Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot

An Overview

A Stream: Near Beauvais (1860-70), detail

Today I’m delighted to share with y’all some inspirational info about Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot (1796-1875). Corot was a prolific landscape artist. Like many landscape painters in his time, he travelled often and worked among other painters. (At times he invited other artists to complete sections of his work. Check out Zuydcoote Near Dunkirk by Corot, Daubigny and Oudinot to see three different styles in one piece). Collaborative paintings fell out of favor as the Impressionist movement (and its emphasis on originality) gained momentum and single-artist works grew in favor.

It was common practice for landscape artists of this era to develop and hone their techniques for capturing a scene by working through several studies. Studies such as these were completed en plein air alongside the artist’s close observations of nature and were invaluable in helping artists plan and finish paintings from memory later on in the studio. The detail that these masters achieved with the oils on their canvases required patience with the lengthy process of layering textures and colors. Artists’ carefully rendered field-studies allowed them to capture the luminous lights and colors of the natural landscapes while working over a longer length of time in the studio later on.

Although such studies were never meant for exhibition, some of Corot’s early Italian studies became known as some of his greatest achievements after his death. The power of studying one’s subject closely and producing several studies in order to become better acquainted with the subject cannot be underestimated. Here is a lovely excerpt from one of the placards at the Frye Art Museum exhibit (in reference to Souvenir of Lake Albano, which I have not been able to find reference to online since, so I wonder if I wrote it down incorrectly. Yet still, the beautiful expression of how he approached his craft is worth sharing):

Rather than conjuring an imaginary Italianate landscape from the time of antiquity as his teachers of the Neoclassical school would have done, Corot evokes a more romantic quality, suffusing [the painting] with a silvery light and an emotional resonance based on his own subjective experience of the site.

The Lake: Night Effect (1869), detail

These opposite approaches to landscapes fascinate me. The neoclassicists would ‘conjure up an imaginary… landscape… from antiquity’ and produce a more realistically rendered landscape setting in their finished piece. Conversely, Corot (as a Realist, Romantic and predecessor of the growing Impressionist movement) would spend time with a particular place, soaking it up, learning how it looked in all manner of changing light, and complete many studies en plein air to assist him in his work back in the studio. But the purpose of completing studies to inform the final painting were never about capturing the accuracy of the moment alone, but moreso the feel of it. While the neoclassicists were interested in using landscapes as a backdrop for their prosaic paintings (insisting on including characters from well-known tales so as to legitimize the need for painting a landscape), the Realists, Romantics and later the Impressionists were seeking to capture the feel and experience of a place itself and for the place to take center stage as the subject of their poetic brush strokes.

As Corot entered the last quarter of his life, his approach shifted somewhat and he exhibited nearly 30 paintings with titles beginning with souvenir, which means recollection or remembrance. These paintings were completed mostly from memory and are akin to lyrical interpretations of his senses of the places themselves. It seems so next-level to me. After years of spending time soaking in these places during his extended time there, he painted them without the need for any additional preparation or study. He had assimilated them into himself so completely that he could paint their soul straight from his own.

Takeaways

There’s much for us to glean from Corot’s working life. Here are the things I want to remember to integrate more into my own artistic practice. I invite you to do the same!

• Corot understood the value of community. He surrounded himself with other artists and enjoyed collaborating with his friends. He wasn’t afraid to invite them to add some of their own style and creativity to his own pieces. - Where are there opportunities for us to connect with and collaborate with other creative folk? How can we let people in to our creative experience?

• He spent time studying each place. To my thinking, the completion of studies to later use as reference materials isn’t at all the point. The significance of this practice is the time spent making the studies themselves. Imagine, spending time with a place through the changing light of each day, through shifts in weather, and the turning of seasons. The practice of completing studies helped him see the place more fully and integrate it more deeply within himself while also helping him work out complex plans and strategies for executing the eventual final piece. - What one place or object can we commit to spending time with and really getting to know? Can we give ourselves permission to work through study after study and let the focus be on the process itself? Can we sit with something that we care about, diligently practice our craft, and simultaneously work out both our relationship [with the subject] and our technical skill without fixating on a final finished-piece throughout?

• He understood that there’s more than one way to portray a subject and that the Neoclassical way that he was trained wasn’t the style that resonated with him. - Spending time soaking up our subjects does not necessitate stressing about conveying visual realism. We also don’t have to provide any justification to make our beloved subjects somehow worthy in the eyes of others. Let’s be kind to ourselves, nurture a strong relationship with a subject that really matters to us, and then portray our beloveds in our own unique style. Let’s shift our focus from perfectionism and fix our eyes instead on the essence, feel, and spirit that we want to convey instead of getting bogged down in the perceived technicalities of our craft. (Is it possible that those technicalities will begin to sort themselves out naturally as we spend time creating study after study as a means of getting to know our dear muse? I think so.)

• Time spent nurturing relationship is never wasted. All the memories of cherished places that he assimilated into himself throughout his life grew to become the loose, poetic, dreamy work of his later years. - If no particular muse is calling to us now in our present moment, certainly there is some cherished memory lodged within each of us that might like to dance upon our pages?

A Path Under the Trees in Spring (1860-70), detail

In answer to those reflective questions above, here are the goals I’m setting for myself in the spirit of learning from Corot:

• I will work on opening myself up to creative community a little more, which I admit I’m sometimes slow to do because of my own insecurities. This will be a work in progress for me.

• Because I’m traveling and my scenery is ever changing, I will look for a portable muse that I can really spend time with and get to know. Honestly, I have no idea what that might be, but I’ll be on the lookout for something worthy of the kind of devotion that Corot gave to the places he painted. Then, I will emphasize spending time with my muse and completing studies for the purpose of knowing them better, not for the purpose of creating a finished piece. By emphasizing this shift in perspective I will work to avoid the pitfall of stressing about my technique or perceived lack of skill.

• My studies will emphasize the use of pen-and-ink because that is my passion. My love for it is in some ways inexplicable because it’s so stark and high contrast and is the opposite of all of the soft, gentle flowing, colorful things that I crave and love. But Corot reminds me that it’s not the medium that evokes poetry or prose… it’s the spirit I bring into the application of my craft. So, because I resonate with his poetic spirit and want very much to draw poetry more than prose, I must trust that with practice I can convey such poetry with something as simple (and stark) as a black ink-pen.

• Because I’m hoping to cultivate a relationship with a muse, I’m going to make that my main focus. But I’m thinking that drawing from cherished memories could be a great warmup exercise as I sit down at my desk each day. At this time, I’d like my muse to come from my current life instead of my memories. So I’ll be dipping into my memory bank for additional inspiration or for warm-ups to help me get loose and focused for the day’s work. (Also, I’m committed to reminding myself that any memory that should make it onto my page was never carefully studied for the purpose of artist-rendering (unlike Corot’s purposeful study of his subjects) and so I will be kind to myself when my memory-drawings inevitably turn out wonky and don’t look at all how they are in my head!)

I guess, in summary (and I’m saying this as much for myself as for you, dear reader, if you are in need of hearing it) - I’m imploring us to inject more heart into our art and less brain - to choose a subject we can let ourselves be captivated by and study at length, trusting that such a joyful fixation and disciplined approach will naturally let us grow in the technical skills that so worry us beginners and too often keep us from beginning.

DIY Art Education: Visiting Local Museums

Art education takes many forms and when you’re building a DIY program like I am, you rely on locally offered classes, online courses, and visits to art museums. Last summer we visited the Frye Art Museum’s exhibit “Towards Impressionism: Landscape Painting from Corot to Monet.” The exhibit explored “the development of French landscape painting from the schools of Barbizon and Honfleur up to Impressionism.”

My knowledge of art history is slim at best, but I’m eager to learn. I went to the exhibit without knowing anything about French landscape painting, oil painting, the French schools of thought on painting, impressionism, or any of the key players during this movement with the exception of being vaguely aware of Monet and his impressionist style (Thank you, Cher!). After studying the paintings and reading all the informative placards throughout the exhibit, I was filled with appreciation, excitement and new eyes for seeing the landscape around me.

To say it was a stunning exhibit falls short in describing the experience. Do you know the scene in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off when the three truant teens visit the Art Institute of Chicago? As the music reaches its climax, Cameron finds himself caught in an intensely contemplative moment. Standing before George Seurat’s A Sunday on La Grande Jatte, the camera follows Cameron’s gaze deeper and deeper into the pixelated image. The French landscapes pulled me into their water, trees, and skies in just the same way.

Because I was keen to further my education, I took many reference photos and notes during my visit to the museum. It’s always been my hope to share what I learned from the exhibit with others. My hope is that others who dream of an art education and must find it off of the beaten path will be inspired to make the most of opportunities like this one in their own communities.

I’ll be featuring information gathered from the exhibit along with photos taken at the exhibit in the coming days. Our first featured artist will be Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, who is the artist of the piece featured in this post. Stay tuned for tomorrow’s post when I’ll share more about him and his work!

Little Goats

It’s a sad tale, which is why I wanted to draw it.

You know the kind of grief that’s barely there? Like if a musician that you don’t know dies, or maybe the neighbor’s dog, and you didn’t know them, but you’re left with the small feeling of emptiness that comes with knowing you won’t hear new music from the person or see the dog smiling1 on the other side of the fence ever again? That’s what I was feeling today.

It’s the kind of grief that you don’t really know what to do with because it’s so faint. But you want to do something because you can feel it sitting there inside you.

Today I dealt with mine by drawing a comic about it. And because I usually spend all of my time in my head worrying about my lack of artistic skill instead of actually putting pen to paper, I knew I must do it in pen from the start and not use any pencil.

The number one thing I took away from Steven Reddy’s class was to put pen to paper as soon as possible and figure it out from there. Don’t overthink, over-stress, or over-plan, just start and let it unfold as you go. This will inevitably lead to idiosyncrasies that I’ll have to figure out, but it will also contribute to developing my style.

So in this case the goats are wonky and one goat is climbing the fence wile the other sticks its nose through it and they completely don’t match in scale or perspective. But I’ve never drawn any goats before, so it’s honestly just a big win that I drew six goats today in different scales and iterations. I also drew my first ever hand and it’s rather weird, but I’m counting it as a wild success because hands are hard and yet there it is on the paper, recognizable even.

I wouldn’t have drawn any of these things if I had started with a pencil. I would have spent my time worrying about getting it planned out and perfect and would have another unfinished project that would languish forgotten in my sketchbook. I wouldn’t have proven to myself once again that I’m capable of problem-solving drawing challenges way more than I give myself credit for. I would have gotten so bogged down in perfectionism that the story itself wouldn’t have been told.

Stories are the reason I feel the urge to draw and write to begin with. I’ve always been full to bursting with them and I need a way to get them out. I’m so much more interested in telling stories than not, so it’s imperative that I get stuff down on paper, as imperfect as it is, rather than sitting on it waiting to feel “good enough” and missing these opportunities completely. (As my dad pointed out, this isn’t just good advice for drawing, but for my whole life. I need to ink in my life with bold strokes instead of constantly trying to edit it, worried about getting everything right, and not ever really getting around to making a life).

This is my first ever comic, and I’m pretty proud of that. Sincere thanks to Steven Reddy for seeing that comics might be a good fit for me and encouraging me to give them a try. Steven also introduced me to the approachable rough style of Jeffrey Brown’s early work, which showed me that I don’t have to wait until some distant future to be “good enough” because I already have what it takes to get started right now. 💛

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Someday I’ll have a scanner that doesn’t cut off the very bottom of my work. Or i’ll remember not to fill up the whole page when I draw. Or I’ll get a smaller sketchbook. (This happens every time). - I’ll repost if I can get a better scan of it with the last few centimeters of image (just the dog’s back, a bit of thumb and the bottom right side-border are missing. So not too bad.) :)

Dune 1 & 2

Last month we went to our first Dune meet-up, and through the course of the evening, I fell in love. Although I’ve known a handful of lovely artists while living in Seattle, I never found a community that felt like just the right fit. Dune felt like that fit right away.

Once a month, local artists get together over food and drinks at a local restaurant and spend hours scrunched on small cafe tables with drawing supplies strewn about. With heads tilted down towards their papers, people visit while they work. The cafe lighting is rather dim, music plays over the speakers or perhaps someone brings a guitar, and over it all is the rolling cacophony of conversational snippets about everything from Australopithecus to farting unicorns.

The goal is to complete an original work, there on-site, and each artist’s subject matter is as varied as the artists themselves. Most anything goes, and at the end of the night everyone submits their drawings and some cash to fund the printing of a zine full of the evening’s artwork.

The first week, Benjamin and I found a small two-person cafe table tucked behind a column in the middle of the room. It was a great vantage point to observe the flow of the evening and get the lay of the land. Last night we arrived earlier, so we were able to tuck into a corner booth, which is always my preference anyway. After we we’d finished eating and were well under way, three others joined us at our table and set to work. It was nice to meet some new people, and I especially enjoyed getting to see their creative process and watch them work.

My piece for the September meet-up officially launched my Space Snails series into orbit! I’ve had space snails on my mind for months and I’ve played with them at home, but I hadn’t sent any out into the world yet. I knew that I wanted my first Dune piece to be a Space Snail, and I had a lot of fun executing it in black-and-white with ink. (All of my studies at home so far have been in color). It was also a fun challenge to write a little verse to accompany the snail and play with some alliteration. And it was such a treat to see my lovely little space snail in print when we picked up our zines this week!

For this October meet-up, I wanted to feature our vehicle. We’re just days away from a major trip that we’ve been saving and planning for for 1.5 years. For the last couple of years we’ve felt our time in Seattle was waning and we’ve traveled around on weekend outings to assess where we might like to end up next. In the absence of that next-place appearing to us, but with it evident that it was nevertheless still time to leave, we planned some extended travel instead.

This piece ended up turning into a break-up piece and actually afforded me some closure for our Seattle chapter thus far. Without intending to, I wrote a piece to accompany this drawing. You can read it on my writing blog. Apparently, there’s a lot I have to say to this city. It feels good to be saying it now, but this just begins to touch on it all.

So in four days we’ll drive out of the city and into the forest. Then we’ll hop from forests, National parks, coasts, state parks and the like through 9 states through the winter and into the Spring. During this time we should get some answers and we’ll return from our travels ready to start building our next life chapter.

Snail spins slowly in space… 💛

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Color Playdays

Fridays-Sundays are my color playdays. And if you know me, you know I *love* rainbows, so this smattering of colors on my desk kept me pretty happy this afternoon!

Today I picked up a new book at the library (Color, by Betty Edwards) which I began reading this morning and am really enjoying so far! Yesterday I was happy to stumble upon the Blog over at Scratchmade Journal and enjoyed reading late into the night followed by some more reading today. That’s where I learned how to make this gorgeous color chart and start getting better acquainted with my palette!

Last weekend I was watching color theory videos on YouTube and this past week my friend Katie made a color chart of her palette for me, which was super helpful in seeing how she works with paint and why she chooses the colors she does. She also gave me tips on making my own color-mix flash cards which I am super keen to do now that I’ve completed this first exercise and can narrow down which color-pairings I want to focus on getting to know better.

Slowly, I’m building up a working knowledge about color. I’m obsessed with color and have always wanted it to be part of my art, but I’ve been quite limited in my understanding of it. But I dream of making a palette that reflects me and my personal style. I don’t even know what my style will become yet, so I’m learning all I can about color and paint. I’m playing with the set I’ve got and I’m taking a couple of watercolor workshops in the fall. My goal is to start my first custom palette in the first quarter of next year. *I’m so excited.*

A Reminder to Practice Kindness

I keep this photo of kid-Hilary on my desk to remind me to be kind to myself as I practice new things. I particularly like how it shows a smiling and exploratory face peeking through the trees. As I sit at my desk, it’s a perfect reminder that art is an exploratory journey; one that I’ve undertaken with much enthusiasm, eagerness, and hope. If I start being critical and hard on myself or begin to feel vulnerable and discouraged, it helps to return to a hopeful and curious explorer’s mindset. From there I can practice compassion and find my enthusiasm once again for this long but exciting journey.

A Tiny Micro-Poster

This came up in my Instagram's ‘explore’ feed last week so I printed off a tiny copy of it and hung it on the wall above my desk. It’s an illustration from one of my favorite illustrators, Jessie Oleson Moore. She’s the first illustrator I ever had the pleasure of knowing in real life and therefore the first time I dared to believe that a real life as an illustrative artist was possible. She inspired me just by living her life as a successful artist. But she was (and is) also warm, funny, kind, and a joy to know.

Because I’d admired her for so long as a working artist, this tiny micro-poster felt like the perfect reminder to myself that I CAN DO THIS. If I am in fact what I repeatedly do (and I believe that to be true)... then I need to be drawing more and more. So, with this mantra in mind, I’m sitting down at my desk to do something, anything, towards my drawing goals. Because I want to be doing it even when I don’t feel particularly inspired. In fact, especially when I don’t feel inspired.

Perfection as an Erasure of Myself

I’m taking two classes this month and while I introduced you to the observational drawing class in the last post, I haven’t shared about my grisaille watercolor drawing class!

Once again, this class also did a lot to increase my confidence in putting stuff on paper. The teacher is amazing at making drawing so friendly and approachable and overcoming your inner critic! He had great tips for not only how to better see things and translate them to paper, but also tips and tricks related to our art supplies as well.

Some of my favorite liberating takeaways from class are:
• Don’t worry about deviations or distortions, welcome them. This is what comprises your personal drawing style!
• When stuff turns out larger or smaller or gets missed in being part of your sketch, it’s not ‘wrong’ it’s an accurate reflection of what spoke to you (or not!). ERASING & PERFECTION ARE AN ERASURE OF OUR VERY SELVES. These interpretations are biographies of ourselves. How can we not put ourselves in our own drawings?! (I love this, y'all.)
• Pencil lines aren’t a drawing, they are instead a plan for a drawing to be done in ink (amen!)
• It’s not about getting it perfect, it’s about training my eyes to see contours, shadow, and light.
• Don’t be precious and protective of my drawings. This is how I learn and evolve! Try things, mess up, find what works & what I love. This is how evolution works! It takes time to dial it in! Going to extremes with style is how I tune into my own style.

We practiced contour line drawings from our own still lives that we got to make ourselves! Of course mine had all kinds of shells, but also a tincture bottle, a brass duck, a broom, my favorite color (the glass bottle), a candlestick, and grapes. All things that are meaningful to me. But, I’m still very slow and didn’t make it very far in my drawing in class. So here is a detail shot of a mostly finished shell necklace that I am quite proud of and a shell necklace that I started that I was feeling pretty good about and a whelk that I don’t love, but it’s alright.

As class wound down, we mixed our ink-washes and started reviewing the grisaille process, hatching, and shading. We also talked about breaking scenes down into common shapes. I left class equipped with a curiosity to know more about this style of drawing and I'm looking forward to next week's class!

Drawing is Discovery & Interpretation

Yesterday was my first art class: Observational Drawing. We started with a lecture where I got an overview of drawing principles, which was AWESOME. Here are my favorite things that I learned:

1. Drawing is imagination realized. (YES IT IS. That’s why I’ve always longed to do it! I have so much inside-stuff that wants to get out!! This is a self-evident statement but still makes the list because it felt so validating to my longings.)

2. Drawing is the origin of our world. It’s how all ideas become reality (blueprints for example!)

3. **It is a collection of time. An amalgamation of images translated over time. It’s not a single moment frozen in time (like photography) and it’s not a copy. It’s an essence of collected time and a *representation* of what we see. (The first part of that definition straight-up makes me swoon!)

4. It is organizing chaos. Figuring out what is and what isn’t.

5. It is discovery. By recording observations and putting them in sequence, you can learn something new!

6. Concept is what we think we know is there (our brain filling in the blanks and making assumptions) and perception is recording information directly from observation. So the goal is to help the eye and hand communicate directly without getting the brain involved and messing it up.

We did an opening exercise from the Bauhaus school of thought (new vocabulary word for me!) which helped loosen us up and get comfortable putting pencil to paper. It also demonstrated how we all individually interpret subjects differently.

Then we did blind gesture drawings, where we looked at the tableau and drew rough outlines of the shapes for five minutes without looking at our paper! Of course it was a mess, but it was another great way to get pencil on paper, make a mess, and then we learned how to use that mess to pull out helpful info and start editing our rough-draft! That’s what you see here. The beginnings of my edits. This took me an inordinate amount of time just to do one corner of the whole tableau but I’m really please with what I managed to get down and I got to practice my angle and proportion skills a LOT which was SO HELPFUL.

I love that our instructor had us start by making total ‘messes’ of the paper in purposeful ways because it made everything more approachable.

My favorite takeaways from yesterday's teachings are:

“There will always be problems in your drawing until you’re finished drawing. Prioritize the biggest problems first.” - This is very empowering! It helped me stop fighting trying to be perfect and to realize that the whole process of drawing is handling imperfection in itself. The whole point is to keep working at it until it’s finished.

Also, drawing is “discovery and interpretation” and I’m there to “follow the process and let it evolve from my original idea.” Drawing is the act of DOING (paired with the choices I make) and how I solve problems. When I’m drawing, I am not a photographer. It’s about “getting in and out of predicaments as I go and compromising my ideas to reality.” - That's all SO LIBERATING.

I don’t feel pressure to be perfect when I walk up to the blank page anymore. He’s completely turned it into a puzzle to solve or into a rough draft to write and work into a finished essay over time. I can solve puzzles! I can write essays! This teacher is really the BEST.

Parsley's Big Adventure

I took a couple of days off from work strictly to work on creative projects long-held in my brain that I haven't gained any traction on. I got Parsley out of his home to join me on my desk while I worked, and I proceeded to not get a single thing done because I couldn't stop marveling at him and watching him and delighting in him and filming his every move!

We had the very best day together. He snailed all over the place! He explored the top of the desk, the underside, the edges of the tabletop, and up and down the legs. I had a cassette playing, one with some random piano instrumentals. At one point Chariots of Fire came on, and I admit it was the perfect Parsley soundtrack. He just looked so majestic and lovely making his slow u-turn on the table leg to head back up while that song played in the background, accompanying his adventure.

I now refer to that tape as Parsley's Soundtrack. And that song especially promises to evoke memories of our shared day together for a long time to come! I may not have made any progress on my snail-art ideas... but I sure did enjoy some extended hangout time with my most beloved muse. 

Rainbow Mushrooms & a Sleeping Snail

I’m completely in my relaxed and peaceful happy place when I’m sitting next to Parsley.

He lives right next to my seat at our kitchen workbench. So when we eat dinner or play games, I’m sitting by him and being with him. Whether he’s sleeping or gliding or munching, I love being with him. I can feel myself relaxing when I’m near him.

Benjamin most often uses the workbench for his creative projects. I have two other desks that I split my work between. But when I’m hanging out with Benjamin I sit at the table with him, in my spot next to Parsley. This evening, I brought my paints. It’s the first time I’ve painted here. I always opt for the floor or my desk instead. But this evening has been a revelation.

There is nothing like painting rainbow mushrooms next to my sleeping snail. I felt such a deep contentment and found myself reflecting on how grateful I am. How I feel like this is what it feels like to be living my best and most ideal life. And how lucky I feel to be able to experience such deep and profound contentment in that.

An Illustrated Envelope

I’ll tell y’all a secret... I illustrated my first envelopes 1.5 years ago. Mushroom drawings... that are still in my desk drawer. I had a blast making them and am still really proud of them. But I had a crisis of confidence about sending them out and so they’ve just sat there ever since. I have to move them out of the way every time I need a plain envelope to send a letter.

Well, since then, I found the lovely @naomibulger and this summer I took her Beautiful Letter course. It was so nurturing for the budding mail-artist in me that’s just been dying to get out. Now we have a printer for our home so I can print the lovely envelope templates in her newsletters and coloring book.

I have to say that while her course helped unlock my creativity, it was the envelope templates that helped unlock my confidence. After coloring her lovely fox template I felt confident that I could use what I learned while spending time with the fox to draw a portrait of my dear friend’s puppy. I did and then I mailed it! This feels like such a big breakthrough!

When Naomi was finishing up her coloring book she was taking requests for things people would like to have included in the template designs. For the life of me I couldn’t come up with a single thing to suggest. Since then, I have thought of a whole list of things I’m dying to see on envelopes, and at first I thought with regret that I didn’t think of them sooner to suggest for her to illustrate. But then it hit me that if I can draw this puppy that I can draw the others myself too! So now I have a whole list of things I can’t wait to put on envelopes and send out to the world.

Thanks to Naomi's support and encouragement through her work I'm finally drawing and sending things out instead of letting them languish in my desk. I am so excited about that and so grateful.

Second Snail!

Another day another snail! Pencil on newsprint. It's the same reference pic as yesterday's first snail drawing, but way better this time! I love this lovely and noble critter!

I used one of the shells from my small collection as a reference which helped me settle on how to shape and shade the shell. It was very helpful to have a 3D model!

I hope to always be collecting snail shells for inspiration and reference, but always take care to find them myself, buy them from resale shops, or buy from reputable people who can visit with me about where their shells come from. I don't want any shells from snails who were killed just to harvest their shells!

My love for snails runs deep. Drawing them makes me feel closer to them and allows me to reflect on some of what they mean to me. Using a shell aided me in my drawing and imbued more life into the finished snail. I couldn't possibly imbue them with such life and love if those shells were obtained without respect for the life of the inhabitant that once called them home.

Vintage Water Photography

In this past year I've started collecting old photos. There are a few kinds of photos that I'm always on the lookout for to grow a couple of specific parts of my small collection. But I also adopt anything that speaks to me.

When I saw this one in a box of old photos last week, my heart stopped in my throat. I was so disbelieving at this find that I asked B. to please verify that what I was seeing was in fact true and not just my imagination.

As many of you know, I am PASSIONATE about water photography. Working with water as a subject last summer was life changing. I've been a life-long lover of water, and interacting with it through the camera lens gave me a whole new appreciation and understanding for it. I see it completely differently now. Colors, shapes and patterns that I previously never knew were there are now details that I see whether I'm shooting it or not. My biggest ever art project to date was my Water Portraits series last summer.

So it was a big moment for me when I found this blurry old photo in the box. Movement is one thing I haven't worked with in my water portraits yet. It was like finding another new face of the waters I love. Water in motion, shot while in motion, the movement and the reflective light creating this incredible texture. I'm enchanted.

With my work schedule being so busy this summer, I've only shot water once so far this year. But there's still plenty of summer left and things are about to slow down. So I hope to be shooting again soon. And thanks to this inspiring and treasured photo, I'll be giving some thought to how I can experiment with adding some movement to my shots this year. I just know there's even more to be seen in the water and I can't wait to see what it has to show me!

This old beauty is from January 11th, 1941. I love that someone cared enough to keep it all these years and didn't toss it out as just another 'blurry photo.' Because this photo was definitely meant to find me and inspire me in my art. I'm so grateful for it and for the person(s) who snapped and saved it.

Escargot!

I've long had a love for snails. And after welcoming one into our family recently, I'm even more enamored with them! So it was a real treat to learn about this lovely book: Escargot (by D. Slater) illustrated by Sydney Hanson.

How cute is that face?? I mean, as a snail enthusiast I am certainly concerned that vinaigrettes are not actually safe snail food and I'm also distracted by his eyes being in the wrong place... but then I'm won over once again by just how cute that face is!

It's a charming book and the little snail is so expressive! It's a fun read and I recommend it! And the illustrations are really worth savoring throughout.

Asking for Help

Recently I shared my packing list for my upcoming trip to outer-space to search for slimy space slugs. This week I've been focusing on quick ink doodles as a means of loosening up and denying my inner perfectionist the satisfaction of drawing with a pencil and over-worrying and making too many edits. It's been good practice. But the one thing I just didn't love was how my quick sketch of Fox (my stuffed rabbit) was disproportioned. So I sought some help to learn how I could have improved my doodle of Fox.

Benjamin took the time to sit down with me and walk me through the whole process of making this sketch of Fox. He demonstrated what he was looking for and how he was assessing the subject and taught me a lot about observation and perspective. This is the sketch that he made for me as I observed his work.

Learning to draw and paint is a super vulnerable process for me and I feel inadequate, tender, private and reclusive about it all the time. So I'm especially grateful for people in my life that I can feel safe with who are able and willing to patiently share their skills and knowledge with me because I really do want to be an artist. I just have to come out of my shell sometimes... and that's really hard to do.

Benjamin is the safest person I know to be out of my shell with. My only regret is that he drew this gorgeous portrait of Fox on newsprint. I'll pick better paper next time, because everything he draws is great and something I'll want to save!

Headed to Outer Space

I've mostly finished packing for my Doodle Adventures trip to outer space with Carl the grumpy duck. I tried to think practically and take my interests and hobbies into account.

Sunglasses and sunblock for flying into the sun. Fox for snuggles. Binoculars and a magnifying glass for investigating interplanetary matter (no telescopes needed, thankyouverymuch). And I mean, my favorite things to do are uke, write letters, sip hot tea, read, and be at waters-edge. SO. I figured I'd need something for my downtime when not hunting space-slugs. (There WILL be downtime, right Carl?? Hmm... that glare he's giving me is not looking very promising.)

Carl only suggested packing regular socks which is RIDICULOUS because everyone knows toe socks are superior. Also, one never knows when one might need a banana. In case we find a planet with habitable water, I will definitely need a pool float for lounging about. Although, let's be honest, I know the likelihood of that will be slim and I mostly just packed it (fully aired up) to irritate the heck out of Carl. I can't wait to see him fly off the handle about that! And also about the weighty books and the open container of hot liquid. Heh, heh, heh.

This book is the best. Check out mikelowery.com for this book and more of his awesome and humorous artwork.

Slimy Space Slugs!

I'm spending the evening with Mike Lowery's book: "The Search for the Slimy Space Slugs!" because sometimes it's nice to not have to think about what to draw and to have a grumpy duck yelling at you to get pen to paper, stat! It really helps loosen me up.

I'm prepping for my mission to take on the slimy space slugs. Naturally I'm outfitted with my favorite diving helmet (re-hosed for outer space, obvi), my lego space sweatshirt with homemade shoulder patches, black leggings (duh), comfy air boots and some fat gloves because I hear space is cold and I don't want all of my fingers to fall off.

Now it's time to turn the page and pack my bags. I wonder what I should bring?