Sketchbook_Confidential

I am a perfectionist, but my sketchbook doesn't have to be.

My sketches let me take a closer look at the world. I see things that I might otherwise pass by. Sketching has taught me to slow down and really see as I sketch out a leaf, the way my dog sleeps on the top of the couch, or a tree bent by years of being pushed by the wind. As I walked with a friend one day pointing out things that were inspiring me, she told me that I see differently than others in the world. I pointed out things in her

neighborhood that she had never seen. Do artists see differently because they do art, or are artists artists because they see differently?

Sketches and drawings have a certain kind of grace that painted images do not. Look at the works of Wyeth: how beautiful, thoughtful and full of meaning, all gotten with a pencil and piece of paper.

Because a sketch isn't going out into the world, I am free to experiment. The sky is the limit. A face doesn't have to look like anyone in particular. I can sketch out several different poses. I can make a figure do whatever I want it to. Once I commit to beginning a painting, decisions scale back and become more limited. There will only be one pose. Once the dark and light patterns are established, again my choices become more limited.

I sketch little clay figures of myself on some of the pages of my sketchbook showing how I am feeling at the moment. Sometimes they are standing tall; sometimes they have strings attached to their limbs or are slumped over. I can play or doodle or do whatever I want with them. I can make a world of my own with my pencil and sketchbook.

My sketchbooks serve as a well of ideas when I am in a dry spell. I take them out and

look through them. I'll see sketches that never went anywhere that all of a sudden spark a new work or series of works.

Linda Leslie

A sketch or a painting is always changing and will continue to change, as the model will, and as I will.

Hailed by gallery owner Jay Etkin as bringing a “fresh voice” to figurative art, Leslie approaches her portraits with traditional techniques and a contemporary eye. The artist, originally from Connecticut, studied at the Art Students League of New York and the National Academy School of Fine Arts in New York before moving to New Mexico. She has dedicated over thirty years to classical figurative painting, developing a signature style described as “romantic” and “gracefully contemplative,” where intimate views are often balanced by “splashes of light or color” made with Impressionist strokes.

I am inspired by the human figure found in contemplation, by beauty and the abstract design of life in a form of dance. I think about proportion, movement and feeling when sketching.

I do not sketch daily. I often wish I did. It is wonderful practice. I usually sketch in a class or group session. I also will hire a private model for a few sessions of one long pose and work the drawing into a painting, with the help of photography.

I generally sketch with graphite mechanical pencils in a journal. I enjoy charcoal and Conté crayon too. I will also sketch with graphite directly on an oil painting in progress.

Sketching keeps my eye working. It helps to keep my work loose and more confident. I feel calm, peaceful and happy when sketching. I try to think of nothing. I feel less pressure and more freedom than when painting.

Although the feeling of my sketches relates to the finished work, many times the finished piece is different from the original idea. A sketch or a painting is always changing and will continue to change, as the model will, and as I will. Although it is not my intention that the sketch becomes a finished work of art, many times it does. I try to put the two together: freedom and finish.

I learn more about myself from my sketching and painting than from my thinking.