Trailbound Weekly EDITION | 003
This week’s header artwork 🎨 is brought to you by… We had no submissions this week, and wondering it if would be helpful to send out little Friday reminders? 🤔 You can download the line art to play along by clicking on the above illustration!
Hi Friends!
The world feels a little dark, which could have something to do with living in Alaska, and our days becoming shorter as we move towards Polar Night. It could also have something to do with being human, and living on a planet with a lot of modern technology that overwhelms us daily with horrific headlines.
We’ve been preparing for an impactful event that kicks-off on September 29th — Jackson Wild. Our film, A Little Story About Forever is a finalist for two awards: Trailblazer & Branded Content (thank you KEEN for believing in this story!) I’ve also been invited to speak on a panel at the event, which means I have to leave my newly formed family of four (if you missed last week’s email and social media updates, we sneakily welcomed a healthy baby boy, Muir, into the world over the summer).
I’m feeling excited for this opportunity to attend Jackson Wild, which is a career highlight for impact filmmakers. While also feeling worried and anxious about leaving for an extended length of time. Travel has always been part of the “job,” and my family is well supported by our Alaskan community. Yet, that doesn’t make it any easier.
Does anyone else find it really REALLY hard to travel without their family, too?
For me to leave, there is a lengthy list of to-dos that help ensure my wife Eve has everything she needs to solo parent while I’m away. But managing the to-do list does not really help me strike a balance between addressing what weights me down. It most definitely does not help me prioritize joy and happiness, which I want to wrap my family in every single day. Additionally, consuming too much news or doom scrolling only makes doing anything more burdensome.
Making time to make art can feel impossible when you weigh it alongside responsibilities, obligations and commitments. But, and this is a BIG-B but — The only way to create lightness and welcome joy in challenging times is to create what we want to see in the world. Even when it feels impossible to fit it in.
I appreciate that maybe I am not the best person to champion our community to make time to make art when making art is my full-time job. However, for me to create-on-demand I need to be creative for the joy of it, too. Playtime is as important as work time, even as a “grown-up!”
Which looks (for me) a bit like this:
Experimenting with new ways to capture and share personal experiences in the places I love.
Being outside in nature with my family and sketching alongside my son Kip, just like my grandmother Lu once did with me.
Creating a space filled with tokens of inspiration, like hanging YOUR artwork on my studio wall (see below for a mailing address if you would like to send me your artwork).
Picking up an artbook by an artist I admire.
Or my favorite source of inspiration — quality time exploring and studying my late Grandmother Lu’s sketchbooks.
Our Trailbound Community encompasses the entire planet and all walks of life. We know some of you are fellow working artist, too. Though most of you juggle school, work, family, care-giving, and so much more. Trailbound can’t take away the weights of responsibilities or worry, but we do hope to provide support to encourage weaving a creative practice into your daily lives.
📰 News & Updates 🎭
Immersive 360° Watercolor Experiences — Is this the future of on-location watercolor demonstrations? I have been using 360 degree cameras and creating wild videos for as long as I can remember. Yet at the same time without truly USING the technology to the best of its ability, until now!
Trailbound Partner Update:
In honor of GoPro’s release of the Max 2 (the shared name is a coincidence!), we have made public all of my 360 ° experimentations using this type of filmmaking to create immersive ways for our community to FEEL like they are exploring and painting alongside me. These early videos are a rough around the edges and I am very appreciative of our partnership with GoPro. It is a privilege having access to the GoPro Max 2 and its higher-resolution so early.
📍 NOTE: We do have a paid partnership with GoPro. However, for me, this is a dream collaboration because of ALL the cameras I’ve worked with — GoPro cameras truly allow me to be BOTH plein air artist AND filmmaker at the same time. For years I have tried to carry on my back ALL the art supplies, camera gear, tripods, big sheets of watercolor paper, sketchbooks, and lets not forget adventure gear with plenty of snacks, water, etc.. But now I have a toddler and newborn… and I want them to see their dad making art in nature, too. Just like my grandmother Lu did for my dad, and aunts. Enter in little GoPro Cameras that easily pack away with all my sketching supplies (and plenty of snacks)!
Art supplies for size reference!
How Trailbound Sketches will use 360° footage to help you connect to both place and making art:
Because the new GoPro Max 2 has a MUCH higher resolution, I’ll be able to create traditional videos alongside 360 degree/virtual reality content. You do not have to have goofy looking goggles or move your phone or tablet around to see what I’m doing. However, as our community becomes more comfortable and familiar with 360° content, it will afford you the opportunity to truly feel like you are peering over my shoulder! While also helping me keep an eye out for bears that might be sneaking up on me!
We understand that only a small fraction of our community is really down with this idea of 360 degree videos or virtual reality experiences. It is NOT our intention to replace our way of filmmaking and watercolor tutorials with 360°/VR formatting. But we are going to continue playing, experiment and hope you’ll be our beta testers. Your feedback and participation will help us shape and mold the kind of content we produce into what truly supports your sketching practice!
📍 NOTE: To follow along, keep an eye on the 🎬 YouTube under #360-adventures.
Filling In The Blank Page — Trailbound Community Art Series
Over the Summer Trailbound Discord Community Artist @Adriana771 delighted the community with their take of our Denali Watercolor Tutorial to create something special for a child visiting Alaska for the first time. Incorporating the little one’s favorite children book characters.
Discord Updates:
We’ve added a new category and few new channels to the Trailbound Discord Server! If you are new here and not familiar with our vibrant and kind Discord Community, make sure you are subscribed to our weekly newsletter. The private invitation to join is included in every email we send out.
New Category = 📚 For School Teachers.
New Channels within this category:
#pre-school
#elementary-school
#middle-school
#high-school [There is currently an educator from our community looking to connect with fellow teachers at the time of this posting!]
📍 NOTE: We created this category because we KNOW there are quite a few teachers within the Trailbound Community and as a small team have not been able to support them as we’d like. But we CAN create a safe space for them to support each other! Furthermore, if you are a school teacher and would like to incorporate our films and or watercolor tutorials into your classrooms, we 100% support this!
New "additional” channels:
Under 👣 The First Step we added #weekly-newsletter-archive where you will find a direct link to every one of these digital editions, incase our weekly email with the link lands in the dreaded SP@M folder.
Under 🖌️ Art Supplies & Materials we added #art-books and request sharing your favorite art books with the community. Helping us create something of a Trailbound Sketches Book Club!
Under 🏆 Art Challenges we added #sketch-a-day, which we’ll kick-of formally on October 1st alongside the annual global Inktober event. If you are new, revisit this edition for a breakdown of how we are planning to participate in this year’s month-long event.
Under 🌎 X 🎨 we added #little-army-of-goodness, and still crafting how we would like to use this channel. We just knew we wanted it to exist.
🥸 Tips & Tricks & Tools 🧰
Recently our Producer Jennifer, inspired by our Trailbound Community, dug through a pile of “vintage” pads of tone drawing paper and had some fun with her paper cutter, nifty hole puncher, a hammer (she used a nail to make holes for binding), and scraps of embroidery thread to create a couple of small sketch pads to support a daily doodling practice.
If ever you feel out of touch with your creative curious spirit, reconnect with your inner child and try to see the world through their eyes!
What inspires you to create and play?
We say this a lot, but all of you inspire us daily 🤗. But other stuff inspires us too! It could be watching Kip’s curiosity for the natural world (above photo), or for our Producer (Jennifer) who lives on a farm; it’s being enamored by her chickens and their unique personalities. Books and films also help keep the creative spark alive.
What books, artist, films, etc. keep your creative spirit alive and well?
Some resources we are enjoying right now:
Gesture Drawing/Drawing People
Developing a Practice
On-location & Urban Sketching
🎨 Community Inspiration 🎨
Filling In The Blank Page — Trailbound Community Art Series
Help us welcome new Trailbound Community Artist @bluemtnheather to the Discord #community-artwork chat and be truly encouraged and inspired. Her generous share has currently sparked a fun conversation about playing with toned papers and making your own sketchbooks. She even made a neat how-to video she shared with the community. Thank you Heather!
Filling In The Blank Page — Trailbound Community Art Series
Joining Heather in the #community-artwork channel is also Holly, who created the above painting of Portage, Alaska. Thank you, Holly, we are so excited to see more of your work!
💛 Paint It Forward 🎁
Longtime Trailbound Community Artist Martina Cornelia recently embarked on an epic 30 hour travel day and crafted up a creative way to capture the memories while surely inspiring her those around her. This is beautiful Martina and impressive to create a little sketch every hour of the trip! We should also mention she did this with small children in-tow! WOW!
🖼️ Share Your Artwork ✍🏼
Below are all the ways to share and connect with us directly or fellow Trailbound Community. Additionally, if you love what we do and would like to support the creation of more free resources and videos, check out the list below.
🤖 Share with our private Trailbound Community in our Discord Server (invites delivered via email).
🔖 Tag @trailboundsketches on Instagram
📨 eMail us at create[AT]trailboundsketches[DOT]com
💌 Snail mail your letters and art work for Max to Trailbound LLC, PO Box 140124, Anchorage, AK 99514
👕 Pick up a Trailbound Sketches Shirt at our new Bonfire Store Front!
🖼️ If you love what we do and would like to support the creation of public access content — Buying art prints goes a long way at covering the cost of creating free YouTube watercolor tutorials. Payment plan options are now available, too.
We have added more option to our Trailbound Sketches Bonfire Store!
Stay curious! Have fun! Paint it forward!
Thank you for being a member of the Trailbound Community!
~ Team Trailbound 🎨
