daily-ish index.

on weather decisions.

Not every day is a day for outdoor sketching. I picked October as a month to challenge myself to draw every day, but October is not summer where I live… nor is it winter. In November, our city will almost certainly be covered in snow at some point; not ideal for sketching in the park.

… observation, thought
on art walking.

The thrill of going on a long walk with the intention of sketching something, somewhere along the way, that’s the classic artist vibe. For hundreds of years, before cameras, that was pretty much the whole job of a scientist it seems: go walk around and draw nature while you wrote your observations in a journal.

… observation
on vegetation.

I have this kind of unearned confidence when it comes to sketching vegetation. Y’know: the trees, shrubs, small plants that populate my urban sketches. I know this because I tend to follow the less-is-more rule when it comes to sketches where the focal point is the architecture—leaving the vegetation as a kind of quasi-cartoonish detail

… result
of social performance.

I have taken a long break from posting my art on social media. The problem isn’t engagement. People “like” my stuff. The problem was always about performance. Art so quickly becomes this show that I’m doing, rather than a craft that I am honing. It is a weird thing, trying to find the right balance.

… observation
of expeditioning locally.

I wrote my blog yesterday, packed a small bag of art supplies, and went for a very long walk. My plan was to do at least three sketches. And I did. I sat at a table and sketched a scene at the local university. I sat on the lawn of our capital building and sketched

… observation
acknowledging that daily is tough.

Well, I was surprised to log back into this little neglected blog to discover that this site is receiving literally thousands of hits per week. Why didn’t any of you tell me! I made a conscious choice to step away for a bit while I figured out why I was making art in the first

… observation
of travel tiny sketches.

We have a little mini vacation coming up this summer and I’ve been thinking a lot about travel sketching. I mean, isn’t the that whole substance behind urban sketching—to bring a sketchbook along and scribble shapes and colours that remind one of the adventure? The place we are off to next is simultaneously not really

… gear
regarding themes.

I don’t know the long term impacts of focusing my learning into themed months, but when for example I decided that in August I would draw at least one “people-focused” sketch every day for those 31 days it becomes the primary effort of 95% of my art to fit inside that theme, for better or

… observation
of hesitation.

Artistic paralysis is definitely a thing. Call it whatever you want. A dry spell. Writers block. Lack of inspiration. I’ve been pondering a few big projects and there has been hesitation to get started. It has nothing to do with my sense of ability or skill, nor does it have much to do with the

… observation
for a gallery show.

“It’s your first gallery show!” They told me as I walked into the lunchroom. I gave my notice at my job last week and have been wrapping up my duties before I head into a long-planned creative sabbatical and some time off. The team was throwing me a little farewell party, and as a special

… event
on class.

Seven weeks into an eight week class I feel a lot of things, but I think it’s best summed up with a description of a graph. The Confidence versus Knowledge graph, they say, is like a curve with a deep dip in the middle. At the start, when knowledge is (greater than zero but still)

… thought
in defence of breaks.

Even routine needs to be broken occasionally. I’ve been training for a marathon for the last three months. I started training eight months before the actual race because I’d been injured and while I wasn’t (strictly speaking) starting from scratch, I was pretty much starting over in my running career. So I’ve spent about three

… observation
on brushing up.

Over the last few years of trying to teach myself to urban sketch and dabble in watercolour, I’ve bought a good assortment of brushes. Not good brushes. Economical brushes to align with my learning status. I had to go to the art store this evening with a supply list for the painting class I registered

… gear
on instruction.

I took a three hour watercolour class at the local community centre this afternoon. We painted a sunset behind the mountains. It never hurts to spend any time as a student, no matter how much skill you think you have. There is always something to be learned from another person, a skill or a tip

… advice
on not drawing.

I’m taking a deserved day off. I’ve been drawing every day for the whole month of March and (with some family stuff happening today) I need a day to catch my breath. The break will be short-lived, of course, because (a) it’s basically spring now and I can start to see the trees budding and

… thought
on #martch last.

It’s 7am as I write this last post of my month of daily drawing and unless something goes terribly wrong today and I can’t find thirty minutes or so to dabble out even a simple sketch, I think I’m going to be able to announce on April 1 (no fooling) that my daily doodles have

… event
of human perspective, part 2.

I just read an article about an upgrade to a video game I play. The game now includes ray tracing. In essence, it changes the way light is rendered by the 3d processing engine to enhance the dynamic blah blah blah… technology! I watched the video and couldn’t see the difference. Honestly. I’ve written previously

… observation
on fountain pens, part 2.

I ordered a couple fountain pens last week, and since they’ve arrived I’ve been dabbling in doodling with my new toys. Specifically, I ordered two LAMY Safari pens, a yellow one with an extra fine nib and a black one with a medium nib. Fountain pens feel different on the page than the felt-tipped markers

… gear
on messes.

I had thirty minutes at lunch today to do my daily sketch, so I went for a walk and found nice place to sit in the atrium of the local theatre where there a ton of benches and plants and natural light. A thousand little scribbles turned into a mess of vegetation and some hurried

… observation
masked off.

I’ve been experimenting with masking. No, it’s not anything unique or new, but I’ve been playing around with the notion of a crisp white border around my painting. A box made of masking tape defines the rectangle of paintable area on the page. Sometimes the border is thin. Sometimes it is very wide, so wide

… idea
re: waiting for paint to dry.

Watercolour painting has forced me to become more patient than I’m used to. I’m used to pushing through. I’m used to getting stuff done sequentially and quickly. I’m used to checking off items from a to do list to complete a task. But then I paint. Watercolour sometimes forces you to sit and (literally) wait

… observation
on photo expeditions, part one.

I went for a long walk with the dog this morning with the intention of not only getting out into the spring air, but also of snapping a small collection of reference photos for future painting efforts. I nabbed some landscapes of the river valley. I captured a few perspective shots under the bridge over

… event
on plein air lunch breaks, part one.

I’ve been taking my pocket sketchbook to work with me, the little one, the wallet-sized, fit-in-your-jacket-pocket, discrete-to-carry-around moleskine that I started sketching in almost a year ago but have only filled about a dozen pages, that one. The goal, and one I need to more consciously aspire towards now that spring is here and outdoor

… goal
of ai, part one.

Almost everyone is talking about or writing about AI these days, and in particular with regards to things like the arts the latest generation of artificial intelligence tools are creating a massive shockwave of speculation and curiosity. This morning I watched a demo reel from a gaming engine company for their newest updates to an

… observation
for finding inspiration, part two.

I sometimes see artists depicted in film, fiction and media and consistently those artists tend to be singularly focused on a single point of inspiration. They draw a thing. Not things. A thing. It makes me wonder, as I search each day for something unique and interesting to draw, if I need to focus more

… observation