In the spring, before the midges hatched and inspired by Louise Fletcher on the Art Juice podcast, I registered with The Sketchbook Project.
The Sketchbook Project is the world’s largest collection of artist sketchbooks and is housed in Brooklyn, New York. Many are digitised and available to view from wherever you are, and the actual sketchbooks are often taken around the States on tour of educational establishments.
An A6(ish) sized sketchbook arrived and I set about filling it. I’ve been trying to get my own sketching inspirations of the local views around Skye sorted out for ages and thought this would be a fabulous chance to really get going. I wanted to draw Skye from an incredibly slow, ground-based view though. The main landmarks and sights may come into it eventually, but for now, I’ve settled on the passing spaces along the B886 single track road from the Fairy Bridge into Lochbay (the first area you reach as you enter the Waternish peninsula where I live on the Isle of Skye).
I kept track of each location with the what3words app and set about cycling off to the Fairy Bridge to draw my first sketch. It took a few attempts, as my bike took a while to get the hang of my natural accident-proneness but I gathered the first ten or so sketches during a particularly sunny fortnight. The last sketches were drawn after my knee injury, and I’m incredibly grateful to my neighbour for driving me to the planned passing spaces, ably manhandling me and my crutches so that I could get the last drawings for the sketchbook finished.
So here they are, my first sketching series from Skye. I’m about to post the sketchbook off to the States, and it’ll be available to view in The Brooklyn Art Library and online when it’s been processed. You can see the numbered sketches and their what3words locations below:
- clockwork.mouse.twinge
- typed.posts.birthing
- homing.used.diver
- detective.tourist.guises
- primary.clotting.subject
- wasps.blotting.plots
- soggy.ranks.limbs
- winds.mason.quoted
- animated.reviews.squabbles
- fermented.swatting.love
- insisting.snow.pothole
- shuffles.degree.feasting
- less.cashier.beads
- abstracts.forgiving.taker
- hopefully.exist.cheater
- partner.months.stews
