Thursday 2 July 2015

MY SKETCHBOOK -THE MESSAGE.

No doubt by now, if you've been following along, you get the message that keeping and maintaining sketchbooks is important to one's development as an artist. Sketchbooks are also a treasury of memories.

I'm going to bring this series to a close as I'm anxious to get on with some other matters, the production and publication of yet another art book, and some sketching out and about now that we're enjoying a bit of good weather. I'm going to close with a few more sketches not necessarily in page order, that tend to reveal my personal development over the years.

I should also point out that this particular sketchbook gets dragged out from time to time to accompany me on my travels as, although close to full, it still has a few empty pages. I have a habit of doing this, purchasing and starting a new sketchbook before the last one is finished. Size and format have a lot to do with the fact that I tend to move on before finishing all the pages. It's the same with loose paper, I'm constantly changing for effect. I seem to always be experimenting.


Page 41. (1994) While wandering through the Copeland Forest I came across a fallen tree and thinking of a  possible source for a painting I scribbled a few lines

Page 45. (1994) One of wanderings in Horseshoe Valley during my lunchtime brought me to the top of the Valley. Note that I've scribbled using a lot of different lines of varying strength in order to emphasize different areas. 

Page 49. (1995) I was employed, if you'd call it that, as artist in residence at a resort in Muskoka District, Ontario, one weekend. My renumeration consisted of room and board, and an opportunity to sell my work. Tough life that of an artist.

Page 59. (1997) Sometime around 1997 I changed my focus from wildlife to landscape driven by the idea of producing digital art books. It was a time when PDF files, a universal format was introduced by Adobe. I purchased a "big" book and set about to learn how to produce PDF files. In 2001 I produced my first digital book. They're now called ebooks.


Page 61. (2000) My first ebook was a guide to Algonquin Provincial Park, something that required me to travel around the entirety of the park and produce literally hundreds of sketches and paintings. 


Page 63. We continue to haunt Algonquin Provincial Park and on each visit I make a few sketches.

Page 64. (2013) You'll notice that over the years I've changed my style of sketching/drawing.


Page 65. We were driving on Hwy 60 and passed by the Tea Lake campground affording a peekaboo look from the beach area out onto the lake.

Page 66. (2014) We've travelled up to Superior Lake Provincial park an many occasions. It's a long drive, but worth it as the scenery is spectacular. Here, I've used the sketchbook as a workbook to produce a rough sketch to sort out some details for a more detailed drawing.


Page 70. (2015) A couple of weeks ago we travelled through Algonquin on our way home from Ottawa, and as we passed by Tea Lake I observed another peekaboo vista.


I do hope that you've enjoyed my romp through one of my memory books. I'm going to take a bit of a break in order to finish my new book. I'll let you know the result of my efforts in due course. In the meantime get out there and do a bit of sketching!





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