One of the first classes I took at the *Wild Wonder Nature Journaling Conference 2020 was PageBREAKER taught by Kate Rutter. It was more of an IceBREAKER for me and was one of my favorite workshops. With amusing visual charts she describes the reactions journalers might have while drawing in the field: anticipation, curiosity, doubt, vacillation, pressure, acceptance. For me, that takes place in the first 30 seconds! Seeing that others experienced similar feelings set me at ease and the exercises that followed relaxed me immediately.
The first exercise was to draw six different sketches of a single object in 2”x2” squares – a minute per square. I found that I needed the 6 squares (not, say 4) to push me to really find a different view. This is just plain fun and a great warmup for any drawing. These are six views of a piece of firewood.
The second exercise had two larger squares and we were to draw a negative and a positive of an image in the squares. Again, one minute each. It’s always valuable for me to change the way I see the object – from “inside” and “outside”.
Exercise three was an exercise in contour drawing – only looking at the object while the pen followed the object on paper for a minute. This was repeated 2 more times using different views of the object. Some of my favorite drawings are contour drawing (with just a bit of peeking at the paper). I drew a branch with berries.
Exercise four was really interesting. A rectangle’s diagonals were drawn and a small circle colored in at the center to represent my position in the landscape. I placed my little folding chair in the yard and faced the four directions. Then I drew each view in the four triangles in the rectangle. What an amazing experience and I completely, utterly lost track of time.
I use the first three exercises to warm up before drawing. They help me get to know the object and put me in a relaxed state of mind.
Kate recommends saying “Hello” to your subject before you begin to draw. I just love that.
