January 10 Sketch Crawl: Outdoors In at Atlanta Water Gardens.

Very tempted to take a drawing class at SCAD this quarter. I'd like to develop skills in composition and proportion. But work is going to be intense and I'm already committed to meeting one night a week with another mystery writer to bludgeon each other with plotting ideas and reasons why what isn't on the page really is (a fluke visual artists never seem to suffer from.)

So, another art buddy and I decided to meet in Decatur in sketch somewhere. A good idea made better by a timely email from Marilyn Brandenburger, an Atlanta artist and teacher who, with some regularity, organizes a "sketch crawl." Today, members of her many classes, a fellow illustrator buddy; and two members of Particular Women Artists (Serey and me) gathered at Atlanta Water Gardens and sketched for hours on a cloudy, rainy, sort of cold, sort of not so cold Saturday. What a great idea for a sketching rendezvous!

Here's my journal page for today. Not a self-portrait but a great lesson in limiting oneself to a single form of media (6B pencil) and a single support (cheap watercolor sketchbook paper with a tooth so sharp it bites).

I assigned myself birds in order to gather images for the current journal page challenge sponsored by our friends at Random Arts in Saluda, NC. "Sweet Tweet"

Birds, flying, escaping, cages, etc., are much on my mind as I think/pray about LP, who, with her diagnosis and her sister, is flying to Europe next week for a quick adventure before the portal goes in.