a new-to-me book

I thought I already owned a large number of books by favorite artist/author/naturalist (and one of my dearest friends, known affectionately as Kate) Cathy Johnson. But recently I found another one that I had missed: originally published in 1986 and long out of print, The Local Wilderness has recently been reprinted by a new publishing company along with several other of Kate’s most popular books.

Yesterday I began reading this new-to-me book, then decided to take a break and sketch it. It’s the green one under my next sketchbook; the book on the bottom of the stack is a copy of the first book I read of Kate’s. I first read The Sierra Club Guide to Sketching in Nature as a library book in 2007 and it inspired me to begin a regular sketching habit. I had loved to draw as a child but had stopped after high school. Reading this book encouraged me to draw again on a regular basis. Reading the library book led to me finding Kate online, which lead to signing up for her newsletter. Which told me she actually lived within driving distance (about a 3-hour drive from our then-home in Kansas) and she used to invite readers to meet together for informal sketch crawls. Which led to our friendship, for which I’m very grateful.

My next sketchbook is an accordion-fold book made from leftover scraps of watercolor paper, slipped into a leather cover found on Amazon. After filling both sides of the book, I will glue on protective front and back covers, then refill this leather cover with new paper. More about this cover can be found here. I still have 8 more pages in my current Stillman & Birn Zeta sketchbook but I’m usually planning ahead towards the next one when I get near the end of the one I’m working in. Keeping a sketchbook is truly a long-standing habit now, though I seldom develop larger works from the drawings. They are more like illustrated diaries to me.