Field Sketching and Being Mindful of the Details

Recently, Becki and I participated in a workshop in field sketching at a Chilton nature center.  Before we even began, the instructor explained that her intention was not to make better artists out of us, but instead to make us more aware of the beauty and detail in nature right at our fingertips.  We were to consider this a practice of mindfulness and suspend our expectations for something we could frame.

Becki is an excellent artist.  She had a strong aptitude and interest in art in school and went on to major in art in college.  When it came time to support herself and her family, she leveraged those skills but worked in commercial printing companies where the devil was in the details and there was no room for creativity.  I was a bit intimidated to be taking this class with her, knowing that I would not have the skill to in any way approximate the quality, not only of her pen and brush strokes, but also her eye for composition and color.

I should not have worried.  Becki is a phenomenal partner and teacher, and wasted no time in encouraging and teaching me how to use the simple tools we were given.  More than that, I was reminded that she is always pointing out visual and auditory details that I miss during the day, with my head spinning out ideas, judgements, and self-criticisms.  I don't know whether Becki is immune to those things, but you can just meet her and feel her positive energy and warmth, knowing she doesn't give much time to them.

Rebecca, our instructor, acknowledged that some of her subjects, such as a songbird, are difficult to study as they are constantly in motion.  She shared advice she received from John Muir Laws, another nature illustrator and author, to capture the simple shape and direction of a bird's head, and a line indicating the "gesture" of its body position.  I love that term, gesture.  It frees me from capturing the literal representation and instead requires me to distill a very basic idea.  Once you have drawn thousands of birds, the unique position of the object is all you really need to put the whole together.

So there lies my challenge.  I am so quick to jump to conclusions, based on incomplete information.  It hobbles my leadership when I act and talk without sufficient listening.  Rebecca, Becki, and John Muir Laws continue to teach me to stop a little longer and make time to study the DETAILS for as long as the subject will allow.  This activity taught me that, although I know what a wildflower or leaf looks like, there are so many additional levels of detail that are not only important to capture when drawing or painting, but studying them increases my respect and admiration for what they do and how they were made.  Imagine how this would change my relationships with my school team!