Introduce Yourself
Where do you live and what do you?
Have you done much sketching before or are you just starting?
What are your other creative pursuits?
Please include a link to your Flickr account, blog, Facebook page, Instagram, Tumblr etc.
So I’ll go first…
I’m Liz (I think you all know that!)
I live in Sydney, Australia. I’m an architect by profession and worked 20 years on a range of residential and commercial developments, specialising in media projects. I’ve always drawn as part of my work but in 2007 discovered watercolour and started my first daily sketchbook. I haven’t stopped sketching since!
I’m very interested in architectural history and theory and drinking tea out of fancy china teacups… but I’m guessing you all know that too!
You can find me on: Facebook, Flickr, Google+, Instagram and Twitter using the buttons under ‘Connect on Social Media’ in the footer of this website.
Now it’s your turn…
Hello, everyone:
My name is Marion, and I live outside Toronto, Canada. I created a lot of art when I was much younger, but only in the last year have I taken it up again. I started sketching (with some measure of consistency) this past spring in preparation for keeping an illustrated travel journal for a trip I was taking to Italy in the summer. Now long back from the trip, I am hooked on sketching. I am inhaling books, courses, blogs, and anything I can get my hands on, related to sketching, especially travel sketching.
I take classes on watercolour and acrylic painting, but often can’t wait to get to my sketchbook. I started a blog about a year ago that has a lot of my art, as well as some pieces by friends of mine. If you’d like to stop by and leave some words of encouragement, the blog is at http://artwewonderful.com/.
Hi everyone,
I’m as excited as all of you to be part of this group. I live in Sunnyvale, California, USA. I see that there are others in the group who live in the general area. So perhaps we can get together to sketch at some point during the class. I’m a member of Sketchcrawl.com and had a small group who sketched monthly in the South San Francisco Bay area. You can view our efforts here
http://sketchcrawlsv.blogspot.com
Hi Carmela – If you ever get up to San Francisco you’re welcome to join the SF Sketchers meetups. http://www.meetup.com/SF-Sketchers/
Also, John Muir Laws’ Nature Journal Club has monthly field trips all over the bay area, and once a month a field journaling class in Santa Clara and San Mateo. For more info, see http://www.johnmuirlaws.com/events and https://www.facebook.com/groups/naturejournalclub/
Thanks for the info Laurie. I’m unlikely to make it to SF, but I’ll check out the John Muir Laws link. I’m interested in drawing nature–so may be able to join you. Between Sketchcrawl, Meetup and UrbanSketchers, there is a lot happening in the Bay area. Lucky us!
Yes, we are very lucky.
Well, I pressed submit to fast :).
My name is Yana and i live in San Diegom CA. Very excited to attend the class.
Looking forward to meeting you all.
Hi,
my name is Ya
Hi everyone.
My name is Mila and I currently live in Israel.
Loved Liz’s Sketchbook Skool class, so I decided to enroll.
I’ve always done some kind of art and I’m looking forward to learning to sketch with more spontaneity.
Hi to you all. I am Heather, and I live in Encinitas California, which is a few miles north of San Diego. I am new to art and sketching, but am very excited to start this class. I am originally from New Zealand, and spend a lot of time in Melbourne Australia where my son lives. Gardening and quilting are my other therapies!
Hi. Is this where I introduce myself? Am a retired English teacher with no art training, but have benn dabbling with watercolour and textile art for several years – but it’ s since I discovered Urban Sketching that I feel I may have found my ‘thing’. Belong to both Manchester Urban Sketchers and Yorkshire Urban sketchers. Have followed Liz’s blog and love her work. Hoping to get faster and loosed as I go through the course. My only worry is the technology…..
Hello Anne,
I’m Elaine from Carlisle, which in terms of participants on this course makes us near neighbours. If the techie stuff look daunting, the best I can suggest is – find a teenager, they just make light of it all and at their age they don’t worry about breaking anything. Good luck in the coming weeks.
Elaine,
To have left your IT day job for needlecrafts sounds like a dream come true. I work for an data center consulting firm and I also knit and crochet, so your story resonates with me.
Best of luck in this class and your business.
Marj
Hello everyone, my word this list of greetings is getting very long!
My name is Elaine and I live in Carlisle, Cumbria, close to the English/Scottish border. I’m delighted to see that I’m not the only sketcher from the far North planning to go out in winter. I started drawing just a year ago, but my local art class has lost its tutor, and If I found Liz’s wonderful work while searching for support and ideas on line. I quit my day job as a IT business consultant 2 years ago to teach needlecrafts on a freelance basis and have never been happier. Just planning to make some fingerless mitts to keep my hands warm.
Can we put in orders? It is getting pretty nippy for outdoor sketching in the far west of Wales too – though I did manage a 5-minute sketch today wearing those silly gloves with special finger ends for using with a mobile phone.
Hello Maggie
I see from your intro that you’re way out west in Pembrokeshire – such a beautiful place, lucky you. I’m going to make the mitts from the sleeves of a treasured old sweater, which will be quicker than knitting.
Yes, Pembrokeshire is lovely when it’s not raining….yesterday we had a picnic on the beach in warm sunshine. No need for gloves – and yes I did do a sketch too. I tried making wrist warmers from an old jersey last year, but they were a bit light-weight, so I may have to pinch one of my husbands old sweaters for another go this winter.
Jan from Milwaukee, Wisconsin (north of Chicago on Lake Michigan).
New to sketching and happy to have found it!
I work with Veterans with serious mental illness and have found my sketching adds to the “joy” side of my day—balancing me and giving me a good dose of quiet energy. Now I ask regularly: Why doesn’t everyone sketch and paint?!
I’m Sharon from Western Colorado, U.S.A. I’m getting back into drawing many years after earning a fine arts degree.
Loved Liz’s approach to drawing in her Sketchbook Skool class, so here I am.
Anyone else from the West Slope out there?
Ling, I also crochet and knit. In fact, have crocheted longer than I’ve been drawing.
Marj
I’m Ling from Singapore. I have very little sketching experience, but recently tried to pick up watercolor journalling with my 4 children, whom I home-school. I’ve always found my perfectionist tendencies getting in the way of drawing and painting, so I’m hoping to work on those insecurities. I find it easier to crochet….it’s nearly always neat, and mistakes can be easily undone.
Hi Ling,
Just to say your not the only one with perfectionist tendencies that get in the way of drawing and painting. It is going to be a real challenge for me to use a bound sketchbook and not tear any pages out! May need to just scribble on one page just to break the perfectionist spell! Here’s to a new freedom in our artwork!
Hi all,
I live in El Segundo, California. Started drawing again this past year (took a few semesters of architectural drafting in college). Interesting improving my drawing skills and learning more about working with other mediums.
Cheers!
Helen
Hi everyone. I’m Fran from Geraldton, Western Australia. I found Liz through Danny Gregory and Urban Sketchers. I’m looking forward to learning to sketch with more spontaneity, less procrastination and the confidence to sketch wherever I happen to be. Such a big group here. This is going to be fun!
Hello everyone – iI am from Canberra Australia. I went to art school 30 years ago and trained in painting but life took me towards textiles and then teaching Photoshop, Illustrator and web design in an art school. I have always kept a journal and studio journals but after many years I am returning to drawing from life- in a sketchbook. Most of all after years of computer work I enjoying the rediscovery of ‘marks and stuff’ on paper. I am looking forward to this class after reading Liz’s blog for years.
You can find me at
http://tonesandtints.com
and for textiles at
http://pintangle.com
If there are any other Canberrans out there – I would love to make contact
Hi, everyone, I’m Cate, a lifelong Sydney resident. Most of my art experience has been printmaking and I’m quite new to sketching. Looking forward to this course!
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I have included an image in the questions page
https://sketchingnow.com/questions/
wow, what a group! I think the aussies may be bending the class curve!
I live in San Diego California and have been drawing for about 6 months. I connected the same dots from Danny Gregory to Urban Sketchers to LIz. I am retired from marketing medical products and have fallen hard for my sketchbooks, pens and brushes.
I am also just down the 5 from several folks and have gas money.
HI everyone – It is so great to hear from you all!
(I am testing how the unsubscribe feature – to check that it works)
Ros!! Good to see you here too. This looks like it’s going to be lots of fun.
Hi everyone. I’m Jim Blodget. I’ve been drawing and painting for pleasure since I retired in 2008. I love to tinker with all kinds of media. Along the way I’ve been a photographer, film maker, TV producer, director, editor, instructor, media specialist, computer programmer, web designer, and blogger. I’m 66 and live in the beautiful Pacific Northwest (Oregon, USA). Link to my blog: http://jimblodget.com/blog and to my Flickr photostream: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jimblodget/ .
Hi Jim, I have subscribed to your very interesting blog. Thankyou. But I cannot find a ‘comment’ link or any other way of getting in touch with you. Sandi
Hi everyone, I’m Julia from Milton-near-Boston, I’ve been learning watercolors since 1998 and somewhere along the line started sketching, which is now my passion. I retired 5-6 years ago from a marketing-publishing-corporate management career and have been busier than I ever was when I was working full time. I collect published sketchbooks (Danny Gregory, et al.) as well as facsimiles of sketchbooks by “famous artists” (Prendergast, Sargent, etc.) and I also buy WAAAYYY too many art materials. Now it’s time to use some of them. I follow Cathy Johnson’s blog and also Liz, whom I discovered through Gregory’s and others books. Really excited about this course and hope to loosen up and speed up my sketching. I travel to sketch, and especially enjoy architectural subjects (though my buildings frequently lean like that building in Pisa …)
Shirley Jenkins
Duxbury, MA is my home. I trained as a landscape designer @ Radcliffe College and worked for many years for the Boston Redevelopment Authority. Finally I had time to take a watercolor course in 1992 and I have enjoyed painting greatly. I am looking forward to developing better fast sketching skills. Travel has been a big part of my life; the sketchbooks I have are a huge store of happy memories! Here’s to many more!
See above intro. I think I forgot to check the notify box!
Hi Everyone, I’m Julie and I live in North Carolina U.S., near Raleigh and Durham. I grew up in Michigan and I still have family there. I teach fitness and yoga to seniors. I have recently been exploring my interest in watercolor and now sketching with my teacher, Lin Frye. We are taking this class together. I’m excited to be here and know it will be fun and challenging. I am on Facebook too and I am also doing sketchbook skool beginnings.
I’m Tama from Tucson and recently took the storytelling session of Sketchbookskool. For 24 years my husband and I have helped people self publish books. We mostly work in person, but have a website at ghostriverimages.com, Everyone in thi group sounds so accomplished! My hobbies are art, spinning, rughooking and old-fashioned living. My claim to fame is that I won a Thanksgiving turkey a few years ago at a flintlock rifle shooting contest.
I want to use my sketching to produce small books on topics I find exciting. I’m thinking a series on the Mexican restaurants of Tucson would be fun. I would like to improve my ability to sketch quickly and portray food and buildings. Now if I can just master the computer skills needed to upload and download, etc. Cast-iron cooking is a lot easier!
Ah, I meant to add that I am on Facebook as Tama White and you can contact me at ghostriver@gainusa.com. Thanks!
Hello! This is Patty Ruthe in Pennsylvania. I am naturally curious, a nature journalist, and a Sketchbook Skool Skolar. I’m sort of “semi-retired” as I still teach environmental science at the local community college. I love journaling about nature so therefore I am trying to improve my sketching skills. Besides taking on-line art courses, I am participating in the Pennsylvania Master Naturalist Program.
Hi everyone, gosh what a lot of you there are! I am Lisa, I live near the coast in beautiful West Dorset, UK. I have been painting and drawing for the past few years with varying degrees of success! I work mainly in acrylics and watercolour and would like to gain confidence to sketch regularly out in public! I’m hoping this course will give me the impetus and direction to do this. I love Liz’s style and spontaneity and hope to capture some of this in my work! Well that’s the plan!
This is wonderful that there are so many of us in the course, living in so many different parts of the world. Hello, everyone!
I’m Emily. I was, as they say, – “born & bred”here in Kentucky. We make our home in Louisville.
Though I painted some in oils growing up, it was not until 2007, (and after many, many years away from painting), that I picked up a watercolor brush. Such a different approach start to finish!
I love keeping a watercolor journal, whether it’s just here at home or as we travel.