Contour Sketches at the Arborteum

The Nichols Arboretum is one of my favorite spots here in Ann Arbor. Aside from being a beautiful outdoor space to walk, run and paddle - it's also one of my favorite spots to sit and sketch.

The first week of June is the best for viewing the Peony garden in bloom, so I headed over there for an afternoon of flower-watching and flower-inspired drawing.

I started with a few blind contour sketches, letting my pencil follow the curves and ridges of the blooms without looking down at the page. 

By playing with placement and variances of petals/leaves/negative spaces I draw a sort of "map" of the way I see the flower. Sometimes the resulting compositions are interesting and worth exploring further, so I transfer those to a canvas or a larger sheet of paper. And of course, sometimes they are just a mess of lines that don't seem to tell a story or impart any truth of the plant and those just stay in the sketchbook.

(I used these Derwent pencils from Amazon for the contour sketches - I really enjoy the freedom to create lines AND washes from the same tool, less to carry with me and easier to quickly get sketches down on the paper.)

What about you? Have any favorite places to sketch outside?

Sketching in South Pointe Park

I'm in the middle of a few ongoing projects, and have been feeling a little bit out-of-whack recently. Just a bit unorganized, a bit cluttered in my headspace, a bit anxious as I make work.

To combat this I decided to take all of today off. I know, it seems totally counter-intuitive to block off an entire day off from making work, when I'm growing increasingly anxious about my timeframe to make said work - but it's exactly what I needed to get back to baseline.

I packed up my usual travel supplies (sketchbook, camera(s), watercolor pencils, graphite sticks and ipod), slathered myself in sunscreen and hopped on my bike. I had no idea where I wanted to go, just that I needed to go somewhere.

Intuitive biking.

I rode over to the beach, taking turns when they felt correct and going straight if I didn't feel like turning, literally no goal in mind and happy as a clam. Eventually I ended up at South Pointe Park before I decided to lock up my bike and walk around. The whole trip out there was mirroring very much how I felt about some of the work I was making: starting out with no clear picture of the end goal. However, on the bike it was freeing and not anxiety-inducing. The moment that analogy popped into my mind I immediately felt a sense of calm return. I could fix this.

Focusing on that, on allowing myself to meander (both in my work and on the beach) I found a nice quiet spot to sit down and sketch. I watched the boats come and go, watched rollerbladers and kite-flyers and soaked in the beach vibes of the park.

I'm not sure if anything could have been as helpful as taking that full day out of the studio. When I returned home I made a nice big slooow dinner, careful to stay mindful of the peace I found while navigating the beach on my bike.

I’m not going to pick up my brushes tonight either, but start fresh in the morning.

<3

Can't be stressed looking at this.