Travel Sketchbook Tips – Number Two: What to Bring

I’m leaving in a few days to travel to Vietnam and Cambodia (want to come with and share the experience? learn more here). Note that since I live in remote Alaska, it is going to take me a few days to get there. Before I leave, I wanted to write a post about what I’m bringing with me.

First of all, there is nothing wrong with keeping your sketch kit simple and affordable. A notebook with unlined paper and pen or pencil will suffice! Really lined paper would be fine too. However as a professional artist I have lots of art supplies, and I wanted to share a few of my favorites for taking on the go.

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New Year Planning and Resources – Part 2 Review and Setting Goals

This is a continuation of my last post. At the start of the year I want to share a bit about what goes on behind the scenes as a working artist. In part 1, I talked about my daily rituals, which include journaling, planning, and reflecting. Today I want to share my bigger picture review process. Again, I want to share some of the resources that I’ve found useful in hopes that they’ll be helpful to others.

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Painting on Wood

One thing I have written a few times in my list of goals is “work larger” or on a bigger scale.

This fall, I returned to something I tried back in 2012, working with acrylic paint on wood panels. I also tried to scale things up a bit. I created two larger paintings this fall: Nizina River Habitat, (which was then purchased by the Alaska Contemporary Art Bank) and K’esugi Ridge (which I just finished and is available).

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Summer Sketchbook

In the last year or so I’ve been changing up how I work. I’ve been taking more photographs when I travel, and spending more time working in my studio, working from photographs and specimens. Nevertheless field sketching has always been an important part of my practice, and remains so now.

I travelled a lot this summer so I mostly used my sketchbook to slow down and have a moment of reflection in a new place as well as to document the landscapes, plants, and other things I found. I thought it would be fun just to peek into the disorganized pages of my sketchbooks.

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Portraits of Nature - Show Preview

Last week my solo show, Portraits of Nature, opened at the Bear Gallery in Fairbanks. I promised to share some of the work here so that people who can’t make it to Fairbanks can get a glimpse of the show. It’s always best to see work in person. Also Colleen Firmin Thomas, who has a show next to me in the same gallery, has beautiful mixed media paintings that are well worth seeing!

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