I am home from a week on the west coast. The four days at Puget Sound rug school were outstanding–people, rugs, venue, learning. I highly recommend it! Tomorrow I will post some of the amazing pieces of rug hooking which were there. But for today some views of the location. I had planned to hook some words as I explained in a previous post, but the wonderfully healing landscape drew me away from all thought. So instead of words, I hooked and sketched rough thumbnails of the view out the window. 
I’ve been doing quick sketches every day this week around the city and I plan to keep at it. The weather in the early part of the week was lovely and I was able to sit in my car and sketch. It was so warm sitting in the car that I took off my coat and scarf — and were it not for the snow on the ground, I would have sketched outside. However, today we were hit with a brutal snow storm with heavy winds–a quick end to outdoor sketching. I’m on my way to Seattle tomorrow–so I tried out my new Lamy with an EF nib with a very quick sketch of my trusty old red suitcase–we have been together since the 90’s and still going strong. But the Lamy and I are just getting to know each other as you can see. We will see how we get along on the trip. I better pull up my socks! :+)
I sketched much of the time I was in Amsterdam. Sketching is the perfect travel companion. It allows you to sit alone in cafés or on benches and not appear lonely or lost. It is a great conversation opener so you end up talking to all kinds of people, mostly real inhabitants of the city, not tourists, and this always provides insights. But most importantly, sketching is a way of enhanced seeing, a way of really ‘taking it in’. As I’ve said before, for me it isn’t the quality of the sketches, although I’m always working to improve, but the process of being there and absorbing through my eyes and my pen and paints.
The weather was good while I was there, and by the last of the four days, I was able to sit outside to sketch. But the cafés and tea shops are perched right on the canals, so there is always a good view from a window seat. Here are a few of the sketches. The final one is of a small delft house, a gift from KLM. You can read the text about this–an unceremonious dumping followed by a bumping, 2 hours later, to business class.
BTW I was reading The Goldfinch the whole time I was there. This novel which has just been nominated for the Bailey Women’s Prize, (formerly the Orange Prize) begins and ends in Amsterdam in a hotel on the Herengracht. It is a story of deep and unforgettable love and loss–and the essential place of art in our world. The painting of the title is by a 17thC Dutch artist. The book was a bit over the top in repetitive detail, especially about endless drug-consumption and the Russian underworld, but still was a perfect read for my favourite city.
It seems to be taking me a long time to return after my stay in Kenya. My friend and fellow traveller, Ruth, tells me that it takes one day for every hour you lose on the flights. Even counting the 8 hours from Kenya, and I did have a four day stay in Amsterdam where I should have made up two of those hours, I should be back in good order. But this time it is a slow return as I process all I saw and learned.
I haven’t been anywhere near the studio, so the shop is not open yet. I feel far away from making things. Instead, I’ve been doing things like cleaning cupboards (!), sending bags of extraneous things to the Salvation Army and sketching. Sketching every day, everywhere. I got a new small metal palette in Amsterdam at Van Beek’s (more on that in another post) and I tote it everywhere. And…I have been sketching these tulips every day. And drawing my way out of the molasses.
And yes, I am taking off again next week for a four day rug hooking course in Puget Sound with Donna Hrkman and a couple of extra days in Seattle. I have been wondering what to hook in the class because I can’t take my normal equipment or supplies on the plane. And then this week I discovered Sandra Brownlee who has just been awarded a Governor General’s award in visual arts. She is a weaver, but uses stitching in much the same way as I use sketching–to work towards understanding what it is she is thinking. Her tactile notebooks are an inspiration.
So for next week’s class, I’ve decided to pack a big bag of woollen strips, all colours and widths and textures, and a piece of linen and to hook whatever words come to me. I’ve always found hooking to be meditative, that wonderful repeated action of pulling the wool and making the loops, and I’m hoping for four days of slow time to reconnect with the narrative.
Below is a link to a wonderful video where Sandra talks about her process.
So Donna Hrkman, Sandra Brownlee–I am in good company for a return. Stay tuned.
I carried a big hand.book sketch book with me on my month-long stay in Kenya and sketched all the time. Although there are several on-line reviews dissing this sketchbook, I found the paper quality fine for my Sharpie and paints, and I loved the large format. The cover boards were durable, although now ingrained with Kenyan red dirt, and withstood the abuse of being carried in my backpack. I’ve scanned a few of the drawings to include here.
The flight from Nairobi to Kisumu, sketched above, was under 30 minutes so I had to work fast! For the next two glimpses of Matangwe, red hard soil, red rooves, red dust, I sat in the shade of a tree and sketched. Same for the next pictures in the Kakamega Forest, a wonderful IBA preserve where we stayed for a few days with a group of students and teachers. The final drawing is in the Nairobi Airport where I had a seven hour lay over–but a good latte, the first in weeks, and a sketch book go a long way to making the time pleasant.
A few years ago I took my first ‘group’ painting trip–to the south of France. While I really enjoyed the countryside and the people I was with (particularly my great roommate with whom I still correspond and who by the way is a great painter), I was clear from the beginning that I wanted to sketch in a sketch book and not work on big sheets of watercolour paper in the hopes of creating a work of art. I am a sketcher, not a painter. For me sketching is about capturing the moment, a way of recording where you were and how you were feeling about it, how it struck you. Inspired by some of the sketchers I love, I sketched my cappuccinos and my meals. This was a source of amazement and even annoyance for the teacher. But I persevered–and I am still at it. I love to sit in a café and paint the table and the surroundings and the people. I am working on producing sketches that are looser and bolder and more fun. That capture the essence even with a line or two.
Imagine my delight when I found a new sketcher today who does all these things in a post with Liz Steele, one of my favourites. I don’t think anyone has sketched more cups and cafés than Liz. And for inspiration, before a sketching trip, I always watch this delightful video. He makes it look so easy.
The duffle bags are out of the closet and the piles of clothes, supplies and equipment are on the bed. That’s as far as I am right now. Hoping all I have to take will fit in. I have splurged this year and bought a duffle on wheels from MEC so that it will be easier to move all this stuff around. The wheeled version will have my personal travel stuff, my clothes for Kenya (most of which I plan to leave there), my clothes for Amsterdam (warm stuff, especially for outdoor sketching), my food (power bars mostly and granola) and my art supplies. The second duffle will have the hooking and school supplies. I can take two 50 pound bags to Nairobi, but there I have to shed one and send it by bus. This is always a moment of panic for me as I see all the donated hooking and school supplies being hurtled away, but each year the bag miraculously appears the next day in Matangwe on the bus. So fingers crossed for this year again.
I have been making decisions about my sketching kit. For the first time, I’ve decided to use a large sketchbook which will encourage me to take a looser approach and fill a page with related sketches, making a kind of narrative. Above is the opening page. Following the example of some urban sketchers I admire (here and here), I’ve sketched much of what will be in my kit. This small palette forces me to limit the paints I take. These are my favourites, especially terre vert, payne’s gray and sepia from Sennelier. I think it is as much the memory of the snooty place on the Seine as it is the depth and richness of these colours.
I have made myself a leather case to hold my brushes. I’m pretty happy with it because it protects the brushes and fits neatly in with my gear. In addition I’ll have a small pencil case, the palette box and a water bottle. I’m trying to keep it simple, so that I’ll have the kit with me all the time. Of course I’d love to have my stool and back board–but not this trip. Anyway, a good excuse for shaky lopsided sketches!
Today was sunny so I thought it was a good day to sketch. I haven’t been sketching regularly for a while, but will soon be travelling again and I want to try to capture it all in my sketch book. Clearly, I need some practice! I had hoped I could sketch this building from the car, so I parked across the river, but there were too many icy trees between the building and me. So I stood with sketchbook in hand just across the road and did these two cartoon-like sketches in ink, pretty fast, straight on and from the side. This is one of my favourite local structures, the Henderson building, built in the 1850’s. Fortunately, the talks of its demolition seem to be averted for now. I didn’t plan this sketch very well –I was freezing!–I had no room for the main floor and the windows are a bit squished. But this building has so many interesting features, I am going to try again next week, taking a little more time.
I was in Toronto recently for the Wearable Art show. It was in a great venue this year on Bathurst and from there I walked to my suppliers for zippers (I never have enough of the right colour or size!) and to my favourite book store. On the way I passed a house I’ve always loved. It’s a little Victorian row house with a great attitude. It was a lovely day and I had time to do a sketch in my new trav.e.logue hand.book. I really like the quality of the paper and the size of the book. I was delighted to find these sketchbooks here in three sizes. I am a bit intimidated by the large size, but may use it in Kenya this January to sketch and tell the story. Yes, I am going back to Kenya, to teach Grade 8 in the mornings and rug hooking at the Community Centre in the afternoons. I’m currently gathering burlap and hooks to take. I’d like to say many thanks to the rug hookers at the Cobourg Hook-in this week who donated their extra hooks. They will be put to very good use.
We were in Quebec for a few days, first in Montreal and then further north in the Laurentians. We were there to cycle but taking a little time to sketch too. So, I was trying to remember the lessons I learned from Marc Holmes at the USk workshop in Montreal this past summer. You can see him here giving me some pointers about capturing a building’s angles. There are several good examples of early nineteenth-century québecois architecture still surviving on the main street of this small northern town–so I sat on a bench in town trying my hand at capturing them.
And the cycling there was super. There is an old railbed trail, Le p’tit train du nord, which runs from Saint-Jerome to Mont-Laurier with stunning scenery on all sides. We were staying roughly in the middle of the route, so we cycled north one day and south the other–each equally beautiful. The old stations have been preserved and there are charming spots for café along the way. If you are really adventuresome, you can leave your car at the bottom and take a shuttle to the top and cycle the 220 km back down to St. Jerome. With all this time on the bike saddle, I’ve dreamed up some new ideas for totes and bags, and will be glad to be back in the studio before long. I am thinking crimson, citron and orange…
