Lemon lime

The day started out full of promise. No classes, no grading, no meetings. A day at home that could begin with a sketch. Nothing too ambitious, just something to get me back into painting again. But it didn’t go as well as anticipated. I started and restarted and then started again. Changing subjects, changing tools, changing palettes. It just wasn’t working out for me, and I couldn’t figure out why. And then it came to me. It was all about pace. Working life has one pace for me — fast. But the pace for painting and drawing and looking is different. It’s much slower. And it’s sometimes hard to transition between the two. To slow down enough to draw carefully, to think about what you are doing, and to really look at things. But I was persistent. I slogged through the duds, and in the end it was my lemon lime still life that saved my day.

Bare

Isn’t the weather strange in Montreal? Around this date last year, I was painting the snowy view from my window.  But this week it has been eerily balmy (global warming?  El Niño??) and there were some December temperature records broken (warm ones of course). The driver/dog walker in me likes the dry roads, but the painter part of me is longing for the snow to fall. With this muted landscape, I find myself drawn to the complexities of an individual object like a tree, this one painted on a quarter sheet of beautiful Two Rivers paper  — a gift from a sketcher visiting from Yorkshire who painted with our Urban Sketchers Montreal group in September. Thanks again Terry.

Wind down

My teaching semester is winding down. There’s light at the end of the tunnel. Some free time in sight. Two more classes to teach, a few meetings, a pile of projects to grade and then…hopefully some days to paint and draw in the next few weeks before classes start up again in January. Alice, on the other hand, has a much lighter workload, and she agreed to pose for me today.

“Sketching the City” is live!

I’m really thrilled to announce that my second online class “Sketching the City” went live today on Craftsy.com. I had a lot of input for the content of this one and I tried to include a lessons about each of the things I love to work on when I sketch in urban settings — drawing facades, adding details to windows and doors, sketching poles and wires, and painting shadows. Like my first class “Sketching Landscapes”, there are seven lessons in the 2.5 hour class and you’ll see me draw in pen and ink, and then add watercolour to my drawings.

If you’ve never taken a Craftsy class before, you should check them out.  As an instructor, I have to admit that I enjoy the interactive process of seeing people’s sketches and getting to answer questions. As a student, you have lifetime access to the classes you buy, and you can watch the courses on your computer, iPad or phone, at your own pace. You can also ask questions to the instructors and post your projects.

As I did with my first video, I’m offering a 50% off link to readers of this blog. I hope you enjoy the class!

Nord Sud Est Ouest

If you live in Montreal you probably recognize this view. You see it as you drive south on Clark Street, just before the underpass to get into Mile End. The rusty water tower stands out starkly against the sky, and I’ve always wanted to sketch it. New York City has tons of these rooftops reservoirs, but there aren’t many in Montreal, and on a Sunday morning you can sometimes find a spot to park where you can see the tower. As I was sketching I realized that I didn’t know much about the building it sits on. I could just make out the faded word “Warehouse” on the brick but not much more, and because the structure in sandwiched between a one-way street and some railway tracks, I’ve probably never gotten very close to it. Back home, a little Google sleuthing turned up little more. The building is called St. Lawrence Warehouse but most of what I found were links to a musical collective of the same name. So what was this warehouse used for? What’s in there now? Still hoping to find out more.

Beauty or the beasts?

At the grocery store this afternoon everyone was fighting to fill their bags with persimmons because the price was so cheap. I’ve never tried them so I bought a few to eat, but the real motivation was to sketch them first. I got home, unpacked them, set them up on my table and there they were, all orange and shiny and perfect… and totally uninspiring. On the other side of my kitchen was an uneaten pear that had been bumped and bruised in my lunch bag, and a bunch of browning bananas that will inevitably end up in smoothies or some sort of cake. And because decay is more interesting than perfection, I chose to draw the rotting fruit and go directly to eating the persimmons.

Street fog

It’s that in between season when we alternate between rainy days and snow. I missed painting the first snowfall last week but there may be more coming tomorrow and I hope to be out there painting it. Today I used my Fluid paper to sketch the foggy street in my neighbourhood. I find this paper very forgiving. Every time I get to a place where I think a disaster is about to happen (usually that means adding too much water onto a damp area of the paper) somehow things work themselves out. I’m making my way through an 8″ square block and haven’t had too many disasters yet, so I may just buy another one. There’s also a great panoramic format which you can see here.

Again and again

I don’t mind returning to Avenue Ste. Anne in Pointe Claire again and again. In fact I’ve drawn so many buildings along that street and painted in my car so often that residents must think I live in the neighbourhood. Even though I only had an hour to sketch on my way to school today, I was happy to paint that narrow view down the street. It’s the poles that make it work for me — the rhythm and the movement that they create — as well as the old houses with their unusual shapes and colours. I haven’t drawn in a few days, and that is always problematic for me. Rust sets in quickly in my drawing hand and there are usually a couple of false starts before the pencil marks are loose enough to satisfy me. I used a limited palette for this one (Cobalt Teal, Alizarin Crimson, Quin Gold and a few strokes of Naples Yellow) which seemed to suit the muted colours of late November in Montreal.

March 2016 workshop: Palmetto Bluff, South Carolina

Date: March 16-18, 2016
Location: Palmetto Bluff, South Carolina

Because of my college teaching schedule, my workshops usually take place during the summer. This year, I was invited to give a workshop in Palmetto Bluff, South Carolina, during my spring break, and I have to admit, the prospect of heading south during winter was too good to pass up. All the details are on my workshop page, including a very enticing description of the place. Have a look and if you are interested, contact me.

Dem bones

Our Urban Sketchers Montreal group usually meets once a year at McGill’s Redpath Museum to sketch the dinosaurs, taxidermy animals, shells and assorted samples in their natural history collections. I often think I’m going to draw something else, but when I get there I go no further than the dinosaurs and skeletons. Today I wasn’t in the mood to use a pen or pencil — I went directly to brush silhouettes. I was working in a Pentallic sketch book which has great watercolour paper and is perfect for this type of loaded brush work. I think the key to having this work successfully is to always have enough water on your brush, otherwise you end up with dry edges in the middle of an area (which I have sometimes). It’s a great exercise to try because you really have to look at the overall shape of things, as well as the negative spaces, and not worry too much about counting ribs and pointy teeth.