Moving Sketch

Sketching on the road

Capturing colors on the ALCAN in the passenger seat.

I posted this on instagram a few days ago:

Sitting still sketch at Arnica Lake in Banff National Park

I went on a vacation. I didn’t plan to and I usually take some work with me (because I can), but it was really nice to just be on the road and hang out with my partner and our dog, go for hikes, research bakeries, and find spectacular places to drink coffee. The world is a hard place right now, and it feels good to reconnect to all the beauty and love that is right here. Not to escape the hard things but to touch them and remember that there are lovely, soft, luminous things to hold onto. Tomorrow Greg is headed off to work a stint in Antarctica and I am starting my own adventure for the next few months. 

I’m going to be exploring the southwest USA a bit and enjoy some sun and some desert time. I’m also hoping that the distance from home helps me to set up my own artist residency of sorts and to make some big progress on a book project that I am working on. Before we go there (and back to Toolik, I promise I will share that experience with you and I already have the writing drafted, I just need to finish editing my scanned journals) let’s enjoy some moments from the road.

Have you ever tried sketching from a moving car (as the passenger)? I’ve practiced doing ferry sketches before on the Alaska state ferry and I love the way these gesture sketches come together. This practice requires deep looking to remember the colors and shapes of the landscape that moves as I work, but also playfulness to piece together a scene that is constantly changing. I look out the window (and really look because I need to remember) and then get some details down. Then the landscape changes and I need to use my imagination and what I notice next to connect them all together into one picture.

The result usually captures a feeling of movement and change (which I love and strive for and is hard to get when I am being tight and detail focused) and reflects the place but does not fit one specific location. It is kind of an amalgamated blur of several scenes out the window. The ferry moves pretty slowly so it is a good place to start and I had never done it in a car before. I had so much fun until I got motion sick and had to stop. 

“Moving sketch” along the southern Bitterroot Mountains

Sometimes it is fun to focus on color, painting swatches or blurry shapes that bleed together. Sometimes we were on a stretch of road where I could see the same mountain for a while, so I could sketch it quickly and then add in details as we moved and I could see more in other directions. 

Color swatches in Idaho

Art supplies ready on my dashboard.

Some of the landscapes were more about just getting the feel of the shapes of the mountains and the trees. I never knew what kind of time I would have to see the scene so I didn’t know what kind of sketch I would get to make. All this not knowing and not planning felt fun and playful. I called them “moving sketches” in my book so I knew the context. Have you ever tried sketching from a moving vehicle and how did it go for you? 

Proof it doesn’t always work out. I started this one and we turned a corner before I got enough down. I’ll have to do something else with this page!