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Aimee's Work
A selection of some of the books this fellowship enabled me to buy connected to Thoreau, environmentalism, walking and being in nature, and making art. So far, if I had to recommend just one of these books it would be Six Walks by Ben Shattuck. It is a lovely combination of memoir, illustrated travelogue, history following in Thoreau’s footsteps, and meaning-making on life and nature in dialogue with Thoreau’s words.
Detail from sketchbook page from Amy Wynne’s class, “Simplifying the Landscape.” This is a longer sketch and value study of the same landscape as image #3
Sketchbook page from Mark Adams’ class “Thoreau on the Beach.” This page includes value sketches of several views in Provincetown’s Long Point, as well as brief written reflections on the morning.
Sketchbook page from Mark Adams’ class “Thoreau on the Beach.” This page has a controlled blind contour sketch in which a glance at the page while not drawing is allowed. I sketched my hand holding an antler. After, we recorded our close observations of the object and our questions.
Exploration after Mark Adam’s class, “Thoreau on the Beach”. Mark introduced the idea of taking pages from books and painting on them while interacting with words and phrases that stand out. I created this painted collage with pages from Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch. I particularly connected with a quote she used as a chapter epigraph: “We have art in order not to die from the truth” – Nietzsche. Nietzsche wasn’t talking about the truth of climate change, but this is the connection I made.
Exploration after Amy Wynne’s class, “Simplifying the Landscape.” On this page, I used the photograph in Image #5 as well as the experiences from class to create a different, more refined value sketch and color collage that followed the values (if not the colors).
These are photographs taken by Amy Wynne of our class sketching. How lucky we were to have this time and these landscapes to study.
Sketchbook page from Mark Adams’ class “Thoreau on the Beach.” I created a watercolor study of the second thumbnail value sketch in Image #12 and added a more extensive reflection in writing on the day.
Sketchbook page from Amy Wynne’s class, “Simplifying the Landscape.” Our warmup task was to record 5 senses meditation observations, then write a haiku, then do a blind contour sketch in which you move your eye over the landscape and your pen over your page (but do not look at your page).
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