On site at the Library

Moleskin sketchbook as part of Sketchbook Project 2011

One of my favorite places to visit is my local library; its here that I find countless books that connect me to all manner of other humans as well as the rest of the planet and universe.  Sketching at the library felt subversive for some reason.  I suppose I just have to keep getting comfortable sketching in familiar spots.  I wonder if I could try the grocery store?

Sketchbook Project 2011

I took part in an art project along with 10,000 other people in association with the Brooklyn Art Library.

People sent in sketchbooks filled on a variety of themes and the sketchbooks were exhibited in cities like

 Seattle, Chicago, Washington D.C. and others.

These pages are a small part of my contribution and are the result of a visit to the 

Minneapolis Institute of Art.

My theme was "You'd be Home by Now" which was quite open-ended.  I basically did drawings at a variety of locations figuring that I'd be home if I wasn't out drawing.

Anyway it was a fun project and they are doing it again in 2012 but this time I am not participating. You have to give away your sketchbook and I decided this year I wanted to keep mine.

Travels in 2011

 Marathon Inn on Grand Manan Island, New Brunswick, Canada

Just below is the beginning of this sketch.

photo © Joellen Aviza

photo © Joellen Aviza

I took several Road Scholar trips this year.  One to the Northeast and one to the Northwest.  For a mid- western person like myself, seeing the ocean, being on the ocean was very exciting.  Sketching while on a sailboat was quite memorable.  Often I was able to begin a sketch while on the trip and then finish it at home.

Winter Scenes

This past summer I had been having so much fun on toned paper that I've forgotten how much delight I get from white paper and snow.  (When you live in Minnesota, its best to find delight wherever you find yourself.)  Actually we've had a few days more wet than snowy, but I'm getting ready.  Its December.

Christmas Cactus Winter Light

....Miracles occur,
If you dare to call those spasmodic
Tricks of radiance miracles.  The wait's
begun again,
The long wait for the angel,
For that rare, random descent.
                 Sylvia Plath

Happy Birthday Anthony!

My grandson is seven years old today!

Bell Museum of Natural History

Box Turtles do seem to hold still quite cooperatively.

Snowy Owl from Audubon's Birds of America

There have been quite a few sketching sessions at the Bell Museum and here are a few of the collections which seemed to "call out" to me in some way.  These were drawn in a handmade journal I use only for these types of sketches.

Snowy Owl wing from Bell collection

White Pelican from Audubon's Birds of America

Great Blue Heron from Bell diorama

Walrus skull

lion skull

Walnut Ink

These journal pages are reminding me to sketch in the "in between times" when I'd otherwise be unoccupied (or maybe reading).  The routines of life are fertile ground for drawings.

.... waiting while piano lessons were going on.
"Waiting" time is an excellent time to sketch.    Memories of common tasks are a treasure to me now... I have no photos of this sort of time.   I always enjoyed hearing the emerging music coming forth.

Tom Norton Walnut Ink

 

Old Travel Journals

I decided to play around with using my camera to see how pictures from long ago would appear. These pictures are from two trips taken in the late nineties.
Keeping journals is a great way to remember a trip.


Belgium,  most from Brugge

I was using the Canson Standard Black Sketchbook in those days.

Villers-la-Ville Abbey

A Beginage, which was home to a  community of women

 These last two are from Rome.  

I was near the back of the Instituto Sacro Cuore,  and nearby the Gardens of Villa Lante.

Cattails and Weeds in Winter

Minnesota Valley National Wildlife Refuge

While on Mississippi River Blvd. on the way, I saw three wild turkeys very close to the houses and driveways and two white tail deer on the edge of the bluffs close to the walkway....more wildlife than I saw at the refuge.

When I am chilly I tend to work fast.

A very sunny, cold day....temperature in low thirties again.

Minnehaha Creek in Late November

 Three in the afternoon, 35 degrees

When I arrived, the sounds of chickadees and a white breasted nuthatch seemed to dominate the scene.

Eventually some Mallards arrived and checked me out to see if I might toss them some food. I did not.

In a sense, everything about the time was ordinary and yet the light, the atmosphere.... was lovely and the nuthatch did show up on the big tree in front of me to traverse the trunk in the upside down nuthatch way, not quite quietly but scolding a bit.  These birds seem as accustomed to people as we are to them.