A map of the mysterious land of Climacterica (watermarks not on original) © Chris Raymond

Late in the week at Penland, surrounded by cards, sketchbook, and dictionary pages © Chris Raymond
Click on image for more pictures from the week

As I mentioned in my last post, I spent the last week of August taking a workshop, “Illustrating the Personal Narrative” at the Penland School. I began the week with trepidation: I’d never really worked in watercolor or pen-and-ink, my drawing skills left much to be desired, in my mind at least, and before even arriving, I had already gotten very bad vibes from the instructor, a brusque New Yorker with no experience teaching the mixed-level classes that define the place.

My week lived down to expectations about the instructor, but exceeded expectations greatly as to the work I produced: a series of postcards from the mythical country of Climacterica, where all the residents are female, minds go absent, lists get lost, and intentions often go far off track.

Like most artists I know, I am REALLY hard on myself and nitpick my work to death. But I have to say, the set of postcards I created please me greatly. They hit my sweetspot of combining concept, humor, color, and writing. And several fellow students are in line to buy these once I get them reproduced.

I’m now researching the best way to reproduce the set and getting tips on selling my work from colleagues; so in a way, this could be one of the more transformative weeks at Penland for me, if it finally nudges me toward selling my work.

Detail of an acrylic painting of a blue barn © Chris Raymond

Big juicy color. Who doesn’t love it? This particular palette is one of my favorites. I used it to paint a somewhat abstracted barn in a weekend workshop taught by Brenda Belfield at the Art League School in Alexandria, VA. Actual size is 36″ x 24″

In the late 1980s, I attended the Oxbow Art Colony to take a painting class. I had never worked in oils before, and I had a huge mental block about drawing elements of nature. But working in a small studio on a lovely sunny day, with music in the background, I released my internal editor and just started in. Working on paper with a pre-existing texture, I just let my imagination flow from the initial tree trunk into an imaginary “tree of life. ”