Another resource for ‘sketching buddies’ in your area is Urban Sketchers. Go to their map of Chapters. If your town doesn’t have a Chapter, you can start one. “If you build it, they will come”. Urban Sketchers is an international group started by one man. If you want to sketch with someone in London or Paris, contact that Chapter and find a new sketching friend who can show you where he/she likes to sketch. Last blog I said I’d tell you how I get something finished that I didn’t much want to do. Use your timer, just as you use it for sketching. I can do anything for 30 minutes. A kitchen timer is great because you can see it, and probably hear it grinding down. If the time period is short, it’s amazing how much you can get done and out of the way. Big project? Use several short time periods. Put them in your least productive time of day. Save your best energy for something fun, like sketching Every month, because of the PBS show, we have many new people subscribe to the Newsletter who don’t know what an excellent lesson ‘Fix ‘Em’ is for you to benefit from for as long as you sketch. With just minutes of ‘fixing’ mishaps in color, contrast or focal point you usually get much improvement. The exercise is excellent for having you analyze your sketches and figure out what’s wrong, then correct it. If you donate $100 to WGVU, (a 501-c-3 not for profit), you receive 5 of my ‘Fix ‘Em’ sketches, a link to my very good video explaining how to do it, and a receipt from WGVU. If you donate $200.00 or more, you get an additional 5 sketches. (This could be a gift to a sketcher, and you get a write-off.) All donations help pay for Season Four of Pocket Sketching, which is filmed, edited and ready for release. Here are two of my sketches ‘before’ and ‘after’. One was simply hiding a mistake, and keeping the repair not obvious. (Yes, you can correct mistakes in watercolor!)
You have done well with the Fundraiser for Season Four on PBS. Believe it or not, we have raised $14,300!!! (We still have $11,700 to go.) Incidentally, you are more than welcome to simply donate to WGVU to fund Season Four, and not receive any ‘Fix Ems’. In either case, your form for tax-deductible contributions will arrive from WGVU in January. I can’t contribute, because if I do, NETA will not distribute the program to PBS stations, which is a bummer. ANNOUNCEMENTWithin a week I should have some very interesting news after months of working on a project. STAY TUNED!!! Happy Sketching and a Very Happy Thanksgiving!  The Teachers’ Workshop is over. It is 5 ½ days including lunch (so no one is off schedule). Two people had allergies, making it far more challenging. However, we got to everything except my posing, (so they could teach how to do people easily.) Guess what! Me posing in ghastly outfits is actually in PBS Season Four! I have never been willing to do that hideous outfit for a PBS series, but it’s so good for learning, I had to include it. It’s totally embarrassing, but it works. Here’s how the fundraising for Season Four of Pocket Sketching on PBS is going. We are at $12,000 of $30,000 with $18,000 to go. Thanks for your help! I think you’ll love Season Four! Each person who contributes $100.00 to WGVU (a 501©3 not-for-profit) receives 5 of my sketches to correct (my Fix ‘Ems), a link to my new video on how to fix them and a tax credit at the end of the year. If you send $200.00 or more, you receive 10 sketches. (There’s no upper limit, but 10 sketches to fix is a lot!) Here’s a suggestion from “The Teachers.” You get together 5 friends at $20.00 each and one person sends it in, gets the tax credit, the 5 sketches and the link. Then you get together to correct them as a group. I could not get to sending out my 'Fix Em's' to you during the Teachers' Workshop: simply exhausted every evening after we had dinner together (fun socializing)! I'll be mailing out your sketches and the link today. Coming up with great tips is not always easy, basically because I don’t get to talk with you to see what you want. Please send a suggestion: something that’s a problem for which I might have a solution. You’re welcome to send me a scan of the results. Margie Beckett is the first person to send me her corrected sketch. Look at the difference! (And send me yours!) This is a terrific exercise! The problem is almost always contrast of value, color or focal point (or any combination). By doing the correcting, you will see how important contrast, color and focal point are - and how to fix ‘em!
The Teachers group gave me this tip. When you sketch clumps of flowers, the flowers are clumps - not individual flowers. (Remember, you are capable of focusing on any pinpoint). The object here is the clump. The minute you switch to an individual flower, you take the focal point to that one flower, not the total effect. Here are three sketches: One has individual flowers (took forever to do). And two sketches with flowers in clumps as you see them (far faster and effective). 
As long as I am hounding you to help fund PBS Season Four, I'll be sending you tips. Next time my tip will be on how to get things done if you are a proscrastinator or have ADHD like me. Speaking of what works, I like to be incognito. I love teaching Pocket Sketching because it's such a breakthrough for so many people. It's meditative. It's artistic. It's creative. So many things. And I like to stay totally under the radar. This morning I was finally able to go for a hike in my favorite place for 28 years. No roads. No cars. No houses. No cactus. It has been possible to discreetly 'take a whiz' in heavy cover. Today, for the first time ever, a person recognized me from the PBS series and simply hung out. I couldn't get away! Is this what happens to Carol Burnett? New experience. Happy Sketching! Happy Escape!!!  |
KATH MACAULAYArtist/Creator/Owner Archives
November 2024
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