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Category Archives: Urban Sketching (On-Site Creativity)
Telling Tales in a New Way
I’ve spent hours this week listening to The Art of Brevity, a brilliant celebration of “less is more.” “Flash fiction is a brook flowing through the woods. It is easy to step over, and it’s not big enough to be … Continue reading
Curiosity + Looking = Unexpected Aha Moments
Here’s your mid-week dessert, a bit of combined brain and eye candy. Watch and listen to my mentor Oliver Pyle (whom I mentioned in my previous post) as he guides you into a world you may have never seen, the … Continue reading
The Power and Purpose of Curiosity
This month we are taking a fresh look at “Desert Island You,” exploring those values that remind you who you really are, free of the influence of loved ones or society. What do you like? Where do you find meaning? … Continue reading
Posted in Beauty, Musings on Life, My Story, Urban Sketching (On-Site Creativity)
Tagged Community, Curiosity, Inspiration, Learning, lifelong learning, Mentors, Perseverance
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What’s Your Nugget?
Yesterday I began searching Double Take for the best story to end this three-month series of essays. Here it is— it’s about Endings and Beginnings, and is also a gentle challenge to you and to me. Are you facing something … Continue reading
Travel is my favorite path to Enlightenment
Mark Twain once said, “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.” I agree, and I love experiencing this truth firsthand as often as possible. Five years ago, I traveled to England to visit a friend I’d never met. Well, that’s … Continue reading
If you stop, I’ll stop.
Those of you who sketch outdoors regularly may recall times when you entered a trance-like state while sketching. Without planning it, you traveled from effortful thinking to effortless rapture, and before you knew it, you had the shallow breathing of … Continue reading
Why not me? Why not you?
August 11th has been a powerful day for me… several times. In 1973, it was the day of a horrific car accident where my brother and I were both badly injured. Fast forward 41 years to 2014, August 11th was … Continue reading
How to Double the Fun when Travel Sketching
(This is the next in the series of excerpts from my illustrated memoir, “Double Take.”) Planning a vacation? If you’re like me, the minute you buy your plane ticket or book your B&B, it feels like you’re almost on your … Continue reading
When a pen is more than a pen
(The next in the Autumn 2024 series of excerpts from my illustrated memoir, “Double Take”) April 25, 2015 – journal entry about pens and my pen history Back before the invention of markers, gel pens, roller-ball pens, and ballpoint pens, … Continue reading
No need to be in a city to be an “Urban” Sketcher!
For centuries painting outdoors has been referred to as “en plein air” painting. It is a French term that literally translates as “in full air,” and is used to describe artwork created outdoors, through observation of the scene in front … Continue reading
Aloft with Inspiration 