Swamp shakeup

It’s good to shake things up sometimes, get out of your comfort zone, go a little crazy with paint and see what happens. Last week I painted this same scene of a boggy area in Mount Royal Park but made a design error by spacing the trees out too evenly, like little soldiers. I wanted to paint the swamp again and figured I had nothing to lose by using the back of another unsuccessful painting. There are some pencil lines for the main trees but other than that I just wanted to give the impression of the bog and the deep woods so I wet the sheet on both sides and let the paint and water flow. It’s a little rectangle of green chaos but I’m happy I lost control of this for many reasons. 1. It’s the only way to learn what the paint will do. 2. It made me realize just how much pigment you can put on wet paper. 3. It was really fun to try something new. Colours: Mostly Hooker’s Green and Indranthrene Blue with a bit of Cerulean Blue, Yellow Ochre and Burnt Umber. Brushes: Simmons 1″ synthetic flat and Escoda Versatil Synthetic Sables which are turning out to be excellent brushes.

The kindness of neighbours

I must have looked a bit suspicious standing on the side of the street scribbling in a notebook. So suspicious that the owner of the house approached to find out if I was some sort of town inspector fining her for leaving these bowls by the curb. But the story is that after walking by this arrangement for many days I just had to carry my sketchbook on a dog walk and stop to record it. Last year I noticed the bowl of water for thirsty dogs and this spring there’s a new addition of a bowl of cookies. Let me correct that — a fine selection of cookies. Along with a bit of advertising, I guess due to recent scares of tainted dog treats. These bowls go in at night and come back out in the morning with fresh water and a new choice of treats. This may be a common sight in your neighbourhood but not in mine!

Versatile

I’ve been waiting to test out the new VERSÀTIL brushes by Escoda, so imagine my delight when I found them spread out on the counter at my favourite art supply store in Montreal, ready to be priced. These are synthetic sable — good for watercolour as well as acrylics and oil — and supposed to perform as well as the real Kolinsky sable, with the added bonus of costing half as much. I tried them out in my sketchbook today and they responded really well. They hold lots of juicy wash and are very springy but the real test will be using them on a big sheet of watercolour paper which I hope to do tomorrow. The only drawback that I can see so far is that if you want a big round brush (#20 or 22) the handle is way too fat. I bought a size 18 which fits comfortably in my hand. Available at Avenue des Arts in Montreal and probably online at major art suppliers.

A thousand chimes

It wasn’t the sparkling white decks or the vivid sail covers that I noticed most when I walked towards this view of the yacht club. In fact it wasn’t anything visual at all. As I approached the little harbour today it was the noise that made the biggest impression. Creaking wood, squeaking pulleys, lapping waves all combined to create the sound of a thousand chimes that played for me while I sketched.

Saturday in the park

We are so fortunate in Montreal to have a mountain (some say it’s a hill, but to me it’s a mountain) in the center of our city. Especially fortunate to have a park on the mountain that was landscaped by Frederick Law Olmstead. Maybe it’s because we wait so long for these perfect days, but we Montrealers REALLY use our park. On weekends you’ll see multi-generational families laying out huge spreads on picnic tables, people walking and people jogging, crowding the wide paths that eventually lead to the lookout at the top, teenagers in short shorts taking in the sun and even the occasional man selling ice cream. The park is used in all seasons, really, but it is only in the summer that you get the sense that it is a real celebration.

Marc Taro Holmes and I have been painting in the park quite a bit these days because we’re organizing a joint event next year with USk Montreal and Les Amis de la Montagne. In preparation for that we’ll be sketching the park in all seasons, starting with the spring. More info will be coming about that as we finalize the event details.

Garden composition

It’s a dull day outdoors in the garden but if you look at it with pattern and value in mind I think it’s possible to create something despite the lack of lights and darks. When I’m creating a value plan like this one (this happens to be in colour but it could also be in black and white) I’m thinking about several things: what are the big shapes, where is the light and dark, what is the centre of interest and can I introduce a dominant colour, direction or line? If I do this part right, then when I make this into a bigger painting I will have a direction to move towards.

So what was I thinking when I did this (besides how buggy it is on a cloudy day in June)? First of all, where is the pattern of lights? In this case I wanted it to be a curved shape that flowed horizontally through the picture. The white shape at the left is Queen Anne’s lace but instead of drawing every flower I massed it into a big light shape. As a contrast to the curve, I used the diagonals of the birch tree. Like most garden scenes, the dominant colour is green but this is where colour temperature comes in. The foliage at the left is warmer (more yellow) and as it moves towards the right it gets cooler and duller until it mixes with the purple. To create unity, I repeated that bit of purple in several places in the sketch so that it wouldn’t be isolated in one spot. I also repeated the foliage shapes but changed size as I went along. Big on the bottom, smaller on the left and very small at the top.

For the most part I think this could make a successful composition for a painting. What will I change in the final? I’m not that happy with the shapes of the purple flowers at the lower left quadrant. Those shapes need to be clarified or defined more. I’m also not totally pleased with the large dark shape of the leaf overhang in the upper right. I will have to make that a better shape too. Let’s see what happens when I turn this into a painting sometime soon…

The opening act

I have taken my sketchbook to concerts in the past, but usually I find somewhere to sit and I manage to find a bit of light to draw by, so last night was bit of a challenge. I drew R&B singer James Hunter (the opening act) in the dark, while standing, with just a little bit of light on my sheet from one of the wall sconces. The main event was Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings but by that time she arrived we were shoulder to shoulder on the floor area near the stage. And besides that, Sharon Jones is a fire-ball of energy so I gave up and just enjoyed the show.

Poppies today

I saw a huge bed of poppies in Pointe Claire on Sunday and made a mental note to get back there quickly to sketch them before they go. This morning the weatherman was predicting heavy rain and thunder showers which could mean that these will be damaged by tonight. As I write this the sky to the west is a menacing blue-black so I’m glad I captured them in time. Painted on a 1/4 sheet of Fabriano soft press paper.

Maison Smith

A few weeks ago our USk Montreal group met at Maison Smith to sketch on the mountain but it was so crowded that there was no viewpoint to see the building through the cars and people. Marc Holmes and I went back to the mountain again today and spent a bit of time at the end of the day sketching Maison Smith, without the cars and crowds. Marc painted a spectacular panorama on two sheets of watercolour paper, especially impressive because he went straight to brush with no pencil lines at all. I don’t have that kind of confidence with architecture so I started with a bit of pencil. The light was pretty flat when we started out but the sun came out near the end of our time there and gave me a few shadows to work with.  Painted on Fabriano 140 lb paper, 10″ x 13″.

John in the sun

John was enjoying the sun so much at the outdoor café today that he didn’t even notice that he was the model. Because of his sunglasses I couldn’t tell if he was having a snooze or looking right at me. When I showed him the drawing he told me that he had been painted before and the painting was in a gallery nearby, but I never made it over there to see it. Sketched on the street in Burlington, Vermont, in a handbook journal with a Tombow water-soluble marker and a Koi waterbrush.