The Sketching Table
Sharing Sketching in May. Better Late than Never
My book has been out for a month now. I’ve done a handful of events and am about to give a closing talk for my art show and then take it down. I’ve driven a lot of Alaska highway, talked on Zoom and in person, walked, rested, listened to the birds, and finally started to feel like myself again after a very full spring. This is the post I’ve been meaning to write for a while to share my art show and book launch. Spring this year has also been quite late, at least the green leafy part. Alaskans everywhere are keeping their eyes peeled for green up and flowers, and it’s fun to see the joy at spotting these signs. This post is also a way to think about sharing and building community around sketching. It’s been an honor to see my book out in the world, sign copies, and see your own sketchbooks. Like spring this year, better late than never.
A Sketching Table:
One of my favorite parts of the IGCA show was installing a small sketching table in the front of the gallery: a few specimens, some art supplies, and an instructional booklet about “Starting Small” and beginning a sketching practice. I wasn’t sure how much people would engage with it, but it turned into one of the liveliest spots in the room. Kids and adults both got drawn in, literally. There’s something about having permission to pick up a pencil in a gallery space that changes the whole atmosphere.
That felt like the book in miniature, honestly. The idea that looking closely and drawing what you find is available to anyone, at any age, with whatever materials are nearby.
A May Sketching Challenge:
I made this challenge for the beginning of May to celebrate my book launch.
I’ll be honest, I didn’t do the challenge in real time. I was tired from weeks of teaching, and travel, and events, and by the time May 1 arrived I was running on fumes. I did a few prompts a day late, and finished some of them once I got home and felt a bit more restored.
But I love the set of prompts. Each one asks you to pay attention to a different aspect of the landscape, and working through them felt like a way of slowing down and actually noticing what was around me. They’re dated for the first week of May, but they can be practiced any time of year.
It was fun to see a few posts come through tagging me, and to hear from people following along. And then on a Sunday afternoon at the gallery, two people from Fairbanks stopped in while I was sitting with the show: Renee and Susan Grace, who had driven down from Fairbanks to Homer and back, sketching stops along the way. They pulled out their sketchbooks and showed me pages from the trip, early spring light, the landscape still mostly brown and just starting to green up. That kind of exchange is exactly what I hoped the challenge might spark.
Here is my wrap-up of how it went for me:
Day 1, Your view right now: I sketched a tree out the window from my book signing event at Fireside Books :)
Day 2, Something small: I was gallery sitting at IGCA and sketched the little hare jawbone on the sketching table.
Day 3, Water in any form: Water in frozen, liquid, and mud form along the Coastal Trail in Anchorage and Cook Inlet.
Day 4, A plant or tree: I broke the rules and sketched this shelf fungi that grew on a birch tree. I did this sketch live as a demo at Title Wave Books, and it was so fun to work with the group to practice observation with words, pictures, and numbers, and share and talk through our fear of the blank page.
Day 5, Sky, light and weather: I tried to capture a passing storm looking upriver towards Dan Creek. I did a quick contour drawing and added some watercolor.
Day 6, A creature: We had a male Ruffed Grouse hanging out in our yard for a few weeks, drumming his wings to attract a mate. It was fun to sneak up on him and get a zoomed-in photo to sketch from.
Day 7, Your Wild Place: I did this one kind of out or oder (break all the rules!), but I almost always stop at this spot where the Copper and Chitina Rivers come together along the McCarthy Road. I compared the view when I left and returned, and enjoyed noticing the change between late April and early May.
The challenge prompts are available any time. Break the rules and do them out of order.
An Art Show:
It’s satisfying to see this body of work collected in one place. Field sketches live in sketchbooks most of their lives, stacked on a shelf or tucked in a bag. Giving them wall space changes how you see them, and it’s always a joy to see original work in person (even my own work).
Two things got the most comments. The accordion books, which are a form I love making: folded pages that open out into a long sequence, each one a celebration of phenology and botanical detail across different seasons. And my daily diary sketches, the loose, quick pages I make as a regular practice. Several people said they were fun to look at, that they liked seeing something more experimental and less finished.
A Book Launch:
It’s hard to describe what it feels like to finally hand someone a book you’ve been working on for years. To sign a copy, to watch someone flip through it, to hear what they’re planning to do with it.
At Fireside Books in Palmer, I got to talk with people who hadn’t heard of the book before walking in. A few of them picked it up, flipped through it, and decided to buy it on the spot. That felt gratifying in a way that’s different from reaching people who already know your work. And across all the events, I got to meet scientists, educators, people making plans for summer fieldwork and outdoor time, and talk about sketching and being outside. Meeting all of you is one of the best parts.
What’s Next:
I have a closing talk at IGCA on May 29, then I’ll take the show down and head back out. June is going to be a trip, literally: a few more book events and workshops mixed in with field work and travel that will take me from the Arctic to the Kenai Peninsula and Peterson Bay Field Station and back to the Wrangells. I’ll be reporting back and also updating my events page on my website.
If you’re not already subscribed, this is a good time. And if you’ve been working through the book or the challenge prompts, I’d love to hear from you.
Well done!! Congratulations!!
The sketching table is just brilliant! That feels like an art show in the making and I would have loved to have seen it in action.