for the love of books

Who doesn't love books? This is the stack of books I am currently reading. The top book is actually my Nook Color. Have I mentioned how much I love my Nook? I have had it for a couple of years now and simply couldn't be without it. When e-readers first appeared I really didn't think that they were for me. I enjoy holding a book, turning the pages, and the design of the cover and text too much to compromise for an electronic reading device. Yet, I was intrigued  by the concept of being able to have an endless number of books all in one small package. After some research I chose the Nook Color and never looked back. It is now my preferred reading format. Perfect for travel, an illuminated screen so no lamp needed when reading in bed, I can adjust the size and font of the the type to suit my old eyes, plus all of the cool features that work like a tablet with an internet connection.

On my Nook I have several books that I am reading at any given time. Most recently, I read the novel, The Swan Thieves by Elizabeth Kostova. I enjoy stories that center on artists and the art world and found this one to be very engaging. It is about a contemporary artist who attacks a painting in the National Gallery and the psychiatrist who attempts to help him. The author weaves together past and present to complete the puzzle of the artist's obsession with the painting he tried to destroy and the image of a mysterious woman he repeatedly paints.

As much as I love my Nook there are certain books that I do prefer to read in their original book format. Most reference type books fall into this category. And cookbooks. I just can't see keeping my Nook on the kitchen counter while I follow a recipe. And of course, art books. So next in my stack of books is Crocheting School, a book I have been referencing lately as I attempt a crochet project without a pattern to guide me. I like the clear instructions and illustrations in this book. Under that is a book that I actually got for The Professor but have found myself looking at again and again for watercolor inspiration. Watercolor Secrets by Rachel Rubin Wolf  includes a collection of artists from the Splash watercolor book series along with step-by-step demos sharing their techniques. I enjoy seeing the variety of styles depicted and reading the artists' comments about their methods.

Sarah Simblet's Sketch Book for the Artist is a newer addition to my art book collection. I have gone through it a couple of times just enjoying the images. And now that I have begun to read through the book I really appreciate the format and her friendly writing style. There are a few exercises I intend to try so I will save further discussion about this book until another day. I am impressed with her thorough knowledge of sketching, there is a lot to take in here!

Last in my stack of current reading material is Strokes of Genius 3 also by Rachel Rubin Wolf. It is the drawing counterpart to the Splash watercolor series. It includes drawings from artists that work in a wide range of media and styles. I especially enjoy the quotes from each artist defining what drawing means to them.

In the spirit of life-long learning I have decided to add a page on this blog dedicated to books. It is something I will build slowly and hopefully you will find it of interest. I also have the books mentioned above included with links over on the sidebar. Now, what are your current favorite reads?

sketchbook Tuesday :: harvest

We had a very nice Thanksgiving holiday. Lots of cooking, baking and eating happened along with some sketching and visiting.

And we made our traditional visit to a local farm in order to get our holiday tree. Christmas trees are the main agricultural product in our mountain county. Fraser Firs are most commonly grown. They are beautiful trees that will last through the entire holiday season and then some, shedding very little when given plenty of water. Our town collects the trees at the end of the season to turn into mulch for the town's landscaping. Since we live outside of town, every year we put our tree into the wooded part of our property to provide a winter habitat and shelter for small animals and birds. Above is a view from the tree farm we visited, looking across the owner's lawn to the mountains beyond.

2013 Weekly Planner by Ann Thompson Nemcosky | Make Your Own Book

I have been busy with a new project, a 2013 weekly planner. I wanted a planner that would also serve as a type of diary, where I could not only make planning notes but also note progress on various projects. Something with enough pages (but not too many) where I could combine all the parts of my days including homeschooling, art making goals, and art marketing plans. Of course it had to be pretty to look at too. I filled it with my ocean themed colored pencil drawings to inspire my days throughout the year. It was a fun project and after seeing the result I am inspired to make more books! I decided to make my planner available in case any of you would like one for yourself or to give as a gift. You can find a link in my sidebar or just click above to preview all of the pages.

Still Life and Other Stuff

Onions and Garlic
colored pencil on paper
3.5 x 2.5 inches
copyright 2008 by Ann Thompson Nemcosky


I have been reading Finding Your Visual Voice, A Painter's Guide to Developing An Artistic Style by Dakota Mitchell. This book is a perfect read for me right now. Although it says it's a 'Painter's Guide' I find the topics covered relative to any 2-D media as the subject of the book really is about exploring and discovering your unique visual preferences for image making. The author encourages the reader to look past what might be perceived as expectations of others and find what is truly your voice in art making. Also the book provides exercises to help the reader along in the process. I am slowly working through those. (If the above link does not work you will also find a link to this title in the side bar on the right)

I am often faced with the challenge of how I want to approach my art. From what media and in what 'style' do I find the most satisfaction. Reading along in "Finding Your Visual Voice" I realized that in the past my 'style' of painting usually reflected what I believed was expected from others more than what felt right to me. Not that I didn't get a sense of satisfaction from my working methods but the motivation to do things in a certain way were more from external forces than internally created by me. And I wonder if the painting media itself was part of that external force. Now that I am focusing on drawing I do feel more comfortable with the process. I enjoy paint, the look and feel of it. And the color possibilities are exciting to me as well. But drawing is more comforting to me at present. Painting was a very active engagement with the materials and process while I find drawing to be more meditative. And this is a quality I am more at home with at present.

It is interesting to me the ebb and flow of my artistic preferences over the years and how those preferences relate to everything else happening in my life. Another topic covered in the book, besides methods of working, is subject matter. Now the 'what' of my artwork has been remained consistent. In art school of course we covered everything. Lots of still life and figure work. But since leaving school I have for the most part focused on landscape images. I like the practice of drawing objects, as in the image above or with the Everyday Matters challenges, but I eventually gravitate toward landscape. Once finished with school and settled into domestic life with my new husband (the art professor) I remember doing some of my first landscapes in pastels. And I remember his comment, "what are you going to do with those?" So I put away those drawings and completed a new body of work on another subject that I actually did end up exhibiting and selling most of the pieces. They were all images of chairs. Then I did a fairly successful non-objective series of paintings. I tried various methods for interpreting landscape, color field images and such. Well, you get the picture. Now that I have returned to art making I am once again back with landscape as a subject. It feels right to me for now. So you probably won't be seeing any more still lifes, like the image posted above, from me for a while. Except for my Everyday Matters challenges of course. Which I need to get busy with right now!

Take Thyme

I joined the discussion group, Everyday Matters, as I thought it would be the inspiration I need to start drawing with more frequency in my sketchbook. They have these weekly challenges, and this week's was to draw an herb or spice. So here is my entry for challenge # 143. This is a sprig of thyme, one of the last surviving herbs, from my woefully neglected herb garden. My plan was to begin with a graphite pencil sketch and then add color with my colored pencils. As I was drawing I became so involved with pencil shading and finding all those tiny little leaves that the colored pencils never appeared. It was fun to draw with just graphite again - haven't done that in a while.

And running through my head while drawing this sprig of thyme were all the associations I could think of for the word 'time'. Weird, I know. There's summertime, wintertime, nighttime, breakfast time, dinner time, time of day, all the time, overtime, out of time, time's up, end of time, noontime,playtime, nap time, standard time, time line, springtime, bedtime, lunchtime, last time, one time, once upon a time, time out, time to go.

Back to the subject of sketchbooks, I wanted to share this book again, Art Escapes , by Dory Kanter. I just love the way she takes you through the creative process of keeping an art journal. Her book is full of ideas, methods, and helpful tips and her examples of art work I found very inspiring without leaving me overwhelmed. And she has great ideas for making kits for keeping all your art supplies organized and ready to go. I would recommend this book to anyone, whether new to the artistic process or more experienced and needing a jump start of inspiration.

And one final note for today, kiddo collected $50. last evening on her Trick-or-Treat for Food Allergy campaign! You know we are proud parents!

Skies

Variably Cloudy
acrylic and oil on canvas
36 x 24 inches
copyright 1996 by Ann Thompson Nemcosky



I was still in college when I first discovered the art of John Constable. Seeing a small exhibition of his sky studies at a local museum, I was fascinated by this concept of focusing solely on sky as a subject matter and filed it away. Later, after having earned my degree, I returned to landscape as a subject and spent some time developing images of skies. The painting above is one example. (I do apologize for the poor photo though, the fish-eye effect is distracting, it's not that way in real life!) Somewhere along the way I also acquired a book of Constable's paintings, Constable by John Sunderland. Published in 1972 by Phaidon Press Limited I see from my Amazon search that this book I picked up used many years ago in a used bookstore is no longer in print. Anyway, it seemed fitting to begin my exploration of John Constable's work with the subject of sky.

John Constable, 1776-1837, was a landscape painter who held an interest in painting the truth in nature, even the precise weather of a particular time and day. In doing so he rejected those of his contemporaries in 18th century landscape painting who made generalized and idealized depictions of nature.

The American Artist Drawing Magazine Summer 2007 issue features an interesting article about John Constable's Sketchbooks. The article discusses how he carried with him pocket-sized sketchbooks in which he did graphite studies for large oil paintings. For Constable, sketchbook drawing advanced his skills as he refined his method of showing the effect of light and shadow. Yet even these small drawings show his attention to the sky as he managed to capture the quality of light at a particular time of day.

There is more concerning his interest in the quality of light that I will share later as I work on my own Constable inspired landscape drawings. But for now, I have come across an interesting correlation in the writing of Winnifred Gallagher's The Power of Place, where she states,

"Like other living things, however, our species has evolved over the millions
of years to respond to the cycles of the earth and sun with predictable
biochemical and behavioral changes. Environmentally minded scientists have
begun to question the trade-offs we unwittingly make in order to live sealed
up inside an artificially heated, cooled, and lighted world that is structured
around economic rather than biologic concerns."


And finally, I can't leave out the John Constable art project I did with my daughter a couple of years ago. We spent a year going through
Discovering Great Artists by Mary Ann Kohl, by choosing an artist to study each month and ending the month with a project in the style of that artist's work. This book is a terrific introduction into art appreciation for kids ages 4-12. We certainly had a lot of fun learning about different artists and working on the projects together!

Watercolor After John Constable
approx. 12 x 9 inches
copyright 2005 by HRN
Private Collection

Best Intentions

Avon Dunes I
graphite on paper
12 x 12 inches
copyright 2006 by Ann Thompson Nemcosky
$50.







Yes, I had such good plans for today, for this whole week really, but somehow most of the time life got in the way. It wasn't such a great homeschool week. It happens. We acknowledge it and move on with a goal to make next week better. And my car's battery died. It was only nine years old! And the weather was hot. Well, for here anyway. Up here in the mountains we are wimps about the heat, but we're also unprepared for it. No air conditioning at our house, so I had a perfectly good excuse for not sitting at my drawing table, it was just too darn hot! But this is artwork day and I fully intended to have a new work to show, complete with references to artistic influences. Instead I'm posting this drawing that I did a little over a year ago, Avon Dunes I. I'm working on the same scene now but with a slightly different composition and in colored pencil this time, sort of as a companion piece to Avon Boat. You will just have to be patient with me.

One thing I did manage to get accomplished was to figure out a way to have links for the books I mention here and recommend. I spent the better part of this evening putting together an Amazon aStore, where I can keep all my book recommendations neatly in one place. It was kinda fun, searching for the titles that are on my bookshelves and that I can confidently recommend. I know I will be adding more there and I will occasionally feature a title or two here in blog posts with more details. Check it out by clicking on the link under "Ann's Bookshelf" on the sidebar.

Centering

"It takes a long time to learn that nothing is wasted."
- M. C. Richards






Manteo Tree
colored pencil on pastel board
5 x 7 inches
copyright 2007 by Ann Thompson Nemcosky $40

As promised, here is my weekly review of a book that has been influential in my development as an artist. This time I am digging up an old copy of Centering in Pottery, Poetry, and the Person by M. C. Richards. Yes, it is a book about pottery and poetry but it is also about waking up to living a creative life. I first read this book when I was a college student and it had a huge impact on my attitude towards studying art and learning in general. Part Zen philosophy, part the author's own experience and much more, Richards expresses the concept that education, learning that is, is a process of awakening and continues on throughout our lives. An idea that I have revisited many times since my college days and now as I homeschool my daughter this concept of life-long learning carries even more weight with me. And I can see it revealed now as I rediscover my art through new and varied media. It is all a part of the process and we use it all to get there. Nothing really is ever wasted.

As a side note, I am struggling with getting these book links to work. You may have noticed (or not) that the book text link in my last post did nothing. Even though I followed the same procedure I had done previously to link to books, which of course worked just fine. It seems the text link I tried including above also does not work. Soooo, at least for the time being, to alleviate this aggravation I have added a section on the side bar for a Weekly Book List. For now, anyway, it appears those links will function properly. And in the meantime, if anyone has any tips for getting the text links to work, please let me know!

Some things I have learned and re-learned

" In a great man's work, at its fastest, no line is thrown away, and it is not by the rapidity, but the economy of the execution that you know him to be great." - John Ruskin


Being open to possibilities for creative exploration is not always easy. Consistent practice is important and it is worthwhile to set some goals. As long as those goals are not so rigid that they are either impossible to attain or create burnout before they are achieved. You never know where new inspiration will come from or in what form.

Here are a couple of books that have helped me rediscover the creative process. The first, by Dory Kanter,
Art Escapes: Daily Exercises and Inspirations for Discovering Greater Creativity and Artistic Confidence
is packed with ideas to get those creative muscles working. Most of the exercises were things I knew, but had forgotten while I was busy doing stuff other than creating art. It was a pleasure to be reminded of the simple activities one can do in small, managable bits each day that will lead to greater creative discoveries. Kanter also gives instructions for making your own sketching kits so your supplies are always together and ready to go with you.

Another book I spent some time with this summer is John Ruskin's
The Elements of Drawing
This is a 1971 edition of his original book published in 1857. Written in his straightforward way, John Ruskin outlines the steps needed for observational studies in drawing from nature. Although dated, I still gleaned practical advice from Ruskin's text and some timeless gems of wisdom.