Hands On at Whitcomb’s, Summer 2022:
Sketchbook Journaling: A Trilogy of Landscape Workshops

This three-part series of learning adventures explores the process of mindful travel through journaling, image-making and writing. Participants discover how to transform personal experience into knowledge and ideas, in ways that promote environmental awareness, historical perspectives and self-knowledge. Lessons and fieldwork help develop keener observation, to notice things often overlooked. Working in whichever portable medium you prefer (painting, drawing, photography), you will learn the secrets of pictorial composition, and the practice of expeditionary journaling, from far-flung regions to your own backyard.

Additional sessions in the series on June 25 and July 23.
Class fee: $45 per class or $125 for series. Register for a single class or all three.

Wadhams Falls, by James Lancel McElhinney

FORMAT

A progressive series of learning adventures that will introduce you to historic methods for exploring terrain and describing the landscape through drawing and writing.  Each participant will be provided with a link to an introductory video with lecture & demo, for viewing prior to the class. We will then meet at designated outdoor locations, wrapping up each day’s session with a critique and discussion at Whitcomb’s.

MATERIALS

Anything that makes a mark and anything that takes a mark will suffice. A supply-list will be distributed. Participants are encouraged to use any kind of bound sketchbook small enough to be carried in a pocket, along with tools for making marks and laying down color. You may also bring image-capture devices such as photographic cameras, tablets, smartphones and iPads, to use in conjunction with drawing and writing.

Instructor: James Lancel McElhinney is a visual artist, author, independent scholar, and art publisher. He holds an MFA in painting from Yale, and a BFA from the Tyler School of Art. McElhinney is the recipient of fellowships and grants, including a 2017 Pollock Krasner Grant and a prior Visual Artist fellowship from National Endowment for the Arts. McElhinney is the author of Sketchbook Traveler: Hudson Valley, the first in a series. The second volume, Southwest is due to be released in May 2022, followed by the New England volume in the Fall of 2022. Visit his website to read more.