Sketchbook Sunday with TOAF & BAL: Sarah Nelson

Now based in Los Angeles, California, Sarah Nelson’s creative practice connects art-making to the beauty of the natural world. Past projects and exhibitions have included illustrations aimed to educate and inspire environmental awareness, while her client-focused designs have helped organizations and fellow creatives, like the International Association For Refugees and sustainable designers like Viska and Odd Bird Co., develop unique visual identities. In April 2021, Nelson will sail through the Arctic Ocean as part of the Arctic Circle Artist-in-Residence program. You can keep up with her newest artworks on Instagram and snag one of her illustrations through her online shop.   

You write in your 2018 sketchbook, “Auslandish,” that this book is “the documentation of the unseen elements of adventures.” Can you speak about what inspired you to fill these pages and your process in creating these illustrations? 

“Auslandish” was a visual style born the summer I first felt anything resembling the feeling of being “home.” Having grown up overseas, home felt like a foreign concept. When I finally got a glimpse of it, I wanted to cherish it and document it. I quickly realized that simply drawing the scenes left me feeling like so much of the truly special magic to that summer was lost in translation. 

I went a little wild, and I started adding mythical creatures, swirls, bold colors and patterns—the things I felt—even if they were things we didn’t technically see. As I added these elements, I found myself smiling and laughing out loud. For me, it was not only capturing the joy I had felt, but prolonging it. 

After that summer, I continued the series, depicting other places that mattered to me like, state and national Parks, and cities I had visited and wanted to remember. All of this led to the “Auslandish” sketchbook in the Sketchbook Project collection. It is a series of places I love, vignettes of memories scattered around the country, and elements of the unseen magic I found in them. 

What role do sketchbooks and journaling play in your daily art practice? Are you currently keeping a sketchbook? 

Currently, I am keeping a sketchbook that I initially called my “joy book.” It was meant to fuel my observational skills and collect ideas, colors, images, and experiences that I found inspiring. Now it is just a very raw sketchbook. A carrier for drawings and ideas I love and have grown beyond those pages, and some that I am embarrassed to have in the collection. But having a place where ideas can be tested, where inspiration can rest indefinitely, and turn into something, possibly even decades later, is a priceless investment into a creative career.

A sketchbook is like soil.  As things go into it they become one of two things: seeds or compost. The things that die in that collection become nutrients for future works, the things that thrive, grow beyond the page where it was born. It all has a place. 

How did you get into art-making? Specifically, what drew you to illustration? 

In some ways, I am still trying to figure out how I ended up here! It feels like I was in a river growing up, and it just kept bending and leading me more and more into the direction of art. It doesn’t feel like it was so much a choice as something that just happened slowly over time. I would gravitate towards art classes. Even in college, I was supposed to be a social work major, and somehow got away with filling my schedule with art courses, until suddenly I realized, in order to graduate, I was going to have to be an art major!

What initially drew me to the illustration world, is how it can be collaborative, it can be fun, provocative, philosophical, it has such a depth of life to it that felt so freeing to discover. I also loved the life a work could have after I was done drawing. It’s destination wasn’t always a frame on a wall in a home or a gallery. It could be on a can, a shirt, a news article, a bed spread, it could be a book, in a store, in your home, for your Mom, for you, for your child. It is a medium that seems to truly be for the people, all people. It isn’t something that you have to seek out, via a gallery or museum. In so many ways, it comes to you. I love that. 

My first dabble with illustration was via the Auslandish series, and that grew into a small company that I held (and still operate but under a slightly broader umbrella of services and styles). The series opened up a new world of creativity for me that I am forever grateful for and still enjoy creating within. 

What does your current workspace look like? How do your surroundings help you stay motivated (or get through creative blocks)?

My creative work space has always had a big influence on my work! Currently, I operate out of my in-home studio in our apartment in Los Angeles. My drafting table sits in the corner of our sunlit bedroom pushed up against a big window looking out at the rest of the apartment building, but mostly at the sky. I love it. My work space has always been a part of my bedroom in my home. Someday, that will change, but it’s worked so far! 

I learned quickly that I needed to create as few barriers between me and the ability to create as possible. I love having a studio in our home. It’s also why I chose to focus on drawing. Pencils, pens, and paper were the most accessible medium to me throughout my growing up and as a broke artist early in my career. 

I think the greatest help to getting over creative blocks has been learning how to separate myself from work when it is in my home, and learning how to take risks. If I am feeling creatively stuck or drained in my current work, I like to try something totally new: a new color palette, a new subject matter, a new size, a new medium—all of it helps break away cobwebs. Taking walks, moving to different parts of the apartment, etc, have also become important rhythms to staying motivated and not burning out. 

A recurring theme in many of your pieces, like your ongoing publication series This Amazing Planet, is the diverse beauty of animals in ecosystems around the world. Why did you begin to incorporate the natural world into the art you create? Was that something always at the forefront of your creative practice? 

I love this question. After I started Auslandish in 2016, I was invited to do a solo exhibition with a brand new nature and arts collective in the Midwest: Natural Heritage Project. The founder asked me to do a show on endangered species in the northern part of the Midwest. It was my first solo exhibit. I was doing nothing in that vein at the time, and have no idea why they chose me (or how they found me), but the process of working on that exhibit changed my life. 

I loved camping and being in nature, but I was very unaware of the condition of our planet. In preparation for the show, I dove deep into research on the endangered species and other environmental concerns around the globe. It opened my eyes. I became hooked on trying to learn and understand our natural world better, and how to better care for and protect it. 

The natural world and its beautiful intricacy has become my primary focus for all of my personal work. I have done a few solo exhibits on various environmental topics, like symbiosis and endangered species, and I started a free fully illustrated digital publication! 

In my enthusiasm, I wanted to share what I was learning. I wanted to make it fun for people, and to be honest about circumstances, but to focus on the incredibly rich and beautiful planet we get to call home. I really believe that if we get to know our home better, the more we will love it and want to care for it. I feel like This Amazing Planet is one of my efforts to reach all ages and get them as excited and in awe of our planet as I have become.  

Many of your commercial projects, from illustrations for small businesses to larger scale works (like your Earth Week design for Metro Transit), are driven by the unique needs of clients. What is your process for visualizing and planning these projects, especially in the early stages of development?

One of my favorite parts of working as an illustrator is working with diverse businesses and organizations! I always start with a conversation, listening to the client describe their need and vision first hand is so important to me. I want to hear what they emphasize, what they are vague about, and what they are most excited about.

I have found that a lot of times people don’t know what is possible. Usually they either envision something that is impossible to illustrate in the way they hoped and need help sussing out the core values and finding a new visual language for their project, or they need help imagining the range of possibilities. I like to throw ideas into the air and see what gets them to light up and what ideas seem to bounce off. My goal is to find the core visuals of the project, whether it is a shape, a color, an object, etc, and work from there. I then send them a wide range of sketched ideas for them to process and for us to build off of. Mixed into that initial conversation is always the constraint of budget and time. It is the dance of bringing an idea and illustration to life.

The Earth Week Light Rail project with Metro Transit and the University of St. Thomas’s Sustainable Community Partnership, was one of the most amazing and insanely challenging projects I have ever worked on. I had four weeks to complete the project, and a wide range of clients to satisfy. I was also drawing digitally for the first time and had to learn Adobe Draw while on the project in order to have a vector file that could be scaled to the size of the full train car!

First, I met with students who were doing research for Metro Transit. I worked with them to come up with a visual for the train car’s exterior. I met with them several times, drawing as they verbally processed ideas. I would challenge certain elements and offer suggestions, but it was their idea to do the life cycle of the monarch butterfly! It was meant to represent the wide range of life that depends on public transportation. Next, I met with Metro Transit to discuss the interior.Their goal was to connect their riders to nature, celebrate our planet, and their community. Minnesota loves it’s seasons, it’s cities, it’s many many lakes, and it’s wildlife. I decided to fit as much of that in as I could. There was no time to get a sketch approved, so I had to commit and use my best judgement and keep them in the loop as I progressed. 

I drew personified animals, native to Minnesota, visiting the state’s parks and landmarks. Throughout the length of the train car, the illustration changed seasons and from dawn to night. I finally finished the project, completing 400 hours of illustration in 4 weeks, and it went off to the printer. On Earth Day, and for months afterwards, every inch of the walls of the car—even the ceilings were covered in this extensive illustration. It turns out that when you cover something that people use every day, in fun colors and little stories, that it brightens people’s day. 

Who or where do you go to look for inspiration?

I think this is changing for me. In other seasons of life (pre-pandemic) conversations and interactions, museums, long walks, camping trips, the news, social media, all fed my creative mind. Now, as our world has shrunk to the square footage of our apartment, I am diving more and more into the internet’s wealth of inspiration: Instagram, Behance, the news, Skillshare, and then I am also enjoying books and podcasts! 

I am also trying to learn how to break down familiar spaces and take creative ingredients from them. I am trying to tune into the subtlety of what I see every day and find things that I can glean and can grow into something. 

How have present circumstances impacted your creativity? Do you have any advice for those struggling to make art right now? 

This is a powerful question in these times. I have become more observant. Because everything is repetitive, the same setting, the same routines, the same views, that repetition is becoming something I am learning to see the subtle beauty in. Shadows, light, the sounds of our neighbors, and when I do get groceries, or take a short walk, everything feels new and bright. It has started to make my work much more introspective. 

My most recent work has been a far cry from anything I am known for creating. In April, I decided, on a whim, that I would throw myself a solo exhibit by turning my apartment into a gallery, and live-streaming an opening event. I had no plan for a new body of work, but I announced it on social media and committed myself to the idea. I ended up creating a show called “The Outside.” All of the drawings are small scale and were of the views from my (then) ground level, courtyard-facing, apartment. I drew from observation. 

It came together as three series: The first set was 10 drawings on 3.5x5” in paper of the views as I saw them. The second was the same views but on 5x7” paper and covered in jungle and overgrowth. The third set was more abstract. They were drawings of documented shadows at various times of day, filled in colors that I missed. Each drawing was then paired with a handwritten letter that told vignettes from my quarantine experience so far. 

I invited everyone on social media to tune in at a specific time and date, to dress up, to drink their favorite drink, and together we celebrated an evening of art and storytelling. It was a really fun event, and the act of working on a show that helped me process this season of life was deeply impactful. I grew as an artist and as a person. 

I think trying to stay normal in times that are so far from what used to be was hindering my ability to create and grow into whatever and whoever I continue to become. My advice to anyone who is feeling the struggle to create right now, is that I hope you take the time to adapt. Things are not as they were, therefore there is a good chance that the creative you were, is changing a little too. Create from where you are at. Rest when you need to rest. If you do feel creative, take risks. This is uncharted territory and may be a good time to try things you may not have otherwise thought to or dared to. More than anything, have grace for yourself.