Living the Sketchy Life

It is hard to believe that fall is winding down and the winter solstice will be here in a couple of weeks! What happened to fall? It seems a bit of a blur to me due to not only being busy with music, art, and daily living, but having several life events thrown into the mix. Life is like that, as we all know.

Painting has slowed down a bit but still continues, as does drawing, however, I am picking up the pace in both again, even as the holiday season is upon us!

A month or so ago my mate and I went to the "Seeing Nature" art exhibit at the Portland Art Museum in Portland, Oregon. This is a collection of landscape masterworks from the Paul G. Allen family collection. I was very excited to go see this and it did not disappoint.
We were allowed to take non-flash pictures so I took a few. I spent most of the time with my nose as close as they would allow to the painting. All the paintings were covered with clear plexi-glass so, as you can see, some of them have glare and reflections. My two favorite paintings from the exhibit were the following:

Thomas Moran, Grand Canyon of Arizona at Sunset, 1909, oil on canvas

The picture doesn't even come close to how exquisite I found this. I spent most of my time in front of this one and the following.

Thomas Cole, Ruins in the Campagna di Roma, Morning, 1842, oil on panel.

This was equally exquisite and I would be hard pressed to choose between the two of them! There were several others that I enjoyed as well. If you are in the Portland Oregon area, I highly recommend seeing this exhibit. I thought it worth the price of admission.

Finally, to end on a personally exciting note, I will be teaching a workshop at our local art center here in Manzanita, Oregon next month! I had the opportunity to teach a sketching workshop last month in Bend, Oregon. While I have taught several workshops in the past, it was the first time I taught an art workshop. I had a lot of fun and certainly learned a lot. I decided that teaching a sketching workshop here in my own town would be a wonderful opportunity to spread the joy of art and for me to learn and grow. Info on the workshop can be found here.

While I sketch nearly everyday, I still feel the need to develop a daily sketch habit. I have experienced how effective frequent sketching is. Sometimes it is too easy to ignore the continuing development of drawing skills through sketching and drawing in favor of painting. Since I sincerely believe that good drawing skills are fundamental to good painting and good art, it is time to put my beliefs into action and step up to a daily drawing/sketching habit. With that in mind, I started a personal challenge today, and I am officially beginning a year long sketch-a-day project. Believe me, committing to this publicly makes me all kinds of nervous, as I know that all kinds of obstacles will be gleefully laid in my path. I will take it, well, one day at a time!

I have been inspired by several of my artist friends who have also committed, and are proceeding to create a painting, sketch, or drawing a day. If anyone wants to join me, let me know! No rules as to amount of time or how big or how finished the sketch is and no pressure or guilt allowed when tripping over those obstacles. I will share today's sketch tomorrow. I am not sure at this time whether or not I will share them all and probably won't share them everyday. I will do my best to share often.

-Renee