What do you call it?

I love when I’m painting on the street and a passerby gives me a little tidbit of information about what I am painting. Especially since sometimes I’m not really sure what I am going to write for the day’s post. Today I was mostly thinking “What can I say about these weeds on the side of the road?” But the polite gentleman who stopped to have a gander over my shoulder did have a little knowledge about the white weeds. It wasn’t the name of them — that was what I wanted to know, although now that I have had a second look I think they may be Queen Anne’s lace — no, what he remembered about these plants was that when he was a child he used to snap off the flower heads and use the hollow stems as peashooters. And yes, I do know that the orange ones are daylilies.

The garden at Antoine Pilon House

Drawing thumbnails is quite helpful to me. It gives me a chance to really look at things, to decide if they are worth investing time in and also to see if the place I have chosen will be a good spot to spend some time in. This morning I wandered around the village of Pointe Claire with my folding stool, hoping to find a nice facade to draw. The day is cloudy and the light is flat but I did a few quick sketches of a building, including a closeup of the doorway and even a sketch of that unique Montreal architectural symbol — the outdoor staircase. In the end I decided to move on because none of the thumbnails seemed interesting enough to take to the next step (although I may go back to draw the staircase on a sunny day.)

A little further along the road I noticed the fence at Maison Antoine Pilon. Yes, cliché, I know. Little house, picket fence, flowers tumbling. A bit too cute. But I couldn’t resist the white shapes against the dark green so I drew it anyway.

Yesterday

Yesterday started with a downpour (while I was out sketching) and ended with a flood (in my basement). In the middle I did this sketch. If it looks a little watery it’s because my car studio turned into a sauna during the rain (which came down so hard that I couldn’t crack open the windows, not even a little bit) and it’s hard to get things to dry in a sauna.

Cormorant

June was such a busy month, filled with workshops and Urban Sketcher events, and I still haven’t posted some paintings from my recent trip to Rockport, Mass. I painted this one at the end of the day facing the breakwater at the end of Bearskin Neck. I probably started to paint around 5 pm and by the time I finished it was near 7 and quite chilly. At day’s end all the tourists walk along the rocks of the breakwater, and I suppose the cormorant likes to watch them because he sat there for a very long time. Painted on Arches 140 lb cold pressed paper, 22″ x 15″.

Urban Sketching Day at Stewart Hall

A big thanks to everyone at Stewart Hall who hosted our Urban Sketchers Day in the park, as well as the vernissage that followed. Over 80 sketchers spent the day (and the weather couldn’t have been better for us) drawing the building, the lake, the trees and each other. At the end of the day the sketches were hung in the gallery where they will remain on display for July and August. We’ve never had such a huge turnout for one of our events, and we even had visiting sketchers from Vermont, Toronto and Quebec City! If you’re in Montreal and you have a chance to visit the exhibit, it’s worth it to see the great variety of work that was produced during the course of a few short hours. Stewart Hall is located at 176 Lakeshore Road in Pointe Claire.

Montebello workshop: a short recap

I’ve just returned from hosting a three-day location sketching workshop in Montebello, Quebec. It’s the first time I’ve organized an event like this where everyone stays at the same hotel, sketches together all day and enjoys dinners after the workshop. I really enjoyed the experience of getting to know the participants (some have attended previous workshops and others were new) because instead of everyone going our separate ways in the evening, we had a chance to eat, talk and discuss the day’s painting.

My idea for the three days was to spend one day painting landscape, one painting water (the grounds of the hotel are on the Ottawa River) and one doing a street scene. This demo of rocks and trees is from the first day, when we painted landscapes. On the second day the plan was to paint the waterfalls at Plaisance but in Quebec, in the summer, plans don’t always work out because the weather can alternate between downpour and torrential rain — and true to form, it did. Instead of painting inside the hotel, we grouped ourselves under the awnings of the outdoor terrace and painted looking out at the gazebo and the (sopping) hotel gardens. As you can see in the photos below, that day’s critique was held around the hotel’s iconic hexagonal fireplace. The (sunny) final day was spent drawing the little houses along the main street in the village of Montebello. A great group of experienced artists made the teaching really fun, and it’s certainly a format I’d like to repeat (minus the rain!).

Picnic Vernissage

I’m really thrilled to be part of the City of Pointe Claire’s Picnic Vernissage this Sunday, July 5. In collaboration with the Stewart Hall Art Gallery, Urban Sketchers Montreal will host a sketching day on the grounds of Stewart Hall Park starting at 10 am and everyone is invited to sketch with us. At the end of the day we’ll exhibit our sketches from the day in the gallery.

At the same time, starting at 2 pm, we’ll have the opening of the exhibit “A Sketch in Time”. Along with Jane Hannah and Marc Taro Holmes, I’ll be exhibiting sketches and sketchbooks in the Project Room of the Gallery.

The weather for Sunday is looking great — warm and sunny — so I hope to see you there. There will even be live music and ice cream from noon onwards!

Water line

How much can you achieve with one wash of colour? In this ink and wash sketch, I wanted to convey the image of the pole, ladder and granite blocks that are pale at the top but dark and moss-covered at the bottom where the tide waters go up and down each day. I started with an ink drawing and then painted with a wash that was quite light at the top. As I painted downward I kept adding paint into the lower wet area— blue, green and rust all combined to give that mossy effect. When that initial wash dried, I painted the cast shadows and a bit more texture on the upper rocks. The little darks between the rocks were the final step. I suppose I could have painted it rock by rock but I wanted it to look like my sheet had been dipped in dark water — more like the pole and the ladder had been— and this seemed like more of an effective way to do it. Sketched in a Travelogue Watercolor Journal, 5″ x 8″.

Sirop d’érable

On this really cold and rainy day at the end of June it warmed my heart to see how many people came out to Urban Sketchers Montreal Sunday sketching. Truthfully, I wondered if anyone would show up in such miserable weather but there were at least a dozen of us diehards (parkas and scarves and rubber boots on) and even some new faces. Even though we were sheltered from the rain at the Jean Talon Market, it was still mighty blustery. This coming September will be the third anniversary for our Montreal group and it’s great to see that it’s still growing.

Canola

There’s nothing more vibrant than a field of canola in bloom. I was visiting a friend who moved to a house in an agricultural area and this is what I could see from her back deck. If I lived there, I’d paint that view and the vast sky just about every day. This was sketched on some Canson paper left over from my Craftsy course preparation — long strips of paper that are perfect for little landscapes.