Practice: repeating an activity to improve a skill; actively working in a profession.

Back in the Spring I started jotting down notes for an article about my art practice. As I’ve worked to build it over the last few years, I felt over and over again that I had to build my own guide for doing this, and that many of my peer artists were in a similar place. In some ways I’ve been sharing what I learn as I go. But I knew I was never getting to the heart of the matter. Being an artist who pushes work into the world requires a chaotic kind of discipline - a practice to develop a cluster of skills that seem unconnected (but they’re not); a system of working in an ebb and flow that aligns with rhythm of the world around us.

But what does all of that LOOK like?

I want to share my art practice with other artists building or evolving their own practice, and anyone just generally interested in my work. So I’m going to try writing a monthly article about it for a while. I’ll be bringing Field Notes and Sketchbooks Galleries into this space (the were previously their own posts), and adding in some other regular insights like Community and Study. I love to talk about what I do - I welcome questions and would love to know what you readers are doing in your art practice.

Field Notes

Interesting things I documented with my iPhone.

I spotted this young person in her quinceña dress at the Green Bay Botanical Garden during one of our weekly Artists in the Garden sketch nights.

Flea Market folks.

On a day trip to Madison, a friend and I happen to be at the intersection of Williamson and S. Baldwin streets where a protest encampment had been cleared by the city just a few days earlier. This is the place where Madison police officers chased, tasered and fatally shot Corey Ruiz in July. It’s a sobering experience to stand in the place where someone was recently murdered.

Miscellany

Sketchbooks

Select recent sketches.

Televisions

Spaces

Supplies

Color swatches and charts of new and my most used supplies.

Derwent Drawing and Caran ^D’Ache Luminance colored pencils.

Derwent Inktense, Caran ^D’Ache Museum Aquarelle, Derwent Graphitint and Faber Castell Goldfaber Aqua watercolor pencils.

Brush cleaning paper with a random assortment of acrylic paints that looks interesting.

Study

Resources that keep me inspired and learning.

I visited the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art for the first time. If you go, make sure to go on a beautiful day so you can enjoy the rooftop sculpture garden.

***

Orla Stevens released an inspiring vlog about her recent art residency experience.

In the World

Where you can see my work out in the world.

My painting titled Seven U.P. is on display in the WVA Art from the North show, at ArtStart in Rhinelander, Wisconsin. This show runs through October.

Here is a write-up I did about that piece back in May.

***

In July I shared that five of my Pregame Snaps are published in the ninth edition of Klick Magazine. This month the publisher, Derek Darke, shared that he has successfully secured a place for all past and future issues of Klick in the Martin Parr Foundation library!

Community

Highlights from my art community.

I help facilitate Artists in the Garden on behalf of The Art Garage. Artists in the Garden is a partnership between The Art Garage and the Green Bay Botanical Garden to provide time and space for artists to work every Tuesday afternoon, June through September. If you’re an artist local to me - all the information to join us can be found here.

ICYMI

In case you missed it…

I had an ARTful 50th birthday!

***

I published this series of photos from the 2026 Brown County Fair.

Ways you can support my work. 👇🏻

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3. Purchase a copy of my photo zine, Genuine Curiosity. I have seven different volumes available on my website, and locally at Lion’s Mouth Bookstore and The Art Garage.

   

4. Shop my Blick Art Materials wish list for me! I use a lot of supplies in my daily art practice and even a few colored pencils go a long way to keep me working and improving my skills. This is a list of some of the items I use most often or would like to add to my practice. 🫶🏻

Tania's Art Supply Wish List

Was it a successful project? Well, I learned a lot. I got a few snaps I love, and several that I really like. But I don’t think I pulled together a complete story. I may do this again next year. Now that I’ve been there at all the times, I have a better feel for when certain areas and events of the fair offer good snaps.

As I discovered in my previous fair adventures, the barns were my favorite place. I think you can see that in the images here. I get a lot joy from watching all the 4-H and FFA kids interact with their animals. The midway has a lot of opportunity for getting those classic midwest fair scenes, like I used in the thumbnail for this article. But quite honestly, I’m mostly people watching there. I’ve included a section of fair people below - which are snaps I mostly captured on the midway.

Here is a gallery from my days spent at the fair. I’ve put a note in the caption of my very favorite images. Let me know in the comments if you have a fair or carnival that you love to attend every year.

Demolition Derby

I don’t know why people driving old jalopies and smashing into each other is so entertaining - but I got caught up in it as soon as it all started. Mud flying, metal crunching, the crowd collectively wincing at the big hits - it was all so exciting.

Rodeo

I have mixed feelings about a rodeo. I like the Friday night lights vibe that goes with it, but using the animals in such a way kinda grosses me out. I took these photos before the event and didn’t stick around to watch bulls get chased and tied up.

The Barns

Midwest Fair People

Midwest Fair People on Rodeo Day

Here are links to my fair photos from 2025.

Ways you can support my work. 👇🏻

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3. Purchase a copy of my photo zine, Genuine Curiosity. I have seven different volumes available on my website, and locally at Lion’s Mouth Bookstore and The Art Garage.

   

4. Shop my Blick Art Materials wish list for me! I use a lot of supplies in my daily art practice and even a few colored pencils go a long way to keep me working and improving my skills. This is a list of some of the items I use most often or would like to add to my practice. 🫶🏻

   Tania's Art Supply Wish List

   ---

   

Yet I did capture a few images that I like!

This chair seemed familiar to me…

Sure enough - when I looked at my 2025 Mile of Music photos, I had captured it then too! You can see it in this post from a year ago.

You may have seen recent news about the EF3 tornado that swept through part of Appleton and destroyed Fox Crossing and Menasha. We were roaming around an area outside the worst part of that, but there was still evidence of the storm around us.

I think that whenever I take photos of trees, I am inspired by the work of my friend Terri Warpinski. Incidentally, Terri is one of the featured artists in the upcoming ALT: A Photo Opp Gallery

Click here to learn more about the Photo Opp and their programming in Northeast Wisconsin.

Ways you can support my work. 👇🏻

1. Purchase a copy of my photo zine, Genuine Curiosity. I have seven different volumes available on my website, and locally at Lion’s Mouth Bookstore and The Art Garage.

   

2. Shop my Blick Art Materials WISH LIST for me! I use a lot of supplies in my daily art practice and even a few colored pencils go a long way to keep me working and improving my skills. This is a list of some of the items I use most often or would like to add to my practice. 🫶🏻

3. Buy a paid subscription to this Substack. All of my content is free for anyone. A paid subscription helps me pay photo and zine printing costs.

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I suspect in most places around here, learning to polka isn’t a right of passage anymore. But once a year, in Pulaski Wisconsin, they roll out the barrel and put on a four day polka festival that brings people in from all over Northeast Wisconsin.

The festival has run for nearly half a century. It brings in polka bands from all over the country and includes events like fireworks, a craft fair that runs the half mile between Assumption BVM Catholic Church to the Polka Days grounds, a pancake breakfast, worship services, a parade (more on that below) and more.

I attended the festival for the first time this weekend. And honestly, I was probably there a little too early in the day to get the true vibe of the place. Here are a few photos that give a feel for what it’s like.

The Parade

On the Sunday of each year’s festival, there is a parade that runs from the schools to the four way stop at the center of town, then they hang a right and go the full stretch to the festival grounds. It’s about two miles and the parade runs a hefty hour and 40 minutes. THIS is the gem of the weekend.

People come from all of the surrounding villages (and even Green Bay) to see this parade. They put out chairs on the sidewalks the afternoon before to reserve their spots. It really is a remarkable showcase of the community. Nearly every business, plus businesses from surrounding areas have a float. Every community organization is represented. And SO MUCH CANDY is thrown to the kids.

Below are my favorite snaps from the parade today. I think these images capture some of the essence of Pulaski. I’ve included descriptive captions in many of them.

Acknowledgement of the narrative.

One of the parts of this whole Pulaski project that I’ve struggled with is that it’s all a little too perfect. The community is primarily white and as such, exists in near complete white privilege. I’ve avoided making politics part of the narrative, but it certainly exists.

It’s no surprise that this parade included four floats promoting elected representatives (Tony Wied actually showed up for something) and candidates for the upcoming election that fall way on the MAGA right - and zero from the left. So this town, with traditions passed along to them from their own immigrant great grandparents, primarily votes for hateful candidates in order to preserve their whiteness.

It’s important to acknowlege that while I enjoy capturing these images and have generally liked every person I’ve met in Pulaski, the narrative the community presents is one dimensional and exclusionary of indigenous and immigrant perspectives.

See more Pulaski photos here:

I facilitate Artists in the Garden, a partnership between The Art Garage and the Green Bay Botanical Garden, Tuesdays 4p-6p. Free to attend. BYO supplies.

Ways you can support my work. 👇🏻

1. Purchase a copy of my photo zine, Genuine Curiosity. I have seven different volumes available on my website, and locally at Lion’s Mouth Bookstore and The Art Garage.

   

2. Shop my Blick Art Materials WISH LIST for me! I use a lot of supplies in my daily art practice and even a few colored pencils go a long way to keep me working and improving my skills. This is a list of some of the items I use most often or would like to add to my practice. 🫶🏻

3. Buy a paid subscription to this Substack. All of my content is free for anyone. A paid subscription helps me pay photo and zine printing costs.

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Hello from the smokey, hot and humid Wisconsin summer of 2026. It sort of feels like end times around here. I wish I could say we didn’t see this coming, but….

My Field Notes are short this month - see reasons above. Still I daydream about better days when I can wander a bit more freely. Hands up if autumn is your soul season too. 🙌🏻

On a side note, next week I will retire my trusty old iPhone 11. She’s been a beast of a camera, but some of her other systems are outdating. Starting next month I’ll be capturing Field Notes with a shiny new iPhone 17 pro max.

Some of the images below are uploaded in pairs or groups. Depending on how you are viewing this post, you may need to tap on each tile to see the complete image.

When the smoke from the Canadian wildfires first started to move into Northeast Wisconsin a few days ago, the sun tried to shine brightly through it and created this strange orange light on everything. It looked like the reflection of distant flames.

And Cats …

You can see more of my Field Notes here:

I facilitate Artists in the Garden, a partnership between The Art Garage and the Green Bay Botanical Garden, Tuesdays 4p-6p. Free to attend. BYO supplies.

Ways you can support my work. 👇🏻

1. Purchase a copy of my photo zine, Genuine Curiosity. I have seven different volumes available on my website, and locally at Lion’s Mouth Bookstore and The Art Garage.

   

2. Shop my Blick Art Materials WISH LIST for me! I use a lot of supplies in my daily art practice and even a few colored pencils go a long way to keep me working and improving my skills. This is a list of some of the items I use most often or would like to add to my practice. 🫶🏻

3. Buy a paid subscription to this Substack. All of my content is free for anyone. A paid subscription helps me pay photo and zine printing costs.

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Some of you know this: Last winter I inexplicably started sketching televisions. They’ve been in every Sketchbook Gallery post since January. And now I’ve spent the last two days making small paintings of them. It seemed like a necessary next step - and a good way to procrastinate finishing a larger Real Places canvas that’s sitting on my easel.

It’s also given me a lot of time to think about the precious console TV we had when I was a kid (yep, in the trailer park). It wasn’t the first TV - I can remember a smaller one on a table - or maybe this photo of me has placed it in my memory.

I’m talking about the big, heavy one that sat proudly at the center of our living room for years. I think my parents must have gotten it as a wedding gift. They married in 1980 when I was four. You can see in this photo of my sister how my mom used the top of it to display a collection of knickknacks. During summer breaks she would assign me to dust and polish the furniture - including the TV.

I remember when we moved to the trailer park my dad carefully wrapped that TV in a thick blanket. Televisions like this were expensive and we couldn’t afford to replace it. It was the only TV we had for years until I was in high school and we were long gone from the trailer park. Eventually my parents bought a new console TV when we could no longer see the screen on this one. I imagine they used a tax return, or bought it on layaway. It was still made with heavy wood, but had a modern 1990s design and sat on a swivel base. After that we were flush with TVs. My dad won another television at his work Christmas party and he and my mom kept it in their bedroom. We all felt better off than the working poor family we were because of it. He also gave me an old “portable” 12 inch black and white TV for my teenage bedroom. It was as heavy as a pile of bricks and made a great doorstop. I suspect he bought it from a pal who needed gas money. Later on in college my parents gifted me a brand new 19” color version with a remote control, for my apartment. It was a big deal.

Televisions made today are boring. It would never occur to me to paint a picture of one. But I’ve been moved to paint the older versions.

If you have a snapshot of an old TV, I’d love to see it in the comments!

Leave a comment

Some of the images below are uploaded in pairs or groups. Depending on how you are viewing this post, you may need to tap on each tile to see the complete image.

ICYMI - here’s a gallery of my television sketches.

See more art from a trailer park kid here 👇🏻

I facilitate Artists in the Garden, a partnership between The Art Garage and the Green Bay Botanical Garden, Tuesdays 4p-6p. Free to attend. BYO supplies.

Ways you can support my work. 👇🏻

1. Purchase a copy of my photo zine, Genuine Curiosity. I have seven different volumes available on my website, and locally at Lion’s Mouth Bookstore and The Art Garage.

   

2. Shop my Blick Art Materials WISH LIST for me! I use a lot of supplies in my daily art practice and even a few colored pencils go a long way to keep me working and improving my skills. This is a list of some of the items I use most often or would like to add to my practice. 🫶🏻

3. Buy a paid subscription to this Substack. All of my content is free for anyone. A paid subscription helps me pay photo and zine printing costs.

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Some of the images below are uploaded in pairs or groups. Depending on how you are viewing this post, you may need to tap on each tile to see the complete image.

Here in the U.S. we are turning a corner on summer. The temperatures have gotten very hot and we are approaching the Fourth of July - America’s annual celebration of independence. Over the last decade, fewer and fewer of us have reason to celebrate. Regardless of the politics, this still feels like our midsummer.

I am grateful to have my sketch practice for the mental stretch and the community that comes with it. Here is a look at my last month of sketching.

Color Swatches and Charts

I tried a few different types of exercises recently. Here I did some random color mixes and made them triads with either white or buff.

I watched a video from Lynsay Green about building a palette and exploring how colors interact with each other. I tried the exercise in my own way in one of my big sketchbooks.

Here’s a link to the video:

En Plein Air

I’ve had a bunch of days sketching outside. It takes a different set of coordination skills, but I’m settling into it.

My back yard

Artists in the Garden - sketching with friends at the Green Bay Botanical Garden

The Marys

So I guess she gets her own section now. I’m obsessed with how Americans display her - it’s all very kitsch.

See more of my Sketchbook Galleries here 👇🏻

A year ago I wrote this post about building my art practice and backing into sketchbooks.

A few months later I published my first Sketchbook Gallery

I facilitate Artists in the Garden, a partnership between The Art Garage and the Green Bay Botanical Garden, Tuesdays 4p-6p. Free to attend. BYO supplies.

Ways you can support my work. 👇🏻

1. Purchase a copy of my photo zine, Genuine Curiosity. I have seven different volumes available on my website, and locally at Lion’s Mouth Bookstore and The Art Garage.

   

2. Shop my Blick Art Materials WISH LIST for me! I use a lot of supplies in my daily art practice and even a few colored pencils go a long way to keep me working and improving my skills. This is a list of some of the items I use most often or would like to add to my practice. 🫶🏻

3. Buy a paid subscription to this Substack. All of my content is free for anyone. A paid subscription helps me pay photo and zine printing costs.

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Maybe it’s the ultra hot weather headed toward Green Bay for the next few weeks. Or possibly it was seeing my pal Sarah’s embellished cabinet cards on display at newARTSpace recently. Today I was moved to dig through my collection of vintage snapshots and share a handful with summertime vibes from the 20th century.

Intermission:

Do you have a favorite summertime snapshot from your family photo album? I’d love to see it in the comments.

We now resume with our regular programming.

You can see more of my Vintage Snaps collection here 👇🏻

The delightful embellished cabinet cards of Sarah Detweiler, and the photography art of Morgan Barrie, Jon Horvath, and Tomiko Jones are on display in Sight Lines through July 25th at newARTSpace in Depere, Wisconsin.

Ways you can support my work. 👇🏻

1. Purchase a copy of my photo zine, Genuine Curiosity. I have seven different volumes available on my website, and locally at Lion’s Mouth Bookstore and The Art Garage.

   

2. Shop my Blick Art Materials WISH LIST for me! I use a lot of supplies in my daily art practice and even a few colored pencils go a long way to keep me working and improving my skills. This is a list of some of the items I use most often or would like to add to my practice. 🫶🏻

3. Buy a paid subscription to this Substack. All of my content is free for anyone. A paid subscription helps me pay photo and zine printing costs.

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Ripon is a small town of about 7000 residents about an hour away from Green Bay. The populations swells another thousand during the school year when students from Ripon College are in town.

If you watched the Mr. Selfridge series on PBS, you might know that H. Gordon Selfridge was born in Ripon. If you’re a film buff - you probably know that Marcus Cinemas were founded in Ripon.

I recall asking a server at one of the restaurants we enjoyed - a college-aged woman from Chicago - how she found her way to Ripon. She was drawn to it because of its reputation for being the Stars Hollow of the midwest. For those of you not in the know, Stars Hollow is the fictional, picturesque small town in Gilmore Girls, a CW comedy-drama from the aughts. Indeed, many of the old storefronts that sit down the hill from Ripon College are picturesque right down to the strings of Edison lights that crisscross Watson street. We stayed at a boutique hotel called The Mapes that only offered suites. It was as cute as the Dragonfly Inn, but without the witty banter.

Conservatives in Wisconsin like to remind people that the Republican Party was founded in Ripon. That doesn’t seem like anything worth bragging about these days.

Have you ever explored Ripon, Wisconsin? Tell me about it in the comments.

Leave a comment

I facilitate Artists in the Garden, a partnership between The Art Garage and the Green Bay Botanical Garden, Tuesdays 4p-6p. Free to attend. BYO supplies.

Ways you can support my work. 👇🏻

1. Purchase a copy of my photo zine, Genuine Curiosity. I have seven different volumes available on my website, and locally at Lion’s Mouth Bookstore and The Art Garage.

   

2. Shop my Blick Art Materials WISH LIST for me! I use a lot of supplies in my daily art practice and even a few colored pencils go a long way to keep me working and improving my skills. This is a list of some of the items I use most often or would like to add to my practice. 🫶🏻

3. Buy a paid subscription to this Substack. All of my content is free for anyone. A paid subscription helps me pay photo and zine printing costs.

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Like many of the places on the Fox River, Neenah is a mill town - most known for old companies like Neenah Paper Co. and Neenah Foundry.

It’s more infamously known from the 1996 song Where the Hell is Neenah?, by C.W.A. (Cheeseheads With Attitude).

As always happens when I explore the Valley, I found downtown Neenah to be interesting and photogenic. Their downtown library has a main entrance on the waterfront where there is a small harbor for motor boats. Small storefronts are mixed in easily with taller office buildings - with everything being very walkable. Their alleys are tidy with just the right amount of back-of-the-building grunge to peak my interest. Here are some of my snaps from the evening.

I don’t think all cities have a palette - but downtown Neenah definitely does. Due in large part to Neenah Center, three tall office buildings painted a reddish-orange color, I could see complimentary red and green everywhere.

Let me know in the comments which photo is your favorite. Mine is the flag bunting in the narrow walkway between two buildings. As you know - I’m always curious about how we use flags. Here’s a link to an article I posted about it last year.

Tap here to learn more about The Photo Opp.

I facilitate Artists in the Garden, a partnership between The Art Garage and the Green Bay Botanical Garden, Tuesdays 4p-6p. Free to attend. BYO supplies.

Ways you can support my work. 👇🏻

1. Purchase a copy of my photo zine, Genuine Curiosity. I have seven different volumes available on my website, and locally at Lion’s Mouth Bookstore and The Art Garage.

   

2. Shop my Blick Art Materials WISH LIST for me! I use a lot of supplies in my daily art practice and even a few colored pencils go a long way to keep me working and improving my skills. This is a list of some of the items I use most often or would like to add to my practice. 🫶🏻

3. Buy a paid subscription to this Substack. All of my content is free for anyone. A paid subscription helps me pay photo and zine printing costs.

   Subscribe now

   

Some of the images below are uploaded in pairs or groups. Depending on how you are viewing this post, you may need to tap on each tile to see the complete image.

In reviewing my Field Notes from the last four or five weeks, I notice that none of them are from simply wandering. I used to get many of the most interesting ones on walks around my neighborhood. But in the process of getting back to normal after my illness a few months ago, I’ve been running errands and catching up on projects - but NOT roaming around the block on afternoon walks. I’ll have to make a point of revisiting my local sidewalks.

A tale of two gardens…

My neighborhood has a series of sidewalks that connect parallel streets that we call catwalks. Imagine an alley behind houses, but just wide enough for a paved sidewalk. Yesterday I was passing through one of the catwalks and saw these nikes that some kid had forgotten, or abandoned. It made me wonder if they were hiding beneath that tree, or if they had scaled the fence.

Windows

Parked

For as long as I can remember, car issues have been a huge source of anxiety. When I was a kid my parents rarely had reliable vehicles and unaffordable repairs were often the reason that we could not be in the world beyond our neighborhood. In college, after my second rust-bucket junker broke down, I just let it sit in my apartment complex parking space and bought a bus pass to finish out the last few years of college. I couldn’t bear to think about scraping up enough money to have it fixed.

I’m lucky enough to have a decent, reliable car now, but recently I’ve been having power steering issues that two mechanics have been unable to fix. It has given me that same feeling I used to get - though my circumstances have changed. That anxiety has crept into my Field Notes.

Unusual Duos

And Cats …

You can see more of my Field Notes here:

I facilitate Artists in the Garden, a partnership between The Art Garage and the Green Bay Botanical Garden, Tuesdays 4p-6p. Free to attend. BYO supplies.

Ways you can support my work. 👇🏻

1. Purchase a copy of my photo zine, Genuine Curiosity. I have seven different volumes available on my website, and locally at Lion’s Mouth Bookstore and The Art Garage.

   

2. Shop my Blick Art Materials WISH LIST for me! I use a lot of supplies in my daily art practice and even a few colored pencils go a long way to keep me working and improving my skills. This is a list of some of the items I use most often or would like to add to my practice. 🫶🏻

3. Buy a paid subscription to this Substack. All of my content is free for anyone. A paid subscription helps me pay photo and zine printing costs.

   Subscribe now

   

For the best experience, I recommend viewing these images on a device larger than a phone.

This is the second year Pulaski has hosted the championship at their big village park, right next to the Pulaski Polka Days grounds. Many of the 120 kids participating come from rural, or rural-ish places - like Pulaski. In Wisconsin, where hunting traditions run deep, learning to shoot a rifle and a bow are a part of many childhoods. I learned to shoot both in middle school. Though I never took up hunting, I did enjoy stringing my recurve bow and launching arrows into hay bails when I was a teenager.

Here are some of my favorite snaps from the day.

Right away in the morning I hiked through the woods, meeting and watching some of the teenagers. This was such a challenging place to photograph. Never-mind the terrible humidity right as the heat was setting in - the spindly green texture of the forest and dappled light made it really difficult to capture the curve and strings of anyone’s bow. But these older kids were easy to engage with and really demonstrated discipline in the competition.

See more Pulaski photos here 👇🏻

I facilitate Artists in the Garden, a partnership between The Art Garage and the Green Bay Botanical Garden, Tuesdays 4p-6p. Free to attend. BYO supplies.

Ways you can support my work. 👇🏻

1. Purchase a copy of my photo zine, Genuine Curiosity. I have seven different volumes available on my website, and locally at Lion’s Mouth Bookstore and The Art Garage.

   

2. Shop my Blick Art Materials WISH LIST for me! I use a lot of supplies in my daily art practice and even a few colored pencils go a long way to keep me working and improving my skills. This is a list of some of the items I use most often or would like to add to my practice. 🫶🏻

3. Buy a paid subscription to this Substack. All of my content is free for anyone. A paid subscription helps me pay photo and zine printing costs.

   Subscribe now

   

Here are a few of my favorite snaps from tonight.

For the best experience, I recommend viewing these images on a device larger than a phone.

A few weeks ago the market organizers put out some new market rules in their newsletter. The ones highlighted stood out and I wondered if the obnoxious Jesus evangelists - who lecture passersby and shove their printed propoganda at everyone - would be held to them.

It appears the rules do not apply to them.

See my favorite 2025 market snaps here. 👇🏻

I facilitate Artists in the Garden, a partnership between The Art Garage and the Green Bay Botanical Garden, Tuesdays 4p-6p. Free to attend. BYO supplies.

Ways you can support my work. 👇🏻

1. Purchase a copy of my photo zine, Genuine Curiosity. I have seven different volumes available on my website, and locally at Lion’s Mouth Bookstore and The Art Garage.

   

2. Shop my Blick Art Materials WISH LIST for me! I use a lot of supplies in my daily art practice and even a few colored pencils go a long way to keep me working and improving my skills. This is a list of some of the items I use most often or would like to add to my practice. 🫶🏻

3. Buy a paid subscription to this Substack. All of my content is free for anyone. A paid subscription helps me pay photo and zine printing costs.

   Subscribe now

   

For the best experience, I recommend viewing these images on a device larger than a phone.

Some of the images below are uploaded in pairs or groups. Depending on how you are viewing this post, you may need to tap on each tile to see the complete image.

A few days ago we wrapped up the first season of Weekly Sketch at the Art Garage - a local gallery and art space. We created the program to fill the large gap between summers with our popular Artists in the Garden program. We made it free and brewed a pot of coffee each week. I never imagined that meeting up weekly other artists (some old friends, some new) would become such an important part of my art practice. The weekly cadence set the pace of my art time for the rest of the week. It gave me opportunities to share and learn from other artists. And most importantly, it has given me a support network of people who understand the need to create.

Here are some of the sketches I made in May.

Color Swatches and Charts

I indulged in some new materials this month. One of my rituals is to swatch each new pencil, pastel and tube of paint. I do this even when I’m just replenishing a color I use regularly. It warms them up a bit and reminds me not to be too precious with them.

To prepare for more plein air work, I switched up my acrylic paint palette. I use Golden Open paints on the paintings I make in my studio. They’re slow drying so I think they’ll be a good option in the wild too. I spent time making color charts with some of the colors I hadn’t used recently.

ICYMI - here is a little bit about the last painting I completed in studio:

En Plein Air

I’ve been daydreaming about doing some proper plein air art for a long time. I mean, yea - I scratched out some things in my sketchbooks last summer at Artists in the Garden, but I want to be one of those artists that pulls up on a sidewalk and whips out the better part of an urban landscape in an hour. I’ve been practicing in our back yard to build confidence for the city parks.

I saved up for a New Wave u.go pochade box that I’ll be working with next. Read more about this set-up here.

See more of my Sketchbook Galleries here 👇🏻

I facilitate Artists in the Garden, a partnership between The Art Garage and the Green Bay Botanical Garden, Tuesdays 4p-6p. Free to attend. BYO supplies.

Ways you can support my work. 👇🏻

1. Purchase a copy of my photo zine, Genuine Curiosity. I have seven different volumes available on my website, and locally at Lion’s Mouth Bookstore and The Art Garage.

   

2. Shop my Blick Art Materials WISH LIST for me! I use a lot of supplies in my daily art practice and even a few colored pencils go a long way to keep me working and improving my skills. This is a list of some of the items I use most often or would like to add to my practice. 🫶🏻

3. Buy a paid subscription to this Substack. All of my content is free for anyone. A paid subscription helps me pay photo and zine printing costs.

   Subscribe now

   

With each new Real Places painting (as I’ve come to call them), I find myself spending more time contemplating how that place has changed and what those changes might mean for the humans that pass through it. My own engagement with this newly completed piece 👇🏻 goes back to 2021.

In the summer of that year I stumbled upon an old stretch of storefronts while on a day trip to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. In northern Wisconsin we colloquially call it the U.P. - hence the title of the piece. Seven U.P. I’m no stranger to photographing derelict places or piles of trash, but the old soda machine was a shiny gem on this block. I returned to it in 2023 and photographed it again. I used my own reference photos from those two visits to make this painting.

Incidentally, a quick look at google maps tells me that by the summer of 2025, the machine was gone. Not much else on this block has changed so I wonder why it was removed.

I’ve sketched the machine a few times, and even made a whole other piece of artwork - such is the hold it has had on me.

By my estimation, the new work took me 15-20 hours to complete, but done slowly over the course of a month.

The Twin

The first time I visited in 2021, the soda machine had a twin a block away. By the time I returned in 2023, that one was already gone.

See more of my Real Places paintings here:

Ways you can support my work. 👇🏻

1. Purchase a copy of my photo zine, Genuine Curiosity. I have seven different volumes available on my website, and locally at Lion’s Mouth Bookstore and The Art Garage.

   

2. Shop my Blick Art Materials WISH LIST for me! I use a lot of supplies in my daily art practice and even a few colored pencils go a long way to keep me working and improving my skills. This is a list of some of the items I use most often or would like to add to my practice. 🫶🏻

3. Buy a paid subscription to this Substack. All of my content is free for anyone. A paid subscription helps me pay photo and zine printing costs.

   Subscribe now

   

Genuine Curiosity Volume 7 is now available on my website! By the end of this week I’ll have copies available locally at Lion’s Mouth Bookstore and The Art Garage.

My first inspiration for designing and publishing a photo zine was my childhood in a 1980s central Wisconsin trailer park. That was back in 2022. Why did I have to do the work of six previous issues before finally pushing my original idea into the world? There are probably a few reasons for that. First, I had to overcome some anxiety about walking around a trailer park with my camera. In the decades since I lived in one, certain unconscious assumptions settled into my mind about the dangers of poverty. Simply put, I was afraid. Poverty has a lot of anger embedded in it. Anger in our modern experience so often results in violence that I thought loitering in trailer parks might be dangerous. Obviously those fears were irrational and not at all the experience that I’ve had so far. Just like in any other neighborhood, residents were kind and just curious about what I was doing.

Secondly, I wanted to ensure I was honoring my childhood and the life my parents worked so hard to get by in. Those were not easy times for us. We didn’t always have a working car, but we always had food. We sometimes needed public assistance, but the rent always got paid. The images I’ve curated for this edition could easily be a photo directory of my trailer park. The color and mass-produced design of these homes is still, after all these years, so familiar to me. They all invoke childhood memories of building forts, playing tag, and taking our bicycles on wild adventures through the swamp until we got to the sand pit swimming hole. This collection looks like the place where I learned to do so much, with so little. It feels like the loose gravel under my bicycle tires and the scars on my knees from all the times fell off. It is my first kiss, my first love, and my first best friend.

Volume 7 comes with a few changes. I’ve added four pages. The number of photos is about the same, but there is now a title page and a little room for the images to breathe. In addition to my forward, this issue has some thoughts at the end. Here are some excerpts from both:

Want to see some of the photos that didn’t make the cut? Check out this post from late April.

Ways you can support my work. 👇🏻

1. Purchase a copy of my photo zine, Genuine Curiosity. I have six seven 😉 different volumes available on my website, and locally at Lion’s Mouth Bookstore and The Art Garage.

2. Shop my Blick Art Materials WISH LIST for me! I use a lot of supplies in my daily art practice and even a few colored pencils go a long way to keep me working and improving my skills. This is a list of some of the items I use most often or would like to add to my practice. 🫶🏻

3. Buy a paid subscription to this Substack. All of my content is free for anyone. A paid subscription helps me pay photo and zine printing costs.

   Subscribe now

   

For the best experience, I recommend viewing these images on a device larger than a phone.

Some of the images below are uploaded in pairs or groups. Depending on how you are viewing this post, you may need to tap on each tile to see the complete image.

We’ve turned the corner on another season. Even though it’s only 49° as I type this in Green Bay, the warmth of spring is evident in the renewed activity out in my community.

I found this gem while out running errands one day. It has all the vibes of National Lampoons Christmas Vacation. I took several snaps so I can paint it in my sketchbooks too.

I love wooden cloths pins. Sometimes I find them out in the wild.

Watched.

And cats …

You can see more of my Field Notes here:

If you enjoy my posts, consider supporting my work by purchasing a copy of my photo zine, Genuine Curiosity. I have six different volumes available on my website, and locally at Lion’s Mouth Bookstore and The Art Garage.

New Issue Coming Soon!

We Americans wrap a lot of nostalgia up in our cars. I’ve had five of them in my lifetime. I can tell you the circumstances of how and why I came to own each of them. Though I loath how un-walkable cities are that we built around the automobile, I love a car show as much as the next person.

It’s impossible to think about American history without the automobile. Our national infrastructure is literally built for machines on wheels. American popular culture is saturated with themes of cars taking us away from our problems, or straight into happiness. If you’ve lived even a portion of your life in this country - you have memories tied a car, or three. I think those memories are what make car shows such popular events. Personal feelings tied to steel and an open road.

Today I attended a fundraiser car show hosted by a local technical school. I went to get some reference photos to use in my sketchbooks - and I got plenty of them. But the event was so large, with so many people that I couldn’t help but to also artfully capture the midwest edition of one of Americans’ greatest loves.

One of the signature characteristics of a car show is the bright vintage colors - especially red…..candy apple red. I chose to present this gallery in black and white because the colors on a screen, even with a bit of de-saturation, were overwhelming. As always, I’m most interested in the human element of photos. I think in this series, color places the focus squarely, and only on the autos - so I removed it.

Enjoy this small group of snaps. Let me know in the comments what vintage automobile bounces around in your memories.

If you like these photos, check out this post from 2025 about another American cultural trope - baseball.

If you enjoy my posts, consider supporting my work by purchasing a copy of my photo zine, Genuine Curiosity. I have six different volumes available on my website, and locally at Lion’s Mouth Bookstore and The Art Garage.

New issue releasing this month!

For the best experience, I recommend viewing these images on a device larger than a phone.

Some of the images below are uploaded in pairs or groups. Depending on how you are viewing this post, you may need to tap on each tile to see the complete image.

I used this month to get my sketch practice back on track. In addition to it being a really enjoyable activity, it keeps my brain and hands in shape to make larger paintings. (Indeed, I started a new painting last week - watch for a post on that soon!) My sketch community at The Art Garage truly fills my cup and provides so many learning opportunities. At our meet-up last week my pal Paige Nordstrom, a super painter and art instructor at our local university, gave me a simple statement about values that just stuck - always start with your darkest darks. Yea, I know. It seems too simple to NOT know that. But it didn’t really settle with me until she said it just then. And just like that I finally found a footing to improve value differentiation in my work.

Here are some of the sketches I did at our Weekly Sketch meet-ups:

I made that Orchards Mall sketch with my Caran D’Ache NeoArt II water soluble crayons. It led me to do some color charts where I apply different layers of color with the crayons and use a wet brush to mix them on the paper.

I spent a few days in my studio using 1960s Betty Crocker recipe cards as reference images. They’re small, colorful, and have simple shapes. They actually make pretty great warm-up sketches.

Check out some of my other Sketchbook Galleries!

I facilitate a Weekly Sketch night at The Art Garage, Wednesdays 5p-8p. Free to attend. BYO supplies and snacks. It’s a safe space and everyone is welcome.

If you enjoy my posts, consider supporting my work by purchasing a copy of my photo zine, Genuine Curiosity. I have six different volumes available on my website, and locally at Lion’s Mouth Bookstore and The Art Garage.

New issue releasing in May!

Some of you have heard me talking about a trailer park photo zine for a long time. Well I’m finally going to release it next month with Genuine Curiosity - Volume 7!

Of course, I’ve been pushing trailer park art into the world all along. If you’ve seen any of my paintings you know it’s a reoccurring theme. In fact, the trailer homes in my artwork are real ones I photographed. Last spring I published this article about it ⬇️.

So of the hundreds of trailer park photos I have now taken all over Northeast Wisconsin, I pulled out about seventy-five that I liked enough to consider. Then I culled the stack down to about forty. From those forty I played with sequencing until twenty of them created the narrative I was happy with. That left a lot of images that I liked on the cutting room floor. I picked eight of them to share with you here.

Cover Reveal!

Here is the cover for GC7! I’ll be posting right here on Substack when I release the zine sometime in May. It will be available on my website, and eventually at The Art Garage and Lion’s Mouth Bookstore.

If you enjoy my posts, consider supporting my work by purchasing a copy of my photo zine, Genuine Curiosity. I have six different volumes available on my website, and locally at Lion’s Mouth Bookstore and The Art Garage.