! I think you should approach a publisher about writing a book on this subject!

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  7. Ed - I'm now here as opposed to there!

    I'll e-mail separately but basically 'Yes' I'll be checking up when I can and posting if possible. It's easier this first week as I'm based in Southern California, next week we're travelling to New Mexico via Arizona and back again so I hope to be setting off for your neck of the woods the third week of July. I'll probably be fixing up where to stay before then so a draft of what you've got so far before Thursday would be really helpful.

    I've had a reply from Google about the possible use of Google maps for what we have in mind and I'll forward that on to you.

    Have a good trip and do good paintings!

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  8. Hi Artful scribe! The technique that I use when using coloured pencils for sketching is completely different to the one some people use for more detailed works. It requires a looser/faster approach - but it's perfectly possible to acquire skills in working in two different ways with the same media.

    If you'd like to see what can be accomplished in an afternoon of sketching in London during the International Sketchcrawl held on 1st July just gone then take a look at http://makingamark.blogspot.com/2006/07/10th-international-sketchcrawl-results.html

    And remember sketches are sketches - not finished works. Put simply, they don't have to be perfect. Colours are more important than totally accurate drawing or perspective!

    I do hope you'll have a go at using them for sketches - I'm sure you'll enjoy the experience.

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