A postcard from Art Girl Summer Camp
Art Girl Summer Camp Report
The last week of June was, without exaggeration, one of the best weeks in recent memory. Which is saying a lot, because I have a very cool husband who plans very cool adventures for us and I have, in general, a pretty great life. Maybe that sounds a little braggy, but this is my newsletter mostly about the pursuit of joy and you should know that it’s one typically written from a space of enjoyment.
I digress.
The last week of June was so special because I was neither working nor travelling. I wrapped up one job and had arranged for my new job to start a week later.
There were lots of things I could have done that week (and more than a few I should have done). But I was emboldened by the feeling that this bit of open time was a rare opportunity and I should do what I really wanted.
What I wanted to do was make art and learn new art skills and spend time with my art pals. Every day.
I’ve never been a hot girl on her hot girl summer vibe. But I really wanted to be an art girl, on my art girl summer vibe. But with only a week and not a whole summer, I channeled my ideal art girl persona and made myself a summer camp.
Art Girl Summer Camp
I never went to sleep away summer camp as a kid, but I did a lot of camping and my parents are camp counselors at heart (Hi Mom! Hi Dad!). The magic of a week packed with activities, fast friendships, and camp-issued t-shirts is what I was chasing – but with more paint and less campfire songs.
Art Girl Summer Camp had three principles:
Let yourself be bad
Process over product
Just keep going
There were four practices that I aimed for daily:
Learn
Practice (many, many times)
Look
Reflect
I wrote these principles and practices on a big piece of paper and made a little video to share with my friends.
Voila!
Now Art Girl Summer Camp was not just me running around with a sketchbook. It was a thing.
What I Did At Summer Camp
My desire to learn new things and to be with others in a learning space led me to a few amazing workshops:
outdoor painting with Raoul Olou and loose watercolour florals with Heather Phillips.
I took advantage of a rainy day to start Nishant Jain’s Drawing Tiny People course. I did some painting with friends in parks and backyards and looked at art in a few galleries.
(I could go on forever about how art workshops can change your life and deeply changed mine. That is for another newsletter. But here is the gist, in a tiny nutshell.)
Over the course of the week, I spent a lot of time making little studies of park scenes with acrylic gouache and a large brush. This is new and extremely challenging for me and involves a lot of cursing. Yet, I’m very compelled.
I made 16 gouache studies, three watercolour florals, and filled several sketchbook pages with tiny people drawn from life. I also made one of my favourite things: a zine about a vacation we took (more on that another time).
Learning. Practicing. Looking. Reflecting.
Just the absolute best.
But Why?
Tiny paintings of parks in a little sketchbook are not part of my job. Or part of my freelance illustration work. Nor do I aspire to make painting part of my paid work.
My goal is to cultivate more joy in my life.
Observational painting and drawing gives me a greater appreciation of moments and details. It makes my brain feel happy (even when I’m cursing and very frustrated with the process and the product). I meet new people who I likely would not meet otherwise and learn new things that I likely would not learn otherwise. It helps me practice decision making and problem solving.
Painting and drawing from life is immersive. You can’t really do anything else while you are trying to approximate quickly shifting light or the teeny tiny serrated edges of a ranunculus petal.
(My screen time was down 27% during Art Girl Summer Camp….)
My other goal is to continually remind myself that I can get better at things.
In a relatively short period of time, I felt more comfortable with new materials. My compositions got stronger. I was more relaxed. I found myself looking out the car window and thinking, “I wonder how I would paint that….”
If you do anything every day for a week, you might have similar results.
The nice thing about making art every day for a week is that I have a record of how I’ve changed: it’s all there in my sketchbooks.
Underneath all of this is a commitment to doing "pointless" things. Things that are pleasurable but unproductive by most measures.
Yes, to observe my own improvement is a little thrill. But it's improvement in the service of continuing to practice, to keep trying, to continue to enjoy more life from this life.
The pointlessness of a week spent with paint in parks was the whole point.
(If you're interested in thinking more about practicing and pointlessness in a productive world, get yourself over to Christie George's corner of the internet. She made an incredible illustrated book report, exhibition, event, scrapbook, chronicle called "The Emergency Was Curiosity". I listened to an interview with her while editing the photos for this newsletter, which ended up being a quiet conversation with her. Thanks for sharing your practicing, Christie. Here's to more.)
Home From Camp
I’m back to work now. But I didn’t unpack my camp bag or fully settle back in.
My camp week helped me figure out how to fit a little more art making into my life without making it my whole life. I also did a bunch of other regular stuff: gym, groceries, party hosting, novel reading, an email or two.
I wish I was in the park every day this week and next, hunched over my new sta-wet palette.
But instead, I’ll be in an office by day and back in my studio for illustration work by night.
But a little sketchbook and a tiny set of travel watercolours are in my bag for lunchtime painting and an even littler sketchbook is in my pocket for commuter doodles.
....but you know I'm already planning my next Art Girl Camp!
P.S. If you made it all the way here and wish you could have your own Art Girl Summer Camp: you can!
P.P.S. If you need someone to cheer you on in this pursuit, that someone can be me.
