My work in two recent publications

June 30, 2015 | 5 Comments

      

 

 Just another quick blog post as things are VERY ‘full on’ for me both work-wise and family-wise and I am not really doing any sketching.

I am very honoured to have my work included in two publications lately.


The first is a 28 day painting challenge article in the Summer Edition of UK magazine Artists and Illustrators. I contributed three pieces to this article and my photo got on the cover image!
Special thanks to my brother-in-law who was able to pick up a copy of the magazine from a Stornoway newsagent on the isle of Lewis, Scotland just before coming to visit us here.


So one exercise is … cafe sketching! (surprise surprise… just for the record, this was the editor’s suggestion!) Photo and sketch was from this day with Paul Wang.


The other two are sketching architecture – painting with shapes first and using watercolour pencils.



I have also included in a progress image from each of these sketches.


The other publication is a book – A World of Artist Journal Pages curated by Dawn Devries Sokol.

I submitted work for it in 2013 – so long ago that I almost forgot about it and I was surprised to read that I wrote ‘architect’ as my occupation. It is a stunning book but is general artist journal book not a sketching book. So the majority of the work in the book is more gesso, opaque paint, collage and text type pages  – not ones that include observational sketches. There are a few of those, in the book but not many, and I must say that these pages really stand out for me – I am very biased of course!

 It is VERY cool that this book starts its tour around the world with Australia (unlike the Art of Urban Sketching which ends with Sydney) so my work is on p14! It is slightly emotional to see a sketch of the now closed T2 tearoom in print again ..and oh! BB is included as well. Plus my sewing and travel clothing sketches (something that is hot topic at the moment for me and I did some sewing on Saturday).

There is a lot of great work in this book but it did make me feel very thankful for the path that I have taken. 10 years ago I was doing photoshop collage images and looking at altered books and these kind of journal pages. I am not at all passing a judgement on this kind of work, but I just love the immediacy of sketching, I love the richness that improving my observational and drawing skills has added to my life. For me it is far more satisfying to do a little sketch at the time on location (that takes 10-20 minutes) that records a moment in a special way, than a hour doing an elaborate (abstract) painting/ collage in my studio and writing a few words to record my feelings at the end of the day. Observational sketching is a lot harder – you really need to hone your sills and work at it constantly but it is oh! so rewarding.  BTW this is what my Foundations course is all about.

I hope that paragraph didn’t come across negative, because I do love this book and there are numerous pages that I will be marking to revisit for inspiration. A lot of gorgeous textures that I would like to explore with watercolour and some interesting collage work that I am interested in, particularly in the context of travel sketchbooks.

So much for a short blog post!

5 Comments

  • Not negative at all, Liz. Congratulations on being in print again!

  • janififi says:

    Congratulations Liz! And I do agree with your preference for sketching over more 'constructed' journalling … so much more immediate, intimate and real. I look forward to picking up a copy of the mag (at least)

  • Jean Spitzer says:

    Congratulations!

    I have been carrying a notebook and pens/watercolors with me. Made a too long coach ride much better.

  • MiataGrrl says:

    Congrats, Liz! And oh my gosh, I had no idea we had been on such similar paths! I was doing abstract collages and art journals right before I discovered sketching (and urban sketching), too! I enjoyed it for what it was, but sketching is so much more satisfying (and challenging) on every level.

    – Tina

  • zennor says:

    Liz, I do love your work which is so inspiring for someone like me just starting to sketch. Have you written any articles on how you go about scanning, what you use etc? Also, I do love your clear handwriting. Do you practice or does it just come naturally. Mine would be illegible on a skecth, I'm afraid.

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