the gritty field journal
by Lucky-Jack
Familiar, cozy and full of plants.... When I first got my tiny paint set, I was very intimidated by the idea of tacking landscapes or large interiors. A window seemed a great place to start because its already framed up neatly into a rectangle. Above: Yes I required snacks to bolster my courage. The view from my kitchen table is hardly a grand vista, but it was a good place to start. Giving ones self a small win is very motivating and is a great way to establish something as a lasting habit. Above: Tricolor Kalanchoe, Crassulas, purple heart, pink Echeveria, variegated Hoya, Sanseveria to name just a few.
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Being the worst person in the room still means we are showing up Trash Panda painted in a coffee shop while desperately trying to be invisible. Some days it is harder to people than others.
for art in the field and on adventure. Above is the summation of my art supplies to date. Mostly I paint landscapes and botanical images. For the sake of making your own kit I will share the specific brands I'm currently using. 1. Micron pens, o.5 and o.1 (I use the latter the most) 2. Basic write in the rain pen (the pressurized cartridges are identical to Fisher Space pens at a fraction of the price. I use them interchangeably) 3. Mono Zero Eraser by Tombow in 2.3mm (It is not the best eraser but I rarely use it. But, the pen-like housing keeps it quite neat which I appreciate as I cannot suffer a dirty eraser) 4. Zebra M-301 pencil with o.7 graphite. (For the price point a very good pencil) 5. Natural fiber travel brush, Field artist Master series #2 (Came with the tin of water colors and is a VERY good brush with black metal housing with an air hole on the end. If anyone knows where to get another I would be glad to know of it.) 6. Squirrel hair travel brush # 4, by Fuumuui (it was one in case of 3. I sanded the lid down until it fit into the case and also so that it would have a drying hole. The fibers hold pigment great but the lid was never a good fit for the head and it wobbles when I use it) 7. Field artist pocket water color book, 2.5 x 4 in (Surprising quality paper for the price, pages are thick and high rag but still smooth. Easily manipulates for wet on wet work without pilling, warping or bleed through.) 8. Natural sponge (I keep it in the water pan, it makes cleaning the brush easier when bumpy vans or walking makes it not practical to have just a cup of super spill-able water.) 9. Hankie (hand sewn from silk/linen blended work shirt so its super light, absorbent and strong. Makes it possible to put away wet water reservoir while keeping the pouch dry. Also handy for wrapping specimens or keeping your work surface dry) 10. Rubber bands (courtesy of bundled asparagus, keeps the water reservoir lid on the pallet box) 11. Glass spray bottle and jar (Though heavy and breakable i just like the feel of them. The jar is old lab glass but the mouth is wide enough to easily be filled and rinse a brush in. I'm sure a mini-meister or other teeny liquor bottle would also do just as well. It can fill the wash pan twice. The spray is just nice to have. This one held slippery elm tincture in its former life. I would love to eventually replace these with green glass equivalents but for now this is fine.) 12. Field Artist flask pallet, metal with thumb loop. (ok, this thing was stupidly expensive at like $60, and NO the flask is not super handy. Its nice to have the option to be able to pocket it and literally have everything I need to paint but its not practical to get the water out of it. Lets just say it requires more undignified shaking than I care to do in the field. The water reservoir 'lid' also doesn't stay on and is irreplaceable if lost. Once empty it takes days to dry and the wee brass lid also has a sneaky way of disappearing. And YES I wish now I had just bought the $30 non-flask version. The pallet colors don't thrill me. The cerulean blue in particular is an opaque pastel that makes mixing a challenge and the red-violet separates into tiny blue and red dots if worked too wet. But the half-pans can easily be changed out later. 13. Boro Shashiko bag. Its 5x8 inches with boxed corners to help it stand and I used the brass zipper from the same pair of old jeans. I reinforced the worn parts with 40mm black cotton shashiko thread from Japan. The loop allows me to wear it on a belt or clip it to my backpack waist band so I can stand and pant with the gear in reach. Things I have also previously enjoyed -Blue kneaded eraser housed in one of those plastic eggs silly putty is sold in. (its still the best eraser even if it looks like a cat turd after a few uses and attracts hair)
-Tiny tube of white water color (WAY better than the pen it clogs, separates and scars the paper) -Pocket brush pen (I think it was a Pentel M I used to own that took cartridges? Basically it was so versatile that it was my only liner and that suited me just fine) -brass ruler (5-6 inches, its heavier than a plastic one but those break in my bag and never keep a good edge. Also do you even need an excuse to own more brass in your kit?) Do you keep an art kit? If so whats your favorite essentials? If you can arrange it, car rides and other commutes are a great way to nab some extra art time. I for the most part will do nearly anything to not be the human driving. Can I pay for gas? Make a picnic lunch for the trip? Serve the driver coconut milk chai with brown sugar from my briefcase thermos? My bribes are endless and creative. Be social and don't be afraid to offer labor trades or offer to drive on the way home when it will be to dark to paint. Above: This grassland and mountain view was painted in the passenger seat and inked once home. Above: working inside the car is a balancing act at first but persevere! Three tips for commuter art:
1. Pre-sketch your 'canvas'. SO much easier to draw straight lines before you get into the car. I am fond of the rounded edge rectangle. At about 1.5 x 2.5 inches it paints up quick and leaves space to write the place/date. 2. Cram a natural sponge into your water pan. This will give you plenty of water access but prevent spills when jostled. 3. Place an absorbent cloth in your lap. I sewed mine from an old work shirt that was a blend of silk, cotton and wool and has a ribbed texture. It not only keeps my pants clean but I can roll all the damp supplies in it when I pack up. Above: Travel log page for Colorado Springs There is nothing like traveling to allow space for reflection and reassessing...well everything about where we are now. My wife and I have been minimalists for over ten years, a long journey that will get its own post sometime. Suffice to say we value shared experiences over stewarding material processions. This isn't always as easy to do as it sounds, which is what I remind myself when I get frustrated over past-me's choices. What helps us is seeing that we rarely missed any of our things back home. Part of this was because I was filling my days with a perfect mix of planned stimulation and space for rest. For me more things means more chores, more responsibility to those objects. Fumio Sasaki wrote in his book Good Bye Things, that his possessions felt like a physical to-do list constantly calling for his attention. For past us it meant a home filled with the distracting background radiation of unrest.
Traveling reminds me that what I really want is to be doing, and time spent shopping online for a new back pack or suitcase actually takes away from planning my next trip. Because a new suitcase is not a vacation. No matter what the pop up adds tell us, the experience they are showing can be done without it. Its just easier and faster to buy something instead of committing to the multi-step process of making travel happen. Here is another example, it may sound extreme when I tell you that we no longer drink alcohol at home. But bare with me, because I love good Canadian whiskey. I've learned it isn't specifically the alcohol that I really long for, that's just a small part of what I want. When we were in the Arctic Circle over the summer we smoked cheap drug store cigars. Passing them to each other as we took turns jumping into freezing blue water that felt like it was burning our skin. We furiously slapped mosquitos our minds fuzzy because it was technically midnight but the sun was still bright overhead. We had a fire going and after a few shots of said whiskey (drank from the metal containers we use in the field to hold cores of permafrost samples) we had a bit of a contest to see who could split the last wide log with a tiny backpacking hatchet. THAT is how I want to drink whiskey, it tastes better as part of a greater narrative. It's why advertisements work so well on us. We confuse the product with the experience. That memory could be used to sell whiskey, or cigars, or even that dumb little hatchet. What does this have to do with Colorado Springs? Sitting in a cafe overlooking the mountains I had some of the best espresso of my life. We walked the mile and a half from the house in Old Town through picturesque tree covered walkways. It reminded me of a studio Ghibli movie with a local bakery selling brown paper wrapped baguette and local flowers sitting in brightly colored olive oil drums. And now I have to remember that as I fold my laundry and find stuff in my desk I forgot I even owned. All the while fighting the urge to look at home espresso machines. Oh and coincidentally, the log won and we tossed it whole into the fire while we still had all our fingers. Alaska travel log pages can be found here. And how you too can do it. It is often a very small difference between someone who does great things and someone who does not. Which is great honestly, when we conceptualize how to flip that switch for ourselves. The energy we spend reviewing in our mind the reasons we cannot do something is still energy spent. Instead look at those reasons as questions. "I don't have time to paint," becomes "what can I do differently so that I have the time to paint." If we can make this switch we can make that treacherously overthinking mind work for us instead of against us. Suddenly those negative thoughts become a valuable planning tool in our favor as we learn to bank time and energy toward that impossible task. While I was in Colorado Springs I discovered that there was a business with open studio time, that included the canvas and acrylic paint in the flat fee. The challenge then became that I was visiting only for a week and the fee covered a single, four hour block. Now gentle reader, if you are familiar with any creative pursuit you can then appreciate that rarely can one complete anything in just four hours. But my mind was made up. I was going to paint a two foot by three foot canvas in just four hours. Oh yeah and I had not used acrylic paints since high-school, and had not used a canvas since my art school days of which I did so poorly and only under great duress. And I hated every oil-smudged turpentine stinking moment of it. I will never grasp why oil painting is glorified as some sexy misunderstood creative outlet for misguided genius. Or worse, some gate-kept privilege only obtainable by those with patronage and someone else to do the laundry while they languish and paint nude women all day. But I promise you can do a painting in four hours and move on with your life, nude ladies or otherwise. Whether you choose to still affect sexy tortured genius is entirely up to you. But this is how I do it. Plan the attack........For time use efficiency we will only use the studio for the one single thing we cannot do anywhere else, painting. This means having our subject, layout and color scheme selected and finalized well before we step foot in the studio. I like to work with physical media, but perhaps you can do this digitally. Either way a blank page is always intimidating to me. So I slay it right away with a basic layout template. Here I have made space for a sketch in a similar ratio to my canvas and lots of scribble room. Now I am free to surf google images of salacious octopus undersides for an hour before selecting references and start sketching. Hours: 1 Completing this page took me another hour but I have established my layout(off center radial symmetry), color pallet (pink and teal), focal point (eye) and how to address the negative space(black out). I have also planned an order of operations for myself. Hours: 2 Accepting your limitations as a style or aesthetic..... I can't stress this enough for our art but also for our life. Being confident comes from being well put together, and that comes from picking our battles and working with what we have. I lack studio time and skill/painting experience to do any real shading. As such I will work with a limited pallet and hard outlines. The look I will go for is a classic 'pop art' mural style. In my mind this image could be used on a food truck in a gritty cyber punk universe. I will achieve texture quickly by sponging over a rough, basic three shade shadowing. Blacking out the background as a last step will allow me quickly hide any mistakes and create a dramatic silhouette. Execution...... Four hours is a long time to idle a human body. I ate right before entering the studio and set up a water bottle with a straw so I don't have to touch it with my grubby little paint fingers. I then grab all the brushes, sponges, plates, knives, pencil and paper towels I will need to prevent me from ever leaving my station. Making use of the studio's basic colors and sponging affords me the extra time I need to mix just one specialty color, the black light glowing teal. I create my pallets on different plates first thing and keep them with their corresponding brushes/tools. I paint each color separately, above is the dark pink layer I did first. The light pink layer is made by adding white to the same first pink pallet. To save time I do not wash my brushes but rather just toss them into the water cups I keep by each pallet. Used sponges I squish into the cup under the brush. Prep hours: 2 Studio hours :1 Total hours: 3 Build in corrective measures by design... We will make mistakes. Its ok and just part of growth, don't loose time and energy dwelling on this. Instead plan in ways to do damage control. Paint looks different once it drys, and working in dark colors means any imperfection glows because the canvas was white. I took a tiny bit of the black paint home with me in a teeny disposable condiment cup. Once back at the air BnB she sat on our kitchen table for a day before I started to notice all the white spots from air bubbles and some sloppy lines. I used the black paint (and my eye shadow brush) for damage control.
Prep hours: 2 Studio hours: 4 Touch up: ~20 min Total hours: 7 ish Getting this three foot canvas and her two equally huge sisters into the smart car for the drive back home was hilarious btw. It was accomplished by raiding unsuspecting neighbors bins for mostly clean cardboard under cover of night. This little journal has served me well but it is a tad large for a pocket. Many of the smaller works were done on a pad no larger that a deck of cards and the best ones I pasted into the larger book for safe keeping.
Hiding from the rain in Fairbanks Alaska and painting It rained the entire time we were in Fairbanks. My paper was soft and cloth like and there comes a point where one just must accept that you will be damp. We spent a month in Alaska, three weeks of it traveling from Anchorage all the way to the Arctic Ocean. I painted whenever I was able and so far I have some wisdom. No one will see the original. If fear of not achieving photographic realism is stopping you from starting, banish that demon. We live in an era when anyone can take an exact replica picture whenever they like. In Art the magic ingredient is you. Your view, your interpretation, your moment. No one else can ever have that and therefore cannot have seen the original, even if they visit the location. Patio of Little Owl Cafe in the rain painting vs photo
Above: Fields in Palmer Alaska, painted standing and finished in the back of a van. Grad School burn out and covid depression hit me pretty hard in the last year. At some point in my malaise I got a tiny travel water color pallet. I made a pouch from old jeans and I've been doing these mini paintings while I travel/hike/ride in a car. I don't know how to paint a landscape, and I haven't had water colors since I was tiny (and I wasn't great at them then!) But I told myself it didn't matter if they were good, they are the art equivalent of a Polaroid. Just a small bite of a view from that trip.
My friends and loved ones have always told me how much my letters and pictures mean to them. Because I cannot always send a paper letter to all of them, I am going to start publishing some of my creative outlets here, buckle up!
While I work on this, please enjoy an image of my 12 year old dog running in the dry Rio Grand river bed after his first dose of pain killers following his diagnosis for arthritis. Not bad for an old man with fused lower vertebra. |
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