Sketches of Cannon Beach

 

A few months ago I started a dedicated sketchbook of buildings in the coastal town of Cannon Beach, Oregon where we spend lots of time. I've made a habit of going in to town early in the morning so I can draw buildings before the streets fill with tourists cars. When I get out later in the day I wander the back streets of this lovely town and draw houses like this one. 

One of the features that makes this town so lovely is the amazing profusion of flowers. There are planters and pots everywhere and most of the year something is in bloom. I like to draw flowers, so adding flowers to each page satisfies that desire and creates continuity through the book. It's a 5 x 8" Moleskine sketchbook. I'm not enjoying the paper, so once this is filled I'll change to something else. I'm halfway through the book.

One day the town was so crowded that my friends and I drove south to Arch Cape and walked to the creek at the south end of the beach. The sand doesn't stand a chance against the constant flow of the creek which eats away at the sand, creating the most interesting patterns. I stood at the edge and drew the edge of the sand as it crumbles into the water, and then tried to capture the water as it rushed over and around the rounded rocks.  Taking the time to really LOOK at what was happening here has glued the memory firmly in my mind. I remember the feel of the soft breeze, the roar of the waves just a short distance away, the heat of the sun on my shoulders, and the occasional call of the seagulls.

Today I'm gearing up for my Open Studio which will be Saturday and Sunday, October 4 and 5. If you're near Portland, OR you're invited to stop by between 11 and 5 either day. I'll have work for sale and you might catch a demonstration of my collage process. My sketchbooks and studio journals will be available for you to hold and page through, if you wish. Do come!

Simple Sketching Gear

Minimizing my gear for a day of sketching in the city required leaving lots of handy tools at home, and although I packed lighter than usual I still carried too much.

 These items went into my small Ellington purse: (no longer available)

• 7" square Stonehenge sketchbook
• Small Moleskine sketchbook
• Pencil bag with 2 copic multiliner SP, mechanical pencil and stump, bit of eraser and Magic Eraser, mister, Pentel waterbrush.
• Small Altoids tin with 7 colors, metal bookmark with velcro, used to mount the tin to the top edge of the sketchbook.
• bit of terry toweling, cuff from sock, pack of tissues- all used to wipe brush.
• large flat waterbrush
• 2 Inktense pencils, black and sienna
• Small water bottle

I carried my lightweight Walkstool and used it often, but probably could have found a seat on park benches, low walls, steps, or simply stood to draw.

Personal items were packed into the outside pockets (thin wallet, keys, cell phone, sunglasses, lipstick)
My little purse was jam-packed and it wasn't exactly easy to get to things. When working in the field I want to lay my hands right on the item I need.

I didn't use:

• the tissues or the cuff. A bit of toweling is sufficient. 
• pencil, stump, erasers
• the sienna pencil
• the Moleskine sketchbook

 I drank the water but could have done without carrying it since I could get water just about anywhere.
And frankly, for sketching I didn't need the watercolor kit or the brushes. It's just habit to pack them. I'm love color but all too often I mess up a good sketch by trying add color in the field.

Next time I go out sketching  I'll leave all the watercolor gear at home and I'll take a larger assortment of sizes of pens, from an .01 to a 1.0 and a brush marker, and place my attention on drawing and leave the paint for later in the studio. After this experience, and quite a few others, I hope to pare down to carrying just a small sketchbook (whatever I'm using at the time) and my pencil case with a few pens in assorted sizes.

July Sketches

I've spent very little time working in my studio this summer other than working at my desk/computer. However, I've been drawing every day this summer and enjoying every minute of it, getting outside and really looking at the details of the world around me.

Twice I joined Rene Eisenbart to paint in local gardens. This rose was done Friday and is my first attempt at drawing and painting a rose.

Then yesterday I participated in the West Coast Urban Sketchcrawl. We checked in near the Roosevelt statue in the Park Blocks and fanned out to sketch whatever caught our eyes. When we gathered at noon for a group picture and Show and Tell I was blown away by the amazing work that was laid out on long tables for us to see. 

St. James Lutheran Church

My first subject was a nearby door in a church. I was struck by the contrast between the two parts of the same building at St. James, and by the mysterious non-functioning doorway and  the way the beautiful old building contrasted with the strikingly contemporary white office structure on the left.

The Old Church

When we first moved to Portland I attended this church. Now The Old Church is used as a venue for all sorts of events, especially concerts and recitals. This drawing is of the porte cochere. 

After lunch we continued to work until quitting time at 4pm. The Portland Art Museum graciously welcomed all the Urban Sketchers to draw in the galleries, free of charge! I watched others draw, including a new friend, Darsie Beck from Vashion Island, WA. Darsie has invented an amazing sketching bag that has a flap that folds out to form a platform on which to rest one's sketchbook while painting/drawing. See it at his website. 

Quick sketch of my yummy lunch, tied together with a strip of deli paper.

Downtown construction

My last sketch, of a new downtown building with its massive crane and nest of orange plastic construction fencing at the top. I messed up the sky something awful by starting on dry paper on a hot dry day when even the water on my waterbrush dried almost before I could use it. 

I'm posting drawings like this so that someday, maybe 5 years down the road, I can look back and see how far I've come as a result of drawing every day. We'll see. I trust the process!

Drawing stuffed birds and old dolls, Sketchbook Skool assignments

Dolly

 I had lots of errands today, not much time to draw, and no compelling subject until I remembered my doll. My grown daughter thinks this doll is scary and won't even look at it, but then she never was one to like playing with dolls. I loved my dolls and cherished the few I owned. I only kept one, though, and only because of the dress she wore, one I made when I was nine... to match my sundress.

Golden Eagle

I had a wonderful time yesterday, drawing birds at our local Audubon Society where there are lots of stuffed animals who patiently posed as I took my time trying to nail the shapes and values. I also tried my hand at drawing live birds at the feeder and one perched on an attendants' hand.

Lisa

 Another day I drew Lisa as she was giving me a pedicure. I wasn't happy with the drawing because it couldn't get the contour of her forehead and nose right, with her head down most of the time and rarely absolutely still. However, she was overjoyed and thanked me for drawing her. One never knows how something simple will touch another person.


When I started this blog its purpose was personal, to keep a record of the art I create each day. Somehow I lost my way and stopped keeping the daily record. I want to start again. While I don't complete a piece of art every day I usually do something creative whether it's painting paper, playing with my gelli plate, taking photographs, gardening,sewing, or even canning. I intend to do a better job of reporting this daily activity by sharing it here on my blog in hopes that what I do matters to someone else, too.

Haystack Rock and other recent collages

Haystack Rock

Haystack Rock is located off shore of the seaside village of Cannon Beach in NW Oregon. The groupings of rock which commands the attention of visitors is quite accessible at low tide and is a popular attraction for children and their parents who love exploring the tide pools at its base. 

Our family spends lots of time in this lovely spot and images of Haystack fill my photo files. It seemed appropriate to see how I might build a collage that incorporates my photos and uses some of my painted papers. The collage is 9 x 12".

Brother Oak

Brother Oak, 9x12, features my photo of an oak tree that grows alongside a small family cemetery on a hillside outside Magazine, Arkansas. The wintertime photo was a rather blah wintertime photo so I 'colorized' it with a wash of blue and added some green to the grass.

I continue drawing in my sketchbook, motivated by the excellent teachers of the first semester of Sketchbook Skool. It has the result of encouraging me to draw every day, sometimes with tools such as colored pencils that are uncomfortable to me. I'd rather slop around paint than sit tediously layering color with pencils. But I intend to try it all and see what I can add to my skill set, and hope in the process to develop better hand-eye coordination and ability to draw what I see.  Here's today's drawing: 

Morning Coffee

Watercolor and Foil on Text

by Jo Reimer

I've seen several examples of watercolor and drawings done on top of the text in old books so I decided to try my hand at it after reading Jane Fazio's post this morning. My first attempt wasn't the greatest but it lead to another discovery... using foil with watercolor, a lemons into lemonade experience.

I used paint straight out of a tube of M. Graham watercolor which had sat too long and had a bunch of sticky honey right at the top. I was working too quickly and didn't notice the honey until it was on the paper. When it refused to dry right away I  looked around for a solution, something to soak up the stickiness or to cover it.  I grabbed a sheet of foil, the sort used by rubberstampers and surface designers, and applied it to the image. This left sparkles of foil on the petals of the flower. Pretty in person but it doesn't show up in the scan where it looks like black blobs. Metallics don't photograph well because of the way they reflect the light.

Following Jane's example I cut around the drawn and painted image and glued it into my journal. Now I'm thinking that I'll keep an old book handy and take a few minutes here and there during my day to sketch something and add watercolor later so I'll have all this wonderful material available for other uses. It'll refine my drawing and observation skills and give me another opportunity to record the beauty of my days.

The book page I worked on had glossy paper which didn't take the color well. Use uncoated paper pages.

If you don't have sticky watercolor paint just rub a glue stick across your drawing and apply foil to that. Experiment first so you'll know at what point in the drying stage is best to apply the foil.

You can draw with liquid glue and then foil that. Have fun and tell me about your successes and failures.

Go here for more information on using glue and foil. Jones Tones makes glue and foil which is available at craft stores.

Self Portrait With Bobbin

Self Portrait drawing, c. 1990-95

While going through some of my old journals and sketchbooks I ran across this drawing. I didn't date the piece so I'm not absolutely certain of the date... late 90's... and it was a lone piece, stuck into the back of a sketchbook. The expresssion is sorta scary, but I think that's because of the angle of the mirror I was using. The drawing was glued to the larger paper (8.5 x 11") with a bit of pattern tissue added as well as lines indicating quilting stitches and a sewing machine bobbin with thread... a true self portrait indicating what interested me at the time. The tissue has turned brown with age because of0 the acid content of papers used for pattern tissue, then and now, and even the acrylic medium in which it was encased didn't prevent color change... a lesson for those of us who use ephemera in our work.

I now date each piece as I complete it, on the back when I can, or if it's in a book I put the date in one of the corners. So many times I've made something and later wished I knew when I made it and what was going on in my life when it came into being. So I'm guessing on this one, but hopefully my life history from here on will be more accurate... if anyone cares!

OAK... collage on sewn papers

OAK

8.5 x 11"

drawing on collage

For this drawing I brushed Golden GAC 100 over the sewn collage prior to drawing. One reason I'm searching for an appropriate coating for the papers is that so many of these scrap papers I'm using are either vintage, with its problematic acids, or ink jet prints which are water soluble. Both the clear gesso and the GAC 100 smear the inks, so that's out. I'll do a few on uncoated papers next. After all, these are experimental drawings that aren't meant to be long lasting.

I'm so appreciative to all of you readers who took the time to comment on my last post and to leave helpful information about clear gesso. Be sure to read the comments on the last post. There are those who use it to great advantage in their work and others who don't like it a bit. Read what Liquitex has to say about the product here.

About this tree...one January a few years ago my brother and I visited a family cemetary in Arkansas, one that a maternal great grandfather established on a hill on his land. The small cemetary is surrounded by big oak trees and I shot several tree portraits as I often do when I find wintertime trees that catch my eye.

Here's my brother leaning against our grandfather's headstone with Mom's headstone next to his. See the oak in the background? There are many other similar trees.

Lisa Pressman is doing a series that she call Outside-Inside and she asked for photos of the view outside artist's studio windows as well as a photo of a piece of art. I'm honored that she chose to post the pictures I submitted. Go have a look here.

Bare Bones

Bare Bones

Collage + Drawing

8 x 10"

Early this week I made lemonade out of a lemon of a night's sleep. Too much caffine in my iced tea led to sleeplessness so rather than lie abed even longer I went to the studio at 3 a.m. and cut and glued 17 scrap pages, then later that day I spent an hour on the sewing machine getting them ready to be the substrate for more tree drawings.

I painted one of the collages with clear gesso, thinking that would add substance to the page and perhaps preserve some of the vintage papers, but it wasn't helpful that way and caused some of the papers to buckle. This afternoon as I was drawing this tree with a Pentel brush pen I realized that the rough gesso was probably acting like sandpaper on the fragile brush; it was certainly slowing down my penwork. I won't use gesso this way again.

I can't even remember why I bought the clear gesso. What use is it anyway?  How do You use clear gesso?

Birds on a Wire

Birds on a Wire

17 x 11"

Journal Pages

I've started to work in my new nature journal beginning with this spread, The 140# watercolor paper had been painted with acrylics, mostly in warm colors. After cutting the paper to size I smeared it with gesso on both sides, allowing some of the color to show through in spots. Then I bound the papers into a book. I chose half a dozen colors to add to the spread but ended up using only burnt sienna and burnt umber.

The idea of the birds came to me as I was working. I practiced painting them on a scrap of paper before adding them to the pages, though it wouldn't have mattered because none of them are perfect anyhow. I used my Pentel Brush Pen for the birds and then switched to a plastic squeeze bulb and Sumi Ink for the drawings. I drew a very sloppy wet line on each page and then tipped the book upright and banged it on the table to get the ink to run. Messy fun, that was!  After the ink had dried I sprayed the whole thing with Krylon clear acrylic coating to seal it because otherwise the ink isn't permanent on the acrylic paint and would simply rub off. The photo was glued on before I sprayed.

Now that the book is bound and I've made a start I can hardly wait to work on the next pages, to see what bubbles to the surface as I think about the beauty of the natural world around me.

Catching up

I ran into friends at the local farmers market yesterday who were a bit worried because I haven't posted since our road trip and they wondered if we made it home okay... maybe you wondered, too.  We're fine and had a very good time but declared at the end that there's truly no place like home. My cat snubbed me for a day; the weeds dared me to pull them by their well-developed roots, and the answering machine was full of messages to return.  I turned right around a took a shorter road trip with friends the next week.

Bridge and pier, LaConnor, WA

Every summer for many years some artistic friends and I have gathered for a 4 day "camp". Only once time was it even close to being camping; mostly we borrow a house or rent rooms in an inn. The last few times we've rented space at the LaConnor Inn in Washington state, a beautiful little town on the banks of a canal in Puget Sound, way north of Seattle. We used to take turns teaching each other in rather formal workshops about whatever we had going at the time and we still do in a way, though now its mostly show and tell and we work on our individual projects while we sit and talk. We eat lunch and dinner out... one of the joys of being in LaConnor where each restaurant vies for our attention.

Thousands of perennials respond to the humidity and the sun and make a gorgeous display for us every May so I honor them by taking lots of pictures.

I took my Singer Featherweight with me and sewed lots of paper that I'll use in many ways later. It was fun to sit and sew straight lines. The way I make my papers is to cut lots and lots of strips of interesting paper (wallpaper, scrapbook paper, maps, ledger and music sheets, and my own painted papers, as well as scraps leftover from other projects) and then sew them like stripes to junk mail. I've been using strips of these stripes in daily collages and in my journals, 

 and now I'm drawing trees on the plainer papers. I'm seeing lots of potential here. What do you think?

26th World Wide SketchCrawl

So what is the world is a World Wide SketchCrawl? Several times a year groups around the world gather in their home cities to sketch their surroundings and then post the results for others to see.  It happened that today was the 26th such happening as well as my sketch group's monthly meeting day, so we three met at Helvetia Tavern in Washington County to draw the countryside. We drew for and 1 1/2 hours, ate burgers and deep fried onion rings, and then drove down the road to another location to sketch some more. We're wimps, so we sat in the car and drew whatever was in front of us.

My drawing hand is a bit rusty and the first results were a combination of uncertainty and unskilled, but as I got used to the new pen, and then switched to my old tried and true gel pen the drawings and the color mixing improved.

Buried Treasure- Getting Serious About Collage

Today is Buried Treasure Day, when Seth, at The Altered Page asked friends to post their own personal favorite blog posting. My favorite isn't a post on my own blog but rather it's an article I wrote 9 years ago for an online 'zine called The Muse with a short intro by the editor. Here it is:

Getting Serious About CollageBy Jo ReimerMay 2000

Following is an artistically inspirational article written by Jo Reimer. It is accompanied by several of her previously unpublished collages both here and in the gallery. When I asked Jo about them she said that they were "practice" collages and she was very off-hand about them. Perhaps greatness doesn't always recognize itself.

Question: I've been working on my very first collage and I have questions about where to go from here. What does one mount to paper? How do I get that soft hazy look? How can I make the elements look like they belong together, like there's a connection?

Answer: Just keep working. Work some more. Work some more. Work at it every day, if you can, and if you can't do that at least make time to approach your art work 2 or 3 times a week. Consider nothing as precious. Few pieces of paper are precious. Adhesives and paint can be replaced; there's more where that came from, so use it, whatever it is. When you look at something you've done and are scared to take the next step, take it anyway.

I've just started drawing and my teacher told me to feel good about every bad drawing I make because I'm that much closer to drawing the way I'm intended to draw. He said we each have thousands of bad drawings in us blocking the way for the good work to get out, so it's really important to do lots of ugly work and get it out of my system. I believe that. I've done some hideous work, but once in a while something good squeaks its way to the surface to surprise me and encourage me that this is the right road to travel.

Some of the questions that beginners ask has to do with composition which we learn by doing and by studying what others have done. Good collages usually are made up of elements which relate to each other in some way. They may be related in color, theme, imagery. They may be formally composed, i.e. done strictly with attention to design elements of line, form, shape, and so on,or they may be narrative, (tell a story).

Have you taken a Basic Design course? Enroll in Basic Design at a university or at an art center and tell the instructor that your primary interest is collage. A collage workshop might be the way to go for someone who's experienced in other kinds of art. Check with local schools, art supply stores, art guilds, or look for collage courses at Arts and Crafts schools such as Penland, Haystack, or Arrowmont. You'll find workshop information in art magazines such as American Artist, Fiberarts, Watercolorist. Learning good composition comes both from working and from careful observation. Get an idea of what's being done by attending exhibitions at museums and galleries. Read books about collage.

As you look and read ask yourself questions about the work you're seeing: What's the background? How is it prepared? What is applied to this surface? Where does the color come from? What is the artist conveying? Is there a story or is it formal design? Why is some work in the middle of the page while in other pieces the artist worked out to the edges? What is the compositional structure? Do I like this work and why or why not?

Start making what I call Collage-A-Day. Using a journal or cardstock cut to 5 ½ X 8 ½ make one collage every day. Work fast, spending no more than 15 minutes on each collage. Use no more than 5 elements. Look and consider before you glue everything down, but don't agonize over it. You'll just naturally get better as you become more experienced. Remember that bad art I told you to get out of your system! Set up a small space where you can do this. You'll need scissors, glue, your substrate (journal or cardstock) and scraps of paper which could include junk mail, magazine pages, photos, decorative papers, pattern tissue, wrapping papers, street papers. That's all you really need.Start collecting collage elements. A collage artist by necessity becomes a collector of ephemera. While you might start with junk mail you'll learn to ransack magazines for appealing images and blocks of color and text. Eventually you'll want to add a wide variety of quality papers and you may want to paint or dye your papers, or even create handmade paper to use in your work.And you'll need to go through the glue selection process. There are dozens, maybe hundreds of adhesives available to use. One good basic glue mix is 1 part white glue plus 1 part acrylic matte medium, applied with a brush. Each artist will tell you something different, and you'll learn that you have your preferences for different purposes. You may want to use UHU glue sticks for your Collage-A-Day work.

Supports-substrates-backings can vary, also. Heavy cardstock works, as do other heavy papers. 140# to 300# watercolor paper is great for special work. Cardboard is stiff enough but has so much acid in it that it's not recommended for work you want to give or sell.Now, go to work. Work some more. Work some more. Jump in and do it. Enjoy the process of working and have a good time.

Barron Storey

Life After Black: The Visual Journals of Barron Storey, an exhibit of his journals is currently on view at the Museum of American Illustration in NYC, through the end of July. How I wish I could see these books in person; I'm amazed that they are displayed in such a way as to allow viewers to actually browse through them! I was in the right place at the right time to buy one of the 1000 copies of Barron Storey: The Marat/Sade Journals... in 1993 when it was first published, and I've spent hours pouring over his intricate drawings and varied handwritten text. In the video above you can get an idea about what one person can do with a blank book when he puts his mind to it. If you're interested in knowing more do a search on his name.

Checkerboard Tree

Often when I start working I have no idea what to paint, perhaps because I haven't given enough thought to the things that make my life unique or to ways that I am to use these life experiences to make my work have meaning.

Robert Burridge told me to work with intention... definitely a contradiction to slapping on the paint and paper with no end in mind. He says that he does his Morning Pages first thing every morning and from that exercise he states his intentions. Bob says not to start a painting without knowing what the 3-Cs will be: Content, Composition, Color combination.

Cathy Woo talks about organizing a painting with the elements and principles of design in mind.

With this advice in mind I've made up little cards that help guide me when I start a painting, though I sometimes go down a different pathway right in the middle of my work. When starting to work I take a card and write out my intentions:

Series/Theme...
Composition...
Design Element... (balance, repetition, etc.)
Dominant Color
Complementary color
2 Spice Colors
Key (high, low)


The collage painting above is one I've worked on off and on for months but it lacked something, so yesterday I sat down and journaled about recurring themes and images that interest me with the intent of developing lots of drawings that symbolize these themes. One was trees. I could not live where there are no trees. I love trees. I climbed plenty as a kid and had several tree swings. I grow trees and prune them. I take shelter under them from rain and sun. So I gulped big, said a quick prayer for a steady hand, picked up a Pitt brush pen and drew this tree directly on the lovely background, praying I wouldn't ruin it. I didn't.

Cliff Face at Cannon Beach, Oregon

One recent day at the beach I did a quick sketch of the cliff at the north end of the beach at Cannon Beach and back in my studio I printed the the drawing four-up on heavy paper. Being a woman who like to keep busy, even in front of the TV I took out the drawing and some watercolor pencils and started fiddling with colorways, thinking about doing the piece as an abstracted design to be done as a watercolor. The pencils don't usually appeal to me, though I know that lots of people use them, especially for quick sketches. I prefer the crayons.

Here's the original drawing and my first attempts at adding color. The top two were done with the watercolor pencils as I sat watching TV with half my mind and playing with the other half. I did the bottom ones just now with watercolor paint and water.

Sketchcrawl by Streetcar

We 4 friends met Saturday morning for our monthly Sketchcrawl, this time by streetcar. We started across from the library and rode the entire loop, up to Good Samaritan hospital and down to the new riverfront development, getting off along the way to sketch or photograph. The day was so cold (33 degrees) that we were discouraged from sitting out on a convenient bench so we took images as they came to us. I drew the buildings from the edge of the sidewalk and didn't take out my watercolors until I return home and by then I had forgotten what the colors were except for the one red brick building.

I did the little sketches on the left as I rode MAX, our local light rail, to downtown. Everyone was bundled up in black... a very Portland winter look. I've found that once people are settled they usually return to one relaxed pose, making it easier to finish a quick sketch. And of course drawing someone from the back when riding on public transportation is the easiest of all. That's Jan's head.

And drawing people as they wait in line for coffee give me lots of opportunity for quick gestural drawings.

I recently discovered the blog of a talented London artist who draws people on his long commutes across the city. He's sometimes on the bus for 3 1/2 hours and he uses his time to sketch. Have a look at Adebanji Aladi's incredible work.

These sketches are in my little Moleskine sketchbook that I carry everywhere. There are other small sketchbooks available but I prefer this one for its overall quality and durability.

Sketchbooks

I've uploaded most of the pages from the sketchbook I worked in while we were in Israel. It's just a little book, 3.5" x 5.5" and about an inch thick. It's just a bit more than half full and is already one of the favorite things I own... my own little treasure, full of little drawings and notes to myself about things I saw and did.

I'm so amazed at the power of sketching/drawing while out and about in my world. Because I take time to SEE, to take in the scene with my eyes and ponder what's before me, the moment is captured in my memory and sticks like glue forever.

For example: my husband and I visited Australia in 1994 and I remember one part of that trip like it was yesterday... because I took time to sit and sketch some country houses. Even though the sketch is pitiful when I look at it I can remember where I was sitting, the sounds of the schoolyard down the street, the stone church behind me, and especially the fact that I left my camera behind which led to a wonderful Lost and Found story that was published in International Travel News.

Looking at my photos doesn't recall memories like sketching does. Sometimes I look at old photos and think, "where in the world did this batch of photos come from; surely I wasn't the one who took them because I can't remember a thing about it".

One teaches oneself to sketch; it's not something you learn in a class nor is it something that you're born to do. Perhaps the desire to learn in inborn or bred, and I do have the desire to make art. But if you've ever thought that you'd like to learn to draw or paint then I KNOW that you can learn to do it well enough to enjoy the process.

Sketch Crawl

Once a month three friends and I meet to sketch. It's part of a global drawing marathon called SketchCrawl. Anyone can participate and anyone can organize their own event... it just takes a couple of people who're interested in improving their drawing skills. Mine need help! I've taken drawing classes and I've drawn a lot but I don't draw daily, and that's the key. Draw every day. There's bound to be improvement.

You won't hear from me for a couple of weeks... we're leaving in the morning for a 2 week tour of Israel. I've been obsessing for weeks about which art supplies to take and I've finally decided on just a simple set of drawing materials and my little watercolor paintbox with a waterbrush. We'll be doing lots of walking and will be too tired at the end of the day for me to want to do much in the way of art-making. I know that I "see" better when I draw so that will be my goal... to see and draw a lot. I'll collect ephemera and take lots of pictures and store up lots of memories from which to make art after I get home.