Alaska Explorations – Reflections on "pencil miles"
We recently returned from the high and middle Arctic regions of Alaska—a research trip for Jonathan’s next fiction novel in his Clayton T. Porter series.
For two weeks solid I was able to explore new habitats, learn new species, and sketch and write extensively from early morning until late in the evening—a whopping 27 pages worth! And I can confidently say:
Alaska is a superb natural treasure, as vast and wild and full of wildlife and rich cultural history as anywhere we’ve been in Africa . . . and . . .
“Pencil miles” work, even in the short-term (thanks, Jack Laws).
I’ve posted below all the pages in chronological order.
It’s particularly interesting to note the changes from day one at the natural history museum at the University of Fairbanks, where I jumped into live sketching after several weeks hiatus from any journaling at all. I dove in (after writing the metadata, of course) with the 8-foot-tall stuffed grizzly . . . and it just went all wobbly wonky on me. Too many people around, too many people watching over my shoulder, I just couldn’t find my sketching ju-ju.
But I stuck it out. Then I took a deep breath and centered myself and concentrated on the walrus . . . and after zenning it out, I got it. My sketching started settling.
Over the course of the next 11 days watch how the quality progresses. I even tackled quite a few live-in-the-field animal sketches where I only saw the critter for a very short time. Into the second week, after struggling a little with pen-only live animal sketching, I adopted a purple-leaded pencil* to do these initial one- to two-minute gesture sketches, and left them as-is. Then later, using photos my husband shot as reference, I completed more detailed sketches in camp, using my gesture sketches as baselines. I really like the peregrine and muskox gestures.
I returned completely energized and excited to complete my next book (80% done), Master of Field Arts. I also will be offering several workshops:
A free Virtual Field Trip to the Alaskan Arctic on October 16 at 9 am [Link: https://arizona.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZIqdeCvqjkrGt2LJyrjXViL0Ztj-B1UlpQU]
Fearless Watercolor for Field Sketching workshop on October 23 and 24 through the Desert Laboratory on Tumamoc Hill, including a live in-person session at the cactus garden on Tumamoc (or if you are not in Tucson you can dial into the field day from wherever you are and still practice and consult). $85 for two partial days of instruction and live field trip. [Link: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/fearless-watercolor-for-field-sketching-tickets-181232299687]
I’m also hosting a class, taught by Tucson artist Bill Singleton, an Introduction to Digital Field Sketching with iPad and the Procreate App. More details here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/introduction-to-digital-nature-sketching-procreate-and-ipad-tickets-181333873497
* I don’t like graphite pencil for journal sketches because the soft pigment can smudge terribly on my pages. Jack Laws likes a non-photo blue pencil, which I tried but found I didn’t really like, perhaps because the blue pigment is rather hard and unexpressive. Recently I saw Jack using a purple-colored pencil, so I ordered purple refills for my mechanical pencil—and I really like it. Soft and expressive, light enough to not overpower the gestures but with enough character to create really pleasing gesture sketches.
