An unlikely trio

My unlikely trio started out as an accident — a blob of Cobalt Teal pigment that leaked all over my palette. I filled the well a full week ago and have been carrying the palette upright ever since. But I guess I thought it was fine and left the palette sideways in my sketch bag. I opened it this morning to find that the sneaky stuff had spread all over the place. So my unlikely trio is a triad of primary colours that I used for this sketch — Quinacridone Gold, Alizarin Crimson and of course… Cobalt Teal. It’s not the type of blue I would normally use in a limited palette exercise. I’d be much more likely to use something darker like Ultramarine or Phthalo Blue but this Teal granulates beautifully and makes a nice bright green when mixed with the gold. There’s still lots all over the palette so watch for it in the coming days in everything I paint.

Chalet

I’ve been using quite a bit of single sheet Fluid 100 paper lately but I’ve never tried the original Fluid cold pressed paper (the blocks with the orange cover, which are not 100% cotton like the sheets). This little block is the same dimension as my current sketchbook (8″ x 8″) which is a great size when I don’t have time for a full painting. It’s not a very textured surface but it has great colour saturation, which for me means that the pigment doesn’t disappear into the paper, and when it dries it’s just as bright as when wet. That’s important. It seems to take a beating too. I went over the forest floor foreground in this sketch many times and just kept building up the texture with no loss of paint to the layers below (that sometimes happens on cheaper papers.) The other nice thing about this paper is the wide variety of formats available, including a very wide one which is great for panoramas. I know blocks are more expensive that cutting up sheets but sometimes you just want the convenience of something you can grab and throw in your bag.

This is happy

If there was a soundtrack to go with this sketch it would be Pharrell Williams singing “Happy”. Happy to be sitting in City Park in Denver, looking at the distant snow-dusted Rockies and the reflections in the lake. Happy to have cracked open a new sketchbook that has been out of stock for many weeks. Happy to have a few free moments to sketch. Isn’t that what makes plein air sketches great? Looking at them days or weeks or even years later and remembering how you felt at the time you sketched because you spent a good chunk of time in that place — observing, listening, drawing. It may not be the best sketch (badly drawn, pale and weak, overworked, poor composition) but it never fails to evoke that same feeling. Do you have a sketch that evokes some kind of strong emotion? I’d love to see it. Post a link in the comments section if you care to.

The Art Rental Collection at Stewart Hall

I’m very honoured to have two paintings included, again this year, in the Art Rental Collection 2016 at Stewart Hall in Pointe Claire. It’s a smart concept that the gallery has been offering for many years — choose from over one hundred works of art (photography, paintings, prints or drawings) and then either rent them or buy them. I love the idea of being able to try out something on your wall before you purchase it. Also in the collection: photographs of Newfoundland by Laurel Holmes and paintings by Marc Taro Holmes, as well as many works by members of the Lakeshore Association of Artists.

The vernissage is today at 2 pm and the exhibition continues until November 29th, but the works are available through the Art Rental and Sales throughout the year. Stewart Hall is located at 176 Bord du Lac, Pointe Claire. Hope to see you there.

Eastern Point Light, watercolour, 22″ x 15″

Masts, watercolour, 15″ x 11″

Wintercreeper

Wintercreeper. What a great name for a plant. I was doing some more catching up today — this time in my garden — and found these little orange and white berries hidden under the leaves of this groundcover. I’ve never seen them before so I cut a branch and brought it in to sketch. Good excuse to stop working in the garden…

Catching up with my favourite tree

It seems that I’ve missed all of the fall foliage. I’m just back from Denver (working on another online course for Craftsy.com) and while I was away most of the trees in Montreal lost their leaves. All except the big sugar maples, and included in that group is my favourite tree. It lives on a street not too far from my home and every year, because of its distance from power lines, it manages to stay out of the way of chain saws and retain its near-perfect dome shape.

Preparation for my new online class has taken up most of my spare time for the past few months but I’m happy to be back and hopefully will be posting more regularly now. Just in time for the last of the leaves and the start of snow painting season.

Larimer at dusk

I don’t paint night scenes too often but yesterday I arrived in Denver in the afternoon and by the time I got out to sketch it was dusk. On Larimer Street there’s a Dia de los Muertos festival happening so I sat outside to draw the strings of lights and I drew until all the colours faded to black.  I couldn’t post this until today because the internet has been down in my hotel for the past 24 hours.  Seems ridiculous that it hasn’t been fixed but here I sit, in a Starbucks, writing this and hoping it comes back soon.   

Sketching with my students

This year at the college where I teach we’re trying something for the first time. Pedagogical Activities for Student Success Day is all about doing things with students outside of a classroom setting. There are no classes for the day and each department gets to choose an activity for students. In our department students presented their video game designs in the morning and in the afternoon we visited the McCord Museum to see the exhibit of graphic designer Vittorio Fiorucci “Montreal Through the Eyes of Vittorio“. Following that we had a sketch outing. Since the museum is right across from the campus of McGill University, and since the day was nothing short of perfect for late October, we spent an hour or so sketching from the stairs of the Redpath Museum. Something to note is that these were all optional activities, so I’m impressed that we had such a great turnout. I think about 30% of our students participated, which is pretty miraculous considering that they could have stayed home, slept in or watched movies. I took a photo of some of them sketching from the Redpath and they kindly gave me permission to post it on my blog. And a big thanks to Hugo who lent me a yellow pencil so I could complete my sketch.

Tangle of wires

In my sketchbook there are still a few drawings from the summer that haven’t been scanned. I’ve been saving them for a week when I can’t get out to draw. Well, this is it — I’m snowed in under a pile of midterm grading and it’s time to haul out the book.

This sketch was one I did in Siem Riep, Cambodia. I had never seen utility poles like this anywhere, although I’m sure they exist in many places. The moment I arrived in town, this was high on my list of things to draw. Also worth mentioning: this wasn’t the best of the bunch (bigger tangles exist on other streets) but this one was facing a cafe which is always my number one criterion for picking a drawing spot.

More like eight hours

My delay in Toronto (en route to Chicago) last Friday turned out to be longer than expected so I had lots of time to draw. I was travelling very light —carrying only a pencil, some pens, a water brush and some drawing books (it is Inktober, after all) so I made the most of my time by drawing both in Toronto and then at the airport. I finished the drawing of the Victorian house across from the museum using only a Sharpie pen and a Pentel brush pen.

I did a little thumbnail of the skyline from the island airport, using a Pilot fine liner (water-soluble) and my Koi water brush.When the plane was further delayed, instead of eating the free Porter snacks, I expanded my thumbnail into a more complete drawing. And then did one final thumbnail of the CN tower from the plane just before takeoff. Glad I did all this drawing in Toronto because I didn’t have much time to draw in Chicago. I’ll have to go back there again when I have more time, but tomorrow I’ll post a few of the mini drawings.