In March of 2019 I drove from Washington Heights at the northern end of Manhattan, to Santa Fe. Establishing my base of operations first in a casita owned Gerald Peters Gallery, and later in a wing of a house belonging to longtime dear friends, I set out to explore the Rio Grande from John Dunn Bridge to Bernalillo. The result of these endeavors was a sketchbook filled with paintings, ten of which were published as a suite of archival pigment prints in the hand-bound fine-press limited edition Grand River Sketchbook. Over the n ext seven months I made three more trips back and forth from New York, finally expanding my travels north to the headwaters of the Rio Grande above Creede, in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado.
At that time, efforts were already underway to publish a hybrid coffee-table/backpacker art-book focused on the Hudson River, from its headwaters above Newcomb in the Adirondacks to Fort Lee on the Jersey Palisades. Amazingly the book was released on time in November 2020, at the height of the Covid pandemic. Sketchbook Traveler Hudson Valley was the first in a three-book contract with Schiffer Publishing, to be followed by a second volume on the American Southwest, and a third devoted to New England (scheduled to be released in the fall of 2023).
The cover design:
Publisher’s promotional text:
“Keeping visual journals has been popular for centuries among artist-travelers like Albrecht Dürer, J. M. W. Turner, Katsushika Hokusai, and David Hockney. Explorers like Jacques le Moyne, Alexander von Humboldt, Charles Darwin, and Marianne North also recorded their journeys in sketchbooks and diaries. Topographical drawing was essential. Knowing what destinations looked like let voyagers know they had arrived. Carrying this concept to the next level, Sketchbook Traveler expands plein air painting beyond the range of easels and backpacks, providing educators with instructional concepts. It gives professional artists many new (and old) ways to hone mobile sketching skills. Inviting readers to explore their surroundings through drawing and writing, Sketchbook Traveler is a field guide to mindful engagement with personal experience in ways that make every day an adventure.”
LOOK INSIDE: Sample pages
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Also of interest:
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ALSO CURRENTLY AVAILABLE:SKETCHBOOK TRAVELER: HUDSON VALLEY by James L. McElhinney (c) 2020. Schiffer Publishing).
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