Sketchbook_Confidential

Thoughts of Whistler

Oil on linen (finished painting) 24" × 18" (61cm × 46cm)

I try to sketch every day, although I paint more often than sketch. If I sketch, it's at night when I am in my studio and all is quiet. I try and get to a live figure class at least once a week to practice quick sketch or anatomical studies. I sketch using charcoal pencil and lead pencil.

I sketch a lot to work out composition, or to work out anatomy if I don't want to figure it out on canvas. Sketching gives me a lot more freedom to experiment with things before

I hit the canvas.

In my years as a student, the first thing I learned was to “see like an artist,” that is, seeing everything in shapes and pattern of value and contrast. This has made a major impact on how I see things. I am blessed to see this way because no other type of person can see the world in this manner — only an artist can.

I think about trying to accurately portray what I am looking at and making sure I am conveying the two-dimensional abstract shapes working with the three-dimensional form. When sketching, I feel happy but sometimes frustrated.

Sketching teaches me to take the time needed to produce superb work. There is no shortcut to excellence. It keeps my eye sharp; it keeps me thinking like an artist.

Sketching teaches me to take the time needed to produce superb work. There is no shortcut to excellence.

Alan Paine Radebaugh

Radebaugh recognizes nature's beauty not in its literal forms, but in the abstract shapes comprising all that he sees. These organic pieces and patterns are brought into focus in his “Fragments” paintings. After studying drawing, photography and jewelry design in college, the Boston-born artist (now living in New Mexico) spent ten years designing sculptural art furniture before returning to painting full-time in 1988. In 2004, his art career was celebrated with a twenty-year retrospective in Albuquerque, and he spent the next two and a half years painting thirty-six canvasses for a University of New Mexico Art Museum exhibit in 2007.

I lost myself so completely on one occasion that when I rose slowly after an hour and a half on a sketch, two deer bolted from ten feet behind me, apparently looking over my shoulder.

My sketches are inspired by abstract forms in the natural world. These forms present themselves, “announcing” themselves to me as if they were asking me to sketch them. To do this, I have to look at natural lines, shapes and forms. Then I recognize that everything is connected.

I sketch with a soft pencil, a chisel drawing pencil, on drawing papers. I sketch outside and add color using maybe a rotten stick, moss or dirt.

My paintings are composites of drawings. Most of my time is spent with the paint. I sketch to create my paintings. Years ago I sketched daily; now I sketch when I want more material for paintings. Maybe every three months, I'll stop painting and sketch for a week or two. I take field trips then and spend all day for days at a time drawing.