American Sketchbook – Part 3: San Francisco and LA

General notes: This is Part 2 of my sketchbook – Part 1 is here, and Part 2 is here. These are sketches with (mostly) Pitt Artist Pens in a little Moleskine sketchbook. You can see larger versions by clicking on the pictures, which will take you through to their Flickr page.

So then I flew to San Francisco, where Katharine and Matt collected me at the baggage carousel, having recognised me from behind based on my hair in my sketches of myself.

We wandered the streets, ate in Chinatown and the next morning went to Alcatraz, where we made up facts and discussed possible adventures which could take place on the island. Escape from Alcatraz with Evil Clowns?

 

American Sketchbook – Part 2: Illuxcon, New York and Colorado

General notes: This is Part 2 of my sketchbook – Part 1 is here, and Part 3 is here. These are sketches with (mostly) Pitt Artist Pens in a little Moleskine sketchbook. You can see larger versions by clicking on the pictures, which will take you through to their Flickr page.

Here we begin with me hiring a bicycle in Toronto in order to get to the Merrill collection. I did not fall off. From Toronto, Jannie and I drove to Altoona, Pennsylvania for Illuxcon 5, which does not have the most up-to-date website but was jewel of a convention for fantasy illustrators, and a brave new world for me.

 

Going Abroad – posts may be intermittent

In less than 12 hours I should be on the plane to America and Canada for the World Fantasy Convention and Illuxcon. I am… packed? And have art for the art show (with only one week’s notice – this may have broken some of the laws of physics but my local cutter-of-mat-board is a superhero).

 Also, I am veering from blind panic to anticipation, which is encouraging:

I will post if I can while I am travelling – if you follow me on Twitter or are friends on Facebook, I may also post quick updates and photos there. Until I return, however, the Daleks and Illustration Friday pictures must languish on the desktop.

And if you are at either World Fantasy or Illuxcon, please say hello! WFC is my first overseas convention and Illuxcon my first illustration convention, and I will know far fewer faces than usual.

 

Hehehe; or, mortification and misquotes

I’m in a magazine.

More later.

 

What was learned – Part 5 of my travels with a sketchbook

1. I had an epiphany at a Turner exhibit – the importance of boldness. This was the biggest lesson: to be bold in terms of time, line and materials. I have always tended to pale, tentative sketches. The limitations of time and materials forced me to far less subtlety, and I think that is a good thing. You can get away with a lot more if you do it with confidence and flair. I’m still working on both of these, but I am aware of the difference now.
2. To appreciate markers and coloured pencils. Not always like, but appreciate.
3. The joy of having the book constantly up to date.
4. Paying attention to little scenes. I remember places keenly because of a knitting girl or a moldy pumpkin.
5. People complicate travel sketching. I am conscious of their possible reaction (both to my sketching and to others’ reactions), time constraints, the need to move at a joint pace rather than individual, the vagueness it lends my half of conversations. I need to practice drawing in company and to stop being rritated by conversations which on drawing time.
6. I have become much more comfortable with drawing/sketching from life and have continued this in other sketchbooks since returning.
7. I like having a visual record. It is more legible than handwriting alone, I look back at it more frequently than a written journal, and I think it is more self-contained and interesting than a photo album alone.
8. I feel less self-conscious about inviting people to look at sketchbook than at photo albums. This is partly vanity and partly because I am never convinced people actually want to look at photos (and I have to sit there and explain them).

Next time I will:

1. Take less.
2. Ignore perfection – better at all than never.
3. Draw more.
4. Be bold.
5. Make hi-res scans the first time around (still, better at all than never).

The other parts:

• Part 1: What was lugged.
• Part 2: What was used.
• Part 3: What was stuck.
• Part 4: What was organised.
• Part 5: You are here.

And the journal itself is up as a set on Flickr: USA 2007 Moleskine.

 

What was organised – Part 4 of my travels with a sketchbook

In the grand tradition of not making up my mind until the last possible moment (as usual, some time after take-off) I browsed through travel journals in newsagencies and online trying to determine an optimum combination of categories – should I include expenditure? an itinerary? what about an address book? How much space should be allotted for each day? How did artists organise their travel sketchbooks, if at all? Were journal, diary and sketchbook incompatible?

I settled on the winning combination on the flight over: The debden notebook would retain its usual structure – infodump with index. I put all postcard addresses in there (indexed under “contacts”). Otherwise, it was used for directions, reminders and a futuristic science fiction story involving cryogenic sleep and prosthetic limbs and lawyers on motorcycles and mafia connections and the rule of law (the true hero) and consisting only of the bits in between the action.

The sketchbook was divided into two sections.

Section one was a planner: each page featured four hand-drawn boxes with the date (a sticker), month and day of the week. In these I jotted down a very minimal account of the day, and only missed the last four or so. For a random example, 17 October – Wednesday reads:

Up 9-ish.
Watched part of the Waltons and Little House (guest starring a very young James Cromwell)
Breakfast @ Free Port (“Good food, legal drinks”): cinnamon scrolls.
To North East to wait for Martha to get off work.
Lunch at Bova’s.
Back to Martha’s to drop off a sub for Nick.
Through Eyrie to Presque Isle.
Drove around Presque Isle, monument, lighthouses.
Stopped at visitor centre.
Back to Martha’s for pie. Spoke to C.O. on phone.
Back to farm.
Downloaded photos. Kathy & Mommy organised for me to go to Pittsburgh.

Section two was everything else (I micromanage content, as you can see). The date headers went in as each day came along. I sketched as I could through the day, wrote only a little, and at the end of the day added in any cartoons or drawings (often from photos on my camera or phone) or bits-and-pieces that remained.

I had an idea that if I wanted a list of expenditures I could start from the back, or keep lists of Things to Eat on the index cards in the back pocket, but none of these were necessary.

• Part 1: What was lugged.
• Part 2: What was used.
• Part 3: What was stuck.
• Part 4: You Are Here.
• Part 5: What was learned.

And the journal itself is up as a set on Flickr: USA 2007 Moleskine.

 

What was stuck – Part 3 of my travels with a sketchbook

I did not want to repeat the pattern of previous holidays which resulted in collections (envelopes, packages, bags, boxes) of papers, brochures, tickets, advertisements, envelopes, squashed pennies, packaging, cards and labels.

This time, I implemented a policy I referred to as Cut Things Out and Stick Them In.

Every night, before bed, I had to cut up the papers collected through the day, cut them up, stick the relevant sections into my sketchbook-journal and Throw The Rest Away.

There were a few late nights, but it was not generally an onerous task and tiredness could make me brutally selective. As I carted the glue stick with me, dead time in airports (“the planes in America have never been so safe or so late”) and planes and trains or while other people were in bed could be used productively.

My bags were lighter, there were no folders to sort or store when I arrived home, and I don’t regret throwing out anything I did.

Best of all, the journal was always up to date. I could not show photographs to people, but I could show them scraps and sketches, and when I arrived home, the journal was almost complete: pictures drawn, scraps stuck in, observations made at the time. All that remained was to add in the few pieces that had fallen through the cracks and into the back pocket of the sketchbook: a menu, some currency, a greeting card.

Scraps, however, were not the only things that were stuck in. Before I left, I treated myself to one of the unsung treasures of the stationer’s: numbered stickers. I took a package of black-on-white to label the days in the planner at the start of my sketchbook, and white-on-black to label each day as I progressed through the sketchbook. It was unnecessary but fun, with some of the mild excitement of an advent calendar, and knowing that as each day was sketched and written and pasted, I could mark it off and start a new one with a fresh new sticker.

The sketchbook is here: USA 2007 Moleskine.

Other parts:

• Part 1: What was lugged.
  Part 2: What was used.
• Part 3: This is it.
• Part 4: What was organised.
• Part 5: What was learned.

 

What was used – Part 2 of my travels with a sketchbook

I divided the tools I took into two bags: a large ziplock bag in my checked luggage with scissors, brushes, watercolours and so forth; and a smaller bag in my handbag with markers, prismacolors, unipins and mechanical pencil. The glue stick travelled between this smaller bag and my clear-onboard-toiletries-and-liquids-for-inspection bag according to whether or not we were airborne.

And in the end I used only:

• the monochrome markers
• the prismacolour pencils
• the mechanical pencil
• stickers
• glue stick and
• scissors.

The first two were unexpected. I have almost always drawn in pencil or pen. Markers were still unfamiliar territory, unwieldy and permanent and blending poorly. I disliked coloured pencils – using them, what they could and couldn’t do, what art in coloured pencil looked like.

They were, however, the most travel-friendly: light, portable, not messy, quick to use, bold, handy. Both travel in my handbag still and if I am again travelling light, I might leave behind all the excess security blanket of other media.

The last two were used for cutting things up and sticking things in, of which more anon.

The sketchbook is here: USA 2007 Moleskine.

Part 1 is here: What was lugged.
To come:

• Part 3: What was stuck.
• Part 4: What was organised.
• Part 5: What was learned.

 

What was Lugged – Part 1 of my travels with a sketchbook

I knew, when I went to America last October, that I wanted to draw while I was there (I draw every day) and, if possible, to keep a sketch-journal. I’d done this once before, in Melbourne when /Karen/ and I went to Continuum and met Neil Gaiman and Robin Hobb and I had been putting it off doing it again until an occasion justifying the purchase of a Moleskine sketchbook (that first was a present from Deb).

This is what I generally keep in my handbag: Debden notebook (indexed), Moleskine sketchbook, diary, another sketchbook and notebook if I’m in transition, an exercise book if I’m in the middle of a first draft, scratch paper with drawings on the back which I have forgotten to take out and file, a packet of monochrome Pitt markers, a packet of earth tone Pitt markers (new arrival), a pencil box with Prismacolors and a mechanical pencil, a pencil sharpener with shaving catcher. That’s my everyday handbag. If I’m going somewhere art-related after work, I may take another bag with charcoal and pastel pencils, kneadable eraser, water colour pencils, travel watercolours and a larger sketchbook. If I’m going home for the weekend, there will also be at least a document box of paints, paint brush roll, rubber stamp blanks, corner cutter, lino carving tools, stamp pads, dip pen, bottles of ink, more sketchbooks, some pads of paper, watercolour postcards, canvas boards, glue, scissors, fancy paper, scrapbook, ruler, etc.

All this for someone who does most of her drawings in biro on memo pad.

Since I was planning to travel relatively lightly (interesting fact: my total luggage weighed in less than the change in my weight in the last two years) it was impractical to pack on the usual scale.

In the end, I took advantage of large ziplock bags and packed: Unipin pens, Pitt markers, glue stick, scissors, Prismacolour pencils, watercolour pencils, a few inexpensive paintbrushes, numbered stickers, blank labels and index cards and a mechanical pencil.

I agonised over the sketchbook/notebook/diary/travel journal situation until the night before we left, and settled on an A5 moleskine sketchbook for everything related to the trip and my usual debden notebook for everything else (ideas, fiction, notes, transient stuff), with a moleskine cahier for backup (not needed).

Coming Soon:

• Part 2: What was used.
• Part 3: What was stuck.
• Part 4: What was organised.
• Part 5: What was learned.

If you can’t wait to see how it ends, the journal is up as a set on Flickr: USA 2007 Moleskine.

 

Five things I did not buy in America

Two weeks before I flew, a… unique individual gave me two valuable insights. One was that I would meet the love of my life in America (I either didn’t, or don’t know it yet). The other was to buy two things which are not obtainable over here. I will not tell you what they were because then Errantry would turn up on completely different google searches to the current standards of “mr squiggle knit” and “teapot microwave Sydney proof”. I did not buy those two things.

Here are five other things I did not buy, but should have:

1. Autumn merchandise: Fabric and paper autumn leaves, oak leaf cookie cutters and a particularly hideous purple-and-orange owl-patterned bandanna.
2. More cheap Moleskines (I did buy two).
3. I heart NY t-shirts, ironic alteration, for the purposes of.
4. Novels. $8 new! Why, why, why did I not buy more books?
5. Cinnamon rolls. With cream cheese icing/sauce. More than two of.