Poultry Complex
Posted: January 15, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized 6 CommentsIt’s a bit of a milestone today. This is my 100th post!
I started this project in October as a little experiment to see if I could actually accomplish one sketch a day. And I can really say now that this has changed my life. It’s brought painting and drawing into my every day in a way that I only thought would be possible in my retirement years (what a depressing thought!). And through this I discovered Urban Sketchers, met fellow artists on the Flickr site where I also post and started conversations with people who follow this blog. Quite amazing.
And that leads me to the heading of this post. No, I don’t have any repressed fears about chicken. These yellow buildings are the poultry complex of McGill University’s Faculty of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences in Ste. Anne de Bellevue.
Shari, let me be the first to congratulate you on “scoring your first century” (that’s a cricket term which someone in Canada has probably never heard) and you did it in such style with this delightful sketch. I am eagerly looking forward to your “second century” as, I am sure, are many of your followers.
Keep up the great work!
Thanks Ross!
Congratulations on your 100th post! I’ve been enjoying them since Marco Holmes posted a link to your blog. It’s been a real treat seeing your posts each day. Thank you!
Thanks Vicky!
Well done Shari! 100 continuous days is quite a milestone.
I would be interested in what your sense of progress has been with this frequent practice.
Hi John,
I don’t know if you want to know anything specific about the progress but here are my general impressions divided into categories.
Painting: Drawing and painting are really about seeing. Now that I am doing this every day, when I look at a scene now I instinctively know what values are going to be where. In other words, where the lights and darks will be in these mini paintings (because I still think of them more as paintings than as sketches). I also know what elements to keep and what the eliminate in the painting.
Colour: It is getting much easier to get the colour I want right away rather than mucking around in the palette a whole lot. I think the colours are cleaner because of this.
Drawing: Definitely getting better and easier.
Watercolour: For me the perfect painting is when I touch every surface of the paper that I want pigment on only once. That means getting it right in the beginning. Painting every day is making this better. The sketch I did in Miami of the lifeguard shack is a successful example of this for me. There are not a lot of areas that have been painted over and over.
I hope that helps but if there is anything specific just ask and I can share.
Shari