The Fields Project continued.......

Tuesday dawned cloudy and cool -- a good day for photographing wildflowers -- so I headed out to the Nachusa Grasslands, a 3000-acre native tallgrass prairie owned and maintained by the Nature Conservancy. The end of June is the height of wildflower season on the prairie. This is kind of landscape the emigrants to Oregon Territory saw when they headed west in their prairie schooners. The immense QUIET out on the Grasslands is balm to this city girl's soul.

When thunderheads showed up on the horizon, I headed back to my car where I could paint from the hatch of my Subaru Outback -- a pleasant makeshift studio as long as the wind didn't blow rain or mosquitoes in.

Here's a view of the eastern boundary of the Nachusa Grasslands under a glowering sky, in ink and watercolor.

The Fields Project, Continued....

Monday began with a breakfast meeting in the town library, where a local historian presented the story of sculptor Lorado Taft, who founded the Eagle's Nest artist colony here in Oregon, IL

Made up of art faculty at the Art Institute and the University of Chicago, the colony painted here every summer from 1898 until 1942. Keeping this artistic heritage alive is one of the goals of the Fields Project.

One of the things the Fields Project committee does to meet that goal is to arrange painting trips for the artists to working farms. So later that morning, our group of artists met to paint at Stone Corner Farm, one of the few remaining vegetable growers in the area. The day started under a pleasant overcast, but by 10:30 the clouds had dissipated and we had full sun beating down on us. The vegetables loved it, but I had to beat a retreat to the shade, ending the morning with just this one small study from the garden.

The Fields Project

I am one of eight artists selected to participate in The Fields Project in Oregon, Illinois, a nine-day program that brings artists from all over the U.S. to paint the countryside, fostering connections between art and agriculture.

It took me two very long, very hot days to drive here, arriving on Saturday just in time for the welcoming party hosted by the Fields Project committee.

I headed out Sunday morning under a slow, cool drizzle, so my painting start was tentative.....a quick study of morning glories followed by a dash back to the car.

The sky stayed overcast, but that just made the greens more intense. Lots of rain in recent weeks has turned all the crops -- mostly corn and soybeans -- shades of emerald and lime. And in the midst of all this: quiet, blessed quiet. The trilling of birds and frogs is the only sound around.

By afternoon the sun came out and sent me seeking shade. Outdoor -- "plein aire" -- painting in the hot and muggy summers they get here in the Midwest can get you stewing in your own juices. Lowden Park, catching the cooling breeze off the Rock River and full of shade and water fountains, was a life-saver.

I ended the day with this study of a dynamic doorway in a barn not too far from the farm I'm staying at. The white roofs of farm buildings against the blue skies and green fields are breathtaking; I hope to paint more of them as the week unfolds.

Illustrated Journaling in the Smokies

The Bascom Art Center in Highlands, North Carolina, was the scene for my first summer session of "The Illustrated Journal in Ink & Watercolor," held June 10-12, 2010.

Students work on their journals in one of the classrooms at The Bascom.

I give a lesson in how to work "wet-in-wet" with watercolor.

Highlands is a lovely little mountain town, with charming shops, nestled in the southern edge of the Smoky Mountains.

We sketched all over the campus, then retreated to RainWater, a mountain-top, parklike setting where a group of homes will eventually be built.

The view from there was awesome!

Student sketches the Smoky Mountains under a sky filled with rain.

But soon those clouds you see in the distance brought thunder, lightning and heavy rain, prompting our retreat.

This was my first time at The Bascom, and I found it to be a delightful place to teach. I'll be going back in October, to teach an advanced class in Illustrated Journaling, "MORE Journaling in Ink & Watercolor."

ILLUSTRATED JOURNALING CLASS, ATLANTA

Eight wonderful students joined me at the Spruill Center for the Arts this past weekend to learn how to create personal illustrated journals. One of the students, Dave Terry, posted a very nice overview of the class, as well as the great sketches he did, on his blog. Check it out here: Thank you Dave! Here they all are at the local nature center, sharing the day's work at the end of class:

It's such a joy to teach these illustrated journaling classes. I'm already looking forward to the next one, at The Bascom, an art center in the lovely mountain town of Highlands, NC.

Article selected for "The Painter's Keys"

I was very pleased to discover today that my article was selected for inclusion in Robert Genn's April 16 online letter to artists on his "The Painter's Keys" website. This was a very nice honor, as Genn has thousands of readers around the world and only includes 10 letters in each post. To any of my readers who aspire to paint, I highly recommend The Painter's Keys.

Here's what I wrote:

"I teach a workshop, "The Illustrated Journal in Ink & Watercolor," that speaks directly to this issue. In it I show students how to make quick watercolor and ink sketches that record moments in their lives. The students think they're learning techniques for travel sketching -- and indeed they are -- but I know what's happening is much more than this; they're learning how to paint. The results are always so much better in these sketching classes than in my more formal painting classes. Why? Because the students are relaxed (after all, it's just a "sketch" not a "painting") and absorbed in filling page after page with small studies, done from direct observation. They're drawing and coloring intuitively, with joy. When they come up for air, they seem surprised they've been having so much fun and that their tiny paintings are so expressive and charming. Apparently that's myelin in action, accompanied by intense, deep learning. I can't say enough about the value of doing lots and lots of small paintings, and I keep trying to pass that on to students. Some years ago, International Artist published a great book, Work Small, Learn Big: Sketching with Pen & Watercolor -- now, sadly, out of print, but still available in librairies -- that makes this same point. And online groups like SketchCrawl (www.sketchcrawl.com) and Urban Sketchers (www.urbansketchers.com), that encourage artists of all levels to get out and sketch, are creating an international community of like-minded folk. So, there's a lot of momentum, for this, Robert, and I'm glad to hear medical science is backing this up."

Alabama Sojourn

Last week I taught an "Illustrated Journaling" class to a wonderful group of students at the Alabama Folk School. An hour northwest of Birmingham, the Folk School is part of Camp McDowell, an Episcopal camp and conference center nestled in 1100 acres of forests, canyons and waterfalls. Our weekend there took place under sunshiny skies of unfolding spring -- everything was in bloom!

As soon as the students had learned the basics of watercolor sketching -- drawing in pencil, ink ing the drawing, adding watercolor -- we headed outdoors, down a nearby trail to the creek. While the students busied themselves with small studies, I crept off to a shady spot to sketch the cliff face above the creek. Just as I finished, a gaggle of middle-schoolers set off in a flotilla of canoes. Here was a challenge! a dozen boats floating quickly past while turning in every direction imaginable as the children worked to get them under control. I had to draw fast to capture just one pair of them.

When the students were ready to paint landscape I presented a sketching lesson using photographs, (the scene above is Wyoming, not Alabama....), so they could learn how to simplify before confronting the real thing.

Once we were outdoors, I demonstrated again, sketching the woods outside our classroom. By summer, when I will return to the Folk School to teach drawing, these woods will be bursting with green. I can't wait to go back there and sketch!