A.T. Inspired: Morris Jensen

"Setting Off," by Morris Jensen. This painting will be in our auction.

Morris Jensen loves to travel and paint. His sketches and paintings have recorded journeys in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Spain, the U.S., Canada, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Iraq, Thailand, Vietnam, Kenya, France, Greece and Corsica. Jensen comes to the States this year to hike the A.T. in Virginia, sketching as he walks. He'll bring his new pictures to the festival's "Art of the Trail" show. We asked Jensen about his art and hiking.

Does sketching enhance your hiking experience?
I hike to sketch; nowadays, I rarely go out hiking or walking without taking a sketchbook. When sketching, I stop and get to see all sorts of things others may miss. As I sit quietly, the kingfisher returns to its fishing perch, the deer, having been spooked by a group passing by, returns to drink. The hardest thing to do, especially if hiking in a group, is to stop and sketch. You feel bad for holding the others up; so, let them go ahead and share the art with them later.

What sort of sketches do you do on the trail? 
Mainly atmospheric rather than realistic. It depends a lot on the subject. An atmospheric sketch can only be captured at the moment; a realistic painting can be reproduced later from a photo.

Other types of sketches that I like to do and ones I like to give away are 8x6-inch postcards of simple views as I’m hiking along, a hill crest, a fallen tree, or stump, a small bridge. I can then add a person's figure to these sketches at camp on an evening or on zero days. I attach my contact details to the back to stay in touch. And sometimes I get commissions this way.

What art supplies do you carry with you on a hike? 
There's no one best kit to carry—as all trips differ from each other albeit a day hike, a few days camping or a six-week Camino trip. Now, I’ve seriously had to rethink my kit for my three-month Appalachian Trail project, mainly because I need to be able to carry everything I'll need along the trail, including food and water.

I will carry two paint boxes, both designed for travelling. My first holds 14 pans and is for general painting. The second—a Painters Pocket Palette—holds 12 colours for mixing more greens, greys and earth colours, plus a few reds. (My go-to red is Alizarin Crimson.) You need to know your colour wheel and keep the old paint in your paint box corners for those greys needed to paint tree branches, rocks and rainy skies.

I am not a brush snob; I take old brushes, cut them down to about six inches and throw them into a zip bag. I'll carry large and small flat brushes, various rounds, a short and a long rigger and a trimmed fan.

By far the heaviest thing I carry is paper, so it's best to give it away. I cut and carry about 60, 8x6-inch rectangular sheets of watercolour to paint on and give away as gifts or exchange for beer, snicker bars and tea bags.
 
Other items I carry are sponges, a folding water pot, a kneading eraser, a viewfinder, a spray bottle and a folding seat. I also bring a craft knife for trimming pencils to a chiselled edge. This all adds to my weight, which is why I need a separate front pack. All in all it weighs about 2 kilos/ 3.5 lbs. 

What will you be working on as you hike?
I'll be sketching many more scenes than painting them because it puts less pressure on me to produce full watercolours. I'll also carry a small sketchbook  for details like fallen trees, the fire pit next to a shelter, a lone privy and the interesting old bridges. Also, local fauna and flora. All these subjects can, with the aid of photo references, be added to a full painting  once I’m back home in my studio. This leaves my main sketchbook free for fuller scenes.
 
I will do a few full watercolours, as show pieces for the A.T. Festival, and for this I will need a dozen or so sheets of high quality paper. This needs to be transported in a lightweight but solid case to avoid damage and humidity.

Pen and wash is primarily an urban sketching technique that can be adapted for landscapes. Using  a permanent ink pen I first draw the subject before filling in the colour, a handy method to capture details in topics such as stone and wood shelters and sign posts.

---