Sarah Rabkin

2011 WORKSHOPS with SARAH RABKIN

NATURE SKETCHING

Saturday, April 30, 2011, 11 a.m. – 4 p.m. Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History 1305 East Cliff Drive Santa Cruz, CA 95062 Link

Do you enjoy the Museum’s natural science illustration exhibits? Do you envy the ability to capture nature’s details in vibrant images? Science illustration techniques take years to master, but the essential quality that makes this art so compelling—a capacity for enthusiastic attentiveness—is already yours. This workshop introduces tools for creating your own alluring visual record of a day spent observing the natural world.

WILD WORDS in the MONO BASIN Friday, June 17, 2011, 1:30-5:00 p.m. 10th Annual Mono Basin Bird Chautauqua Mono Lake, Lee Vining, & the Eastern Slope www.birdchautauqua.org

For lovers of landscape, language, and life, the wildly varied Mono Basin can be one endless writing invitation. This workshop offers outdoor writing exercises to sharpen our attention, pique our curiosities, and coax our best words into the world. Bring a notebook and writing implement, and (if you like) a portable field stool, chair, or pad. We'll make time to write, to discuss, and (always optional) to share.

SKETCHING WHAT YOU SEE

Saturday, June 18, 2011, 1:30-5:00, Mono Basin Bird Chautauqua

Do you yearn to capture nature’s details in vibrant images? Science illustration techniques take years to master, but the essential quality that makes this art so compelling—a capacity for enthusiastic attentiveness—is already yours. This workshop introduces simple tools for creating your own alluring visual record of a day afield. Beginners are most welcome. Bring a notebook, pen, and pencil and a portable field stool, chair, or pad.

NATURE JOURNALS for INDEPENDENT LEARNERS

Thursday-Sunday afternoon, July 7-10, 2011 San Francisco State University Sierra Nevada Field Campus 35400 Highway 49, Sattley, CA jrblair@sfsu.edu Link

Curiosity, attentiveness, and time spent afield with a notebook are among the best natural history teachers. This workshop provides instruction and practice in basic science concepts as well as simple sketching and writing techniques that will hone your powers of observation and discovery.

HIGH COUNTRY WRITING RETREAT

Monday-Friday, July 11-15, 2011 San Francisco State University Sierra Nevada Field Campus 35400 Highway 49, Sattley, CA jrblair@sfsu.edu Link

This retreat enables new and experienced writers alike to take inspiration from the Sierra's spiced air and rushing waters. Opportunities abound for both solitude and collegiality. Group sessions provide guidance and prompts as well as time to write and share work without judgment. Unstructured periods allow for individual writing, wandering, and optional instructor conferences. You determine the focus and form as well as the amount of writing you produce. Bring a writing project in progress, an empty notebook, or both.

WRITING THE IMAGE, DRAWING THE TEXT

Friday, August 5, 2011 Sitka Center for Art & Ecology 56605 Sitka Drive, Otis, OR 97368 info@sitkacenter.org Link

Art that’s gratifying to make and to behold often jumps the fence between genres. We will paint images in language and draw pictures from words. Willy-nilly sketching and drafting will complement our experiments with attractive page design. Each participant will create illuminated notebook pages vibrant with ideas. Work in any easily portable media, such as graphite pencil, colored pencil, pen and ink, watercolor, markers.

WRITING at the EDGE Saturday, August 6-Sunday, August 7, 2011 Sitka Center for Art & Ecology 56605 Sitka Drive, Otis, OR 97368 info@sitkacenter.org Link

At the lip of a continent or the limits of propriety, edges are jumping-off places—unsettling and exhilarating. On the edge of the lava flow that forms Cascade Head, we will write poetry and prose inspired by edges of all kinds. Instruction will connect writers with whatever’s poised to take flight.

Sarah Rabkin is an award-winning instructor in writing and environmental studies at UC Santa Cruz. The author and illustrator of What I Learned at Bug Camp: Essays on Finding a Home in the World (Juniper Lake Press, May 2011), she has led scores of workshops on writing and art. She has a bachelor’s degree in biology from Harvard University and a graduate certificate in science communication from UC Santa Cruz.