Walking Tour of Wells Sketchbook Video!

There's a new video on youtube of my time in Wells.  It's a sort of a 'Walking Tour' of the town, in sketches and drawings.  I hope you check it out.  It's about four minutes long.



Click here or on the Journal cover to view

Enjoy!

Another Panoramic View of Wells - Pooley Street

Here's another almost 360 degree view of Wells, this time from just outside the Island Mountain Arts Gallery on historic Pooley Street.  These images all connect.  If you include one of the panels from my Wells sketchbook it'd make a continuous loop around the scene.

Wells Sketchbook 2

The Wells Sketchbook:  I know I posted a few of these while I was en route, but the images were from snapshots and not that clear.  Here's the whole book scanned.  This is such an amazing place, I could have stayed and filled another three books if my real life weren't beckoning me back home.

Front Cover Wells 2010 Journal

back cover

Wells Community Garden Panorama

These ten images all link together to create one 7.5 inch by 112.5 inch scene.  I did two of these panoramic scenes during my stay here; one here at the Wells Community Gardens, and the other at the intersection of Sanders and Pooley Street.  They're each a full 360 degree view.  If you took the last panel and moved it over, it'd line up with the first.  It was a real challenge, dealing with changing light and perspective, dogs, kids, mosquitos and moving cars (although in Wells they really don't move that often).  I always seem to be a little bit invisible when I'm sketching on location, sitting there overhearing all the goings-on in the neighbourhood, children playing in the playground, people gardening, strolling, enjoying life on their street.  It was kind of funny how the locals had all been stepping around me for days, but when they came in to view our work at the end of the project they were surprised to see their homes and all their familiar buildings around town captured here.  Their delight at having their homes captured made me very happy!

I had a couple of real challenges while doing this piece.  The first was, after laying it all out and doing most of the initial sketching, I discovered the paper I though was watercolour friendly was not at all.  The first drop of water made it puff up like one of those compressed sponges getting it's first dose of moisture!  Normally I would have panicked, but here in Wells everything is so laid back I just sort of stared at it and thought, 'hmmm'.  Good thing I happened to grab a box of pencil crayons just before I left Penticton.  It was much slower than it would have been in watercolour, but I think it was a good exercise.  Next 'argh!' moment was after I discovered this cool sepia pen and ink on a side trip to historic Barkerville.  I was having great fun with it, had sketched maybe a house or two in this lovely ink, when I dropped the pen and bent the nib.  No more pen.  Again, I could have freaked, but instead decided to  head back to Barkerville to buy another one.  It meant packing up my camper in order to get mobile, something I hadn't banked on doing during my stay here.  On my way back to where I was parked, I popped in to one of the little galleries on Pooley Street.  I told my tale to the woman working there, an artist I met up here last year at a workshop.  She walked in the back of the gallery and came out with a fist full of pen nibs for me to use.  How nice is that!   I just seemed to meet so many generous people here.  I can see how people come here and decide to stay.

  

Folding Hard Cover for Handmade Sketchbooks!

I recently switched from using hard-covered watercolour field sketchbooks to making my own flip sketchbooks out of watercolour paper (how-to video here).  I love the books, but the one drawback was that, without a hard cover, the books weren't protected and would get a little beat up with use.  The other challenge was that I no longer had a hard surface under my paper to work against.  So... I made this cool cover!  The folding sketchbooks just slide in under an elastic on the spine.

When I finish one, I can take it out of the cover and pop another one in.

Both sides have flip-out panels, so no matter which way the paper folds out, there's a panel underneath it.  There's a silver elastic down the centre spine to hold it in, and a white ribbon to hold the whole thing closed in my bag.

This fabric was a dress I bought (cheap) for a French themed dinner party.  I never really wore it in real life.  Looking at it now, it's kind of funny how much the sketches look like Yogi and me.  They are even the kind of outfits that I wear (when I'm not in paint covered sweats).  The dress looks much better on a sketchbook cover than on a person.
I learned a few things that I'd do differently next time, but overall I'm totally happy with it.

Tomorrow morning I leave for Wells!  The camper van is packed full of art supplies and fun toys (guitar, good books and music).  I've prepped a ton of canvi.  Ten days of sketching/painting/yogaing/camping.  Beam me up!

Dandelionfest

It's been a long time since I've had the acrylics out.  There's been an ongoing oil vs acrylic debate in my mind.  I've been invited to the Toni Onley Project in Wells this year, which is a very big thrill for me.  What happens there is a group of artists gather in this very cool little town that has more art galleries than people (almost true) and we work together, along with two mentor artists, to develop our artwork.  One of the artists ends up getting a show at the Penticton Gallery next year.  I didn't want to show up with my little bag of watercolour sketch toys.  It seemed to demand something a little more substantial.  But what?  The look and feel of oils is so lovely, but I'm not sure they're a fit with my 'paint it today, hang it tonight' approach.  In other words, I'm not that patient.  Also, I'm painting at home now, and I think oils would be too stinky in our little place.  And so I thought I'd give the acrylics another try and see if I like them.  I had mixed results using them in the past, but I had so much fun painting this!  I think one of the things that worked for me, which I didn't do before, is using a medium instead of water to paint with.  The other thing that worked was having sketched this same scene in crayolas recently.  They're so unavoidably vibrant, and I used that as a guide to keep things on the lively and clean side colour-wise.  I learned some things, did some things I'd do differently in the future, but ended up deciding that yes, acrylics are the way to go.  Good timing too since Opus is having their annual inventory blow-out right now.  I took the van up there and loaded up: canvi, paints, palette, gel mediums, modeling paste, and a mitt full of brushes.  Wa-hoo!

Dreaming of Wells...

Day 29: Draw Something Architectural. I took some photos of this house when I was at an art workshop in Wells last summer. I'm just planning to head there this summer for the Toni Onley Artist's Project, and dreaming of camping in my van, painting all day, picking a little guitar by the campfire at night. Ah, Wells...


Only two more of these crayon drawings to go, and I'll be done! Woo-hoo!

Painting Workshop in Wells

I just got back from an amazing four day oil painting workshop in Wells, BC.  It was with Susan Madsen, who's work can be found at http://www.susanmadsen.com.  Yogi came with, as did Rhean (hot pink mohawk life drawing model from earlier post) to puppy sit during the day while I was in class, and to have an adventure.  We took my camper and stayed at the Cariboo Joy Campground.  Interesting spot.  More about that later.  We all had a great time, met lots of wonderful new people, sang around the campfire and roasted marshmallows and weenies.  Here are a couple of the paintings that I did.  I'm now in love with oil paints.  We got back at about 2 in the morning, and I spent my day setting up an oil painting studio in the basement of Greg's building.  I can't say enough about how good the workshop was.  If you paint and you ever get a chance to go to one of Susan's workshops, do it.  It was inspiring, instructive, really well laid out.  Thanks Susan!