• Art Supply Posse

    52: Urban Sketching with Liz Steel

    Liz Steel episode

    ​​Liz Steel talks about becoming an urban sketcher, journalling her life, and teaching art.

    ​​Liz’s Online sketching courses

    ​​Liz Steel’s website and blog

    Instagram

    ​​Danny Gregory

    ​​Urban Sketchers

    Liz Steel talks about becoming an art teacher who journals her life by sketching with ink and watercolour . Liz says “I’m doing it because it’s a very honest response to what I see and where I am and what I do”.​​

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    ##Referenced Art Supply Posse Episodes

    ​​Episode 2 on watercolours

    Episode 4 on fineliners

    Episode 18 on fountain pens for drawing
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    ##Questions about art supplies?
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    ​​​​Art Supply Posse Website

    ##Topic Summaries
    ​​
    ​​Comparison to photography

    ​​Kim compares urban sketching to photography, how they both record a fleeting moment, and Liz explains how sketching has replaced photography for her. She used to take photos and print and bind photo books, but now her sketchbooks serve the same purpose. Liz compares herself to other travel sketchers and describes how she wants to document everywhere she’s been, not just one sketch a day. Sometimes she does up to 20 sketches a day.

    ​​Move from architecture

    ​​In architecture, it’s important to keep a kind of “idea book” where you keep sketches of buildings and ideas. Liz says she knew it was important, but just never sketched, until she found Danny Gregory. His work opened up sketching for her to include other subjects and mediums. This also opened up an obsession to document her life which got her into sketching.

    Liz didn’t make a clean break with architecture but instead, about five years ago, she took 6 months off work. The reasons were many and she wanted to see if she could do something with her art. Things started moving, and Liz got to do both illustration projects and teaching. Liz felt she had more of a role to fill as an architect turned sketcher than as a pure architect. She enjoyed having more creative freedom than her profession allowed.

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    ​​Becoming a full-time artist and creating online courses

    ​​The traditional advice for people wanting to work with their creative passion is to balance the time between a “day job” and their passion and transition gradually. Liz did nothing of that, hers was more of a sabbatical turned transition as the demands at her day job were too much to be able to handle a side business too. Liz struggled with gaining recognition locally in the beginning. She was getting more recognition online in the international scene. She also realised she was less into client work and more interested in creating a product, which in her case developed into online courses.

    ​​Urban sketching in Australia

    ​​When Liz started out urban sketching, there were just a handful of people in Australia who even knew what it was, but it has definitely grown now. There are groups all over, for example in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Tasmania, South Australia and Perth.
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    ​​Mediums

    ​​Liz primarily uses fountain pens with ink and watercolor for her urban sketching. She had been using fountain pens and ink for a long time, but watercolor was her “light bulb moment” and she says “This is what I’ve been looking for all my life”. With watercolor she was able to mix all the colors she wanted.

    ​​Drawing from observation

    ​​Liz says she was confident about drawing from her head already, due to her background in architecture, but drawing from observation was trickier. She had to go back to basics and relearn how to apply concepts, like for example perspective, to what she saw and wanted to draw.

    Teaching urban sketching

    ​​Liz didn’t start out wanting to teach, but as she was getting more into the urban sketching community she was encouraged to teach. She now teaches online courses but also do workshops in urban sketching.
    ​​“The major barrier to art is to change the way your brain thinks, to start thinking visually.”

    ​​Liz focuses on teaching concepts in her courses, in contrast to “demonstrate and copy”. The concepts can be “how to see edges” or “how to see shapes”, for example. The concepts are followed by exercises to practice and understand these concepts, so you can then continue using them in your own art.

    ​​Newcomer tips

    To get started in urban sketching, all you need is really paper and a pen or pencil, because the most important thing to learn is how to observe and translate that onto paper. Adding too many supplies can distract from that learning. However, if you want to do ink and wash, which is a very common from of urban sketching, Liz recommends getting a permanent fineliner and a watercolor kit.
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    ​​Don’t worry too much over materials and supplies though, she says, it’s better to just get started. It is a journey and you will figure out what suits you and your art. It will change over time, and starting out with a lot of research on materials will likely just overwhelm you.

    Making art regularly

    One common problem to making art is to actually make time for it, to show up. Liz describes that as she was starting out, she dedicated some time after dinner every day to do a sketch. She also recommends to go along with an Urban Sketchers group nearby, and joining them sketching. Liz describes how she wants to create a kind of visual diary, a record of what she did that week, so that motivates her to keep sketching even in busy times.

    ##Feedback

    Send feedback to hello at artsupplyposse dot com
    ​​

    51: Inkcited – Fountain pen ink art with Nick Stewart

    An episode featuring artist Nick Stewart. It’s all about making art using the unique properties of fountain pen inks. Shading, sheening, chromatography, and bleach. Also, how we plan to get involved in Inktober 2018.

    Nick Stewart is a professional artist and graphic designer whose work you will find on things from album covers for well-known musicians to household products on supermarket shelves. However, we are focusing on Nick’s personal project to develop art using fountain pen inks and bleach.

    We recommend browsing Nick’s project website before listening to the interview. The questions and answers will make more sense when you are familiar with Nick’s artwork and blog.

    Using fountain pen inks as an art supply is a relatively recent development, initially pushed by the urban sketching community. This has led to the development of new waterproof inks by fountain pen ink manufacturers. Until recent years mostly shellac and acrylic based inks were used by artists.

    Nick’s experiments with chromatography and bleach however take fountain pen ink art to exciting new places and open up new possibilities, even for artists already working with ink.

    Nick also reveals some interesting experiences he has had teaching excluded children — children removed from normal schooling due to behavioural and other issues. Despite all warnings, the students were really engaged and produced lovely results. Nick discusses why, and how the most unlikely students respond to art in this way.

    ##Topics

    • Why ink rather than paint?
    • Unpredictability as part of the charm
    • Abstract lettering and calligraphy
    • Background in graphic design
    • Less is more
    • Teaching
    • Why art can catch the most unlikely people
    • Tools and materials
    • Safe handling of bleach
    • Experimenting

    ##Links

    Nick’s website for his fountain pen ink art

    Nick’s “Randall” fountain pen ink

    Pen World magazine article PDF August 2018 edition

    Nick’s four colour (CMYK) fountain pen ink set

    Nick’s fountain pen ink art workshops

    Nick’s mission statement on his ink and bleach project

    ###Nick’s social media and other links

    Nick’s professional lettering services

    Nick’s Facebook page

    ​​​​Nick’s Instagram @quinkandbleach

    ​​​​Nick’s Twitter @nickistew

    ​​​​The Fountain Pen Network

    Fountain Pen Geeks Forum

    ###Art Supply Posse and Artsupia Links

    Art Supply Posse Website

    Art Supply Posse is produced by Marcus Clearspring and Kim Cofield

     

    50: Happy As Larry

    ​​Kim interviews Jen Saunders, owner of “Larry Post”, both a physical and online retailer specializing in small tools for writing and sketching. Their mission is to encourage and make it easy for people to go outside and draw. Larry Post is located near the picturesque Manly Beach, only a short ferry ride from Sydney, Australia.

    ​​One thing that sets Larry Post apart from other art supply stores is their variety of tools. They carry both traditional art supplies and a wide range of fountain pens, since drawing outside opens the door to urban sketching.

    ​​Kim and Jen discuss how Jen’s former profession as an optometrist led to Larry Post’s mission, together with different aspects of creativity.

    ​​There is also a fun example of a fountain pen helping a high school student with poor handwriting, and his teacher being so impressed by the improvement that she gets several pens to lend other students.

    ​​Jen is a really inspiring person and we hope this interview leaves you just as inspired to create as it did us!

    Note: Jen’s recording mic was a bit too “hot” and distorted a bit, but it’s a jam-packed interview of goodness, and worth a listen.

    ​​00:31: Episode Intro

    02:46: Interview Begin

    03:49: Eyesight Development and Being Outdoors

    07:24: Unique Product Selection

    11:34: Embossing Notebooks And Sketchbooks

    13:02: Mixing of Analogue and Digital Tools

    17:29: Different Age Groups

    20:34: Loaner Pens and Paper Samples

    21:34: In-shop Education and Demystifying fountain pens

    25:46: Jen’s Favourite Creative Outlets

    27:06: How to Start Being Creative

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    Art Supply Posse is produced by Marcus Clearspring and Kim Cofield