Category Archives: Journaling

New Videos On a Mini Watercolor Palette Live on Youtube

I’ve recently posted a few new videos about the mini watercolor palettes that you can find on Amazon and Aliexpress for not too much money.

My first video was a rather harsh critique-

At this point I’d kind of fallen for the little palette and found another that came bundled with a sketchbook and a few brushes. So I discuss some tips tricks and hacks for making the palette better.

After a few weeks I answered the pressing question: What colors would I fill the palette with?

Then I dove deep into DIY mode and raided my recycle bin to see how I could make a water cup that slides onto the palette!

Mini travel palette affiliate links here:

Amazon:
Same as mine: https://amzn.to/4jO52wT
Better price: https://amzn.to/4aFIie3
AliExpress: These are similar products but will work the same: https://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_opzyma9

Love a Gesture Drawing

I love gesture drawing. I also love thumbnails.

As an artist these are areas where the rules of art are all about the vibes. The whole point of gesture drawing is to capture the feeling, weight, movement, value, and idea of a a person.

Now granted a gesture drawing is meant to be a means to an end- capture a moving human body in motion. The rules are that they aren’t meant to be finished works. Continue reading

Comparison is the Thief of Joy

Comparison is the thief of joy. Apparently this quote can’t be fully attributed to anyone I previously was told it should be, though many have said the same with more or less words. Even if Teddy Roosevelt didn’t say it, the sentiment stands important.

When I apply this to art it has several meanings:

  • Comparing my art to the art of others is not helpful to my artistic journey.
  • Comparing where I am on my artistic journey does not help me grow.
  • Comparing my life situation to the situation of others is not helpful for my growth and journey.

I bring this up because there have been a series of vlog like videos and essays popping up in my YouTube and social media feeds that are about comparison- of the artistic self to other artists. (I will not link to them so as to not boost their popularity.)

Painting and drawing classes in college and grad school often have a section at the end of a project called: THE CRITIQUE. I always hated the critique. It always featured the professor, often a blow hard tool, giving you constructive and not so constructive feedback on your art. Which was then followed by your peers also giving you constructive and not so constructive feedback on your art. There was always at least one guy in the group who wanted to kiss the professor’s ass by shredding everyone’s work, especially if his work was critiqued harshly by the professor. THE CRITIQUE was only helpful to those who the professor adored and only the most capable of draughts-people.

For the rest of us it was a study in annoyances and judgement.

For many of us it set us up to compare ourselves to other artists for life.

It’s a habit I still struggle to break.

When I’m feeling down on my art I find myself leaning back into old critique habits. 

I wish I could say that 17-21 year old Less was a big enough person to stand strong and participate in THE CRITIQUE in a way that felt good to her. But no, I leaned into what others did and I learned the art language of destruction and I participated in the tear down rather than the build up.

I find myself using that old language:

  • derivative
  • not original
  • needs work on….. (fill in the blank on something you feel doesn’t work in your art)
  • composition would be better if….
  • colors are garish, colors are muted
  • needs more contrast
  • we’re responding to this not because it’s a competent drawing but because of your use of color, which is quite good*
  • You’re using what materials for this class? Hmmm, okay.**

In grad school we did a similar but less… intrusive practice. In this you personally interrogated your own art work. The intent wasn’t to critique if it was a good or bad painting but to explore what it meant/means to you personally. You asked it questions, interview style, to determine it’s meaning. This is something that you might think would call to me as someone who has personally stated again and again that every art journal page is a meditation, every art journal page has the surface meaning and the deeper meaning from the making, and that only the maker of the art has the full meaning, everything else is an interpretation.

Part of my response to this interrogation of the art was due to the professor- a blow hard old dude of a certain age who name dropped big name artists in the area and that he owned a condo near the college, that he earned passive income on this that or something else. He also admitted and bragged about getting ideas for his essays and books from conversations he’d had with students. In a conversation with me, he said, “Oh are you going to develop (an oof hand comment I’d made) into an essay or an article? Because if you don’t I will.” He seemed surprised when I said, “I’ve already published something about that.”

Anyway, this dude walked around playing a drum or kalimba as we painted and then asked us to sit in front of our art and ask it questions. Our art pieces were 4x6ft in size and made of an assortment of materials. Mine were made of cheap acrylics.

He gaped like a goldfish when I folded mine into a compact little package so I could take it on the train.

In that moment, I knew what I had to do.

The following class I set up a couple of tables and procured a large ruler and proceeded to tear my large painting down to manageable chunks. He was not in the room when I began. He walked in and the playing of his kalimba missed a beat. He gasped as I looked up, made eye contact, and tore my large painting into 10×18 inch chunks. “What are you doing?” The classroom went silent. The kalimba has stopped. Eyes were on me.

“I’m making a book.” I replied.

“Why?” He asked, his kalimba started again but still off beat. “It’s how I work. I make books.” “I don’t like it.” He replied. I grinned, “That’s okay. I do.”

My peers were agape. Several of my friends smiled, also disliking this guy.

I then gathered the book chunks into stacks and folded them into signatures. I used a thick chunky hemp cord I found in the studio. I waxed it with a chunk of sticky bees wax.

My final project for the class was a book 9×10 inches and an inch thick of pages hand torn from paintings I made in that class. The paper thick with paint and ink. In the end he begrudgingly admitted that the book was beautiful but he mourned the loss of my larger paintings. He wasn’t amused when I stated that I didn’t miss them and that the only way I’d have kept them was in book format.

The final project was healing because I was able to cathartically release THE CRITIQUE and engage in healing around the destructive practices I’d learned when young. I released some of that pent up frustration I’d gained. I was able to speak up as an artist and state, “This works for me.” While also respectfully exploring how a person can represent a whole group of others.

I still have that book.

I’ve learned a whole lot more about that professor over the years and I’m not the only person who had a negative reaction to him. My internal instincts were spot on.

*actual quote from a professor

**another actual quote from a professor

Values Studies and Ink Wash

I recently took part in Ohn Mar Win’s Patreon hangout. She puts up photos and everyone draws and paints. Really kind of fun and something I want to challenge myself to do more of in the new year. But I need to find balance*.

Anyway, it made me realize that my landscapes are stiff and don’t feel as good as those i made years ago. I don’t know that I’ve shared here that in the early 2000s when I lived in VERY rural Maine I used to drive around Washington County and draw and paint local landmarks and scenic images. I’d then load them up to eBay starting at 1 cent or 10 cents. eBay had some sort of promo if you started your listing for 1 cent it was cheaper. I did a LOT OF that. I have very few images left over from that time period because I sold most of them for a few bucks. You might think that’s a shame but I literally paid my rent that summer** by selling landscape drawing and paintings of West Quoddy Head and Roques Bluff State Park to people all over the world.

Honestly, as an artist paying rent by selling art is a good feeling. Also, if I’m totally honest I lived in a tiny apartment and I needed to get it gone. Continue reading

Values Journaling Series

My Values Journaling series of videos is currently finished and loaded to YouTube. I might try to edit them down for the TikTokers out there, but for now I see value (ahem) in keeping them long. This way you see the process.

Here they are:

The importance of Support and NOW

My grandfather told me he’d always wanted to be an artist, specifically an oil painter, but as a poor kid from a poor family he joined the Coast Guard. Mostly because it was the only branch of the military where he could guarantee that he would never get on a plane. This was back in the late 40’s so I guess that makes sense. 

He served until he was injured falling from a ladder. I’m not sure exactly what happened with the injury but I do know it hurt his back and his hip. He had a lump that he was told was scar tissue. In the early 90s the lump grew and started to be painful. The doctor’s did a biopsy and found that it was still benign and just scar tissue but in the exams they found that he had lung cancer.

He died at 67, never having picked up a brush.

This has always been a driving force behind my art making and encouraging others to make art. Part of me wonders what kind of art my grandfather would have made, had he ever gotten the encouragement to pick up a brush. Especially if his family had the means to encourage him to pick up a brush.

I imagine him making paintings of forests and fields, things that celebrate the home and life he had made. Maybe he would have painted cars and trucks- the things he repaired as part of his job as one of the head members of the maintenance team at the local University.

I wonder. 

One of the big things I wonder about is what would happen if we were all given support around the things we love and care about? I’m thinking about Karen Faulkner.*

If you don’t know the story, Karen Faulkner is a Harvard grad venture capitalist who started to ride a bike for enjoyment and exercise in 2017. She made the US Olympic team as a replacement. She quit her venture capital job in 2021 to ride full time. She won gold in the women’s olympic cycling event at 31.

There’s a lot to unpack here. She went to Harvard, most of the reports I read failed to mention that she rowed for Harvard and holds rowing records. So she was already fit. She was a venture capitalist** so she made a fair amount of money.

What does this have to do with art?

Nothing really, but it goes to show that if you have support and systems and money you can quit your job and follow your dreams.

Many of the kids I work with are born into poverty and part of where I work, works to break the cycle of poverty through gaining scholarships and other financial help to send them to college.

I’ve been wondering how I can better support the people in my life and the people reading this with their art. How do we break generational poverty thinking and encourage more art making for art’s sake.

Throughout my life I’ve seen art and art making as an essential form of communication that reaches across boundaries and increases connection between people with differences. Art communicates. Art connects. Art heals.

Imagine if we all had just a little bit of the money a venture capitalist has and the art that would be made.

*forgive me for delving a little into my other love- cycling. I don’t follow races or even road cycling, but this story captured my interest.

**I have some serious ICK issues with venture capital. Look what they have done to NING and other companies.

links:

Olympic reporting

NBC Reporting

Drawing from Life Informs the Imagination

I don’t design my pages. It has never been a thing that I do. I just draw and fit it to the page, occasionally I’ll put some text into a bare area and call it good. In a way the lack of design is design.

As I was working on a video about drawing cartoon faces I stated (paraphrasing here) that when I create a cartoon face I am drawing on all the experience I have drawing faces from photos and life. 

​The kids I work with complain about drawing from life, arguing that they need to work on their manga style rather than drawing stuff from life. They hate to hear that all the greats drew and still draw from life on the regular. Every time we put pen(cil) to paper it changes and alters our ability to render for the better.*

I did a vibey realistic drawing of a face today with pen and ink wash, a favorite technique. Then I went on to draw 7 different version of him with a few different materials. It was and is a great exercise in character design but also in seeing exactly how drawing real but with a focus on vibes and from “life” really informs my cartoon faces. Those characters can feel more REAL because I draw vibey realism.

I tested it with a fude nib, 2 types of gel pen, and a brush pen. Each gives a different feel to the cartoon face. 

As a further test I’m definitely going to test this idea out with the drawing tablet in Krita.

​* We can discuss what I mean by better in a future post.

When Other Artists Inspire

I’ve been watching Drewscape_Art on youtube for a few years. I started watching him because he was making some sweet pens by hand. He doesn’t do that anymore but his illustration career took off. His art style is really cool and deceptively simple. Think Ivan Brunetti or my hero, Linda Barry. He also does great things with color. He combines his hand drawn art with interesting effects in Procreate. When I watch his videoes where he uses Procreate I have some serious iPad FOMO. Which frankly, is saying something since I’m an Android and Windoze person 100%, but a small part of me wants to use Procreate.

Anyway, Andrew posts a lot of videos about creativity and making comix. I think a lot of what he posts directly relates to art journaling. One of his recent videos was about a warm up exercise where you draw random comix panels on a page and then fill it with random blobs and scribbles of midtone ink wash. You then use these shapes to pull images out of. You look and decide what you see, then add in more lines and details until you have a page. you can add words if you’d like. In this particular video he cuts words out of a piece of junk mail. Nifty.

I have to admit I’ve been hooked on this since I watched the video. I had to immediately try this out for myself and oh man has it been bringing me some creative joy. It’s a lot of fun.

First the random panels are pretty random and then you fill them with loose watery ink or watercolor or other media. It’s very freeing to do. Then you let your mind be child-like and creative and play as you see things in the shapes. Then you add in details and maybe more color.

as you can see from the two images above, the materials you use really has an impact on the looseness of the page. IN this case I used paint sticks and they have a rough quality. they are hard to control and eliminate the possibility of details. When using them you have to wait to add in the detail. It’s an exercise in patience.

This page was made with my 2 ink wash brushes. One has a light mid tone and the other a much darker mid-tone. I brushed on the light mid-tone and then dabbed in the darker mid-tone. No plan, just sticking to streaks and circles.

This ended up being a page I photocopied and shared withthe kids I worked with. I had them use it for the basis of their own spread. Asking them to look to see what they saw in the blobs and streaks. they then used sharpies to create their images. I’ve done this exercise with a couple of different groups of kids and the results are wild and different every time. And it’s the same for me. See my 2 sessions with photo copies of this page.

Two very different pages that began the same. Nifty.

This page started out with panels and ink wash flicked across a wet page. Each panel was wet with a brush then ink flicked across the page to create the loose cloud like areas. I then blobbed on some pink watercolor and let that flow as well. as I brought out the details I wanted to add in the idea of people being sucked into the mouth, so I stared by drawing stick figures then realized I could just do dots. So I flicked more ink wash across the page. While the paper is dry the ink wash doesn’t spread out, it stays in a loose dot.

I have recorded a lot of this process in a few videos that will come out across the month of November. I haven’t captured all of them but I’ve been making more and more of these pages.

They bring me so much joy but each page tells a story of my life in that day, just like any other art journal page.

I’ve scanned and cleaned up an image of the page that I have used with my groups of kids, if you want to try this in your own art journal feel free to download the PDF and print it to make your own Drewscape_art comix inspired page.

Get a downloadable version suitable for printing here: https://ko-fi.com/s/8389c4d952

Available as a high quality PNG and PDF.

7AM Construction

My street is currently being torn up so that gas lines can be replaced. The guys arrive at 7 AM. hey start moving stuff around the street at 7:15 AM. Digging, jack hammering, and large vehicles start up at 8am.

Work goes until 4pm.

I often start recording an art video at 8am.

Thank goodness for noise cancellation on my mic and my camera.

Yet there are days when they don’t dig, grind, or jack hammer at all.

Occasionally they need access to my basement to check on the gas meter.

Change is disruptive.

Any change is disruptive.

Not all change is good.
Not all disruption is good.

But it can be good.

Disruption and change can lead to growth.

When I think of things that have led to the biggest moments of growth within my art it’s always occurred with change and disruption that has been incredibly uncomfortable. I’ve learned that the more uncomfortable the disruption and change has been has directly correlated with how massive the growth has been.

I’m currently relearning an old skill and it’s involving being organized again. I’ve had to put together a calendar, take photos of specific things, and create a plan for something that may not happen. I’m learning to allow myself some breathing room if it doesn’t happen.

And that is scary.

But knowing that on the other side of all this work (change and growth are WORK) I’ll have skills I take with me everywhere I go is a big part of what drives me forward.