From eight to nine

On Tuesday and Thursday mornings I have exactly one hour to paint on my way to work. The past few weeks it’s been sunny and the light is clear, so I drive along the Lakeshore Road in Pointe Claire, advancing by a few parking spots every day, looking for interesting bits of light hitting the roofs of the houses on the south side of the street. By special request I was also planning to do a post today about my car studio but the phone photos I took were awful so I will postpone that idea until a) I clean the car and b) I remember my good camera.

Asperges

The only thing fresh and green around Montreal these days are the asparagus.There’s still lots of snow on the ground and no sign of a tulip or daffodil poking through the frigid earth.  This morning the weatherman on the radio described this past winter as “harsh”. So true. Harsh and endless. At this time of year it should be warm enough outside to sketch but today the wind was so strong and the mercury so low that I took shelter in a strip mall that houses a greengrocer.

Yellow wall

I went back to the spot where I sketched in Pointe Claire last week because I wanted to capture the  sun on that glorious yellow wall, only this time I had some Fabriano paper with me instead of my sketchbook. Colours always look better on real watercolour paper, don’t they? I only had a very short time so I am missing lots of details that I wanted to add in, but the big shapes are there. I will have to return when I’m not on my way somewhere else!

Taking flight

I am so fortunate because urban sketching has brought me many opportunities in the past few months. I’ve been spending a lot of time illustrating a children’s book and that means I can’t get out to do as much car sketching as I usually do. Thankfully the author of the book has kindly consented to allow me to preview little bits of my work (as long as I don’t reveal full illustrations) and for that I am grateful.

The paintings are quite large (22″ x 8.5″) and are painted on hot pressed (smooth) Arches paper, allowing me to incorporate both ink and wash. I can’t scan the full paintings, or even parts of them, because they are on full sheets of watercolour paper (22″ x 30″) so this little bit is from a photo I took. It has been an interesting, albeit time-consuming project, and I hope to keep revealing these little details as I complete them.

Balcony

It was warm enough to sketch outside for the first time today. This is a section of a bigger sketch that I did and a reminder to myself about the importance of planning. The full sketch has a big dead area in the middle which I would have seen had I done a value sketch before rushing into the painting. But the light on this upper balcony was so perfect, the shadows from the power lines were great, the bench on the street was free and I wanted to paint!

I will be taking a short break from posting during this Easter weekend so I can focus on my illustrations for the children’s book I am working on. I hope you have a nice Easter, Passover, equinox, or whatever it is you celebrate. See you in April!

Here and gone

It was a cloudy sky today but at just the right moment the sun came out and contributed some shadows to my sketch. I was only partway through my drawing but I dropped the pencil and took out my paints. It will only be a matter of weeks, or maybe days, before the whites in my sketches are replaced with yellowish-green.

Waiting for the bus

How amazing is this? While I was sketching in my car today I was listening to a radio interview with a sketcher. On CBC’s The Current, Anna Maria Tremonti was interviewing Janet Hamlin, an artist who has been sketching the U.S. Military Commissions at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba since 2006. It’s a fascinating interview and if you like her sketches, there’s a book of her work coming out in October called Sketching Guantanamo: Court Sketches of the Military Tribunals that promises to be a compelling read.

Daffodils open

Wow, painting yellows is so difficult.The changes of colour are so subtle and there are really no dark areas in the flowers. Just yellow or lighter yellow. I used a limited palette of three very transparent hues for this: aureolin yellow, cobalt blue and rose madder.

I don’t know how she does it

I am in awe of my Australian friend and fellow Urban Sketcher Liz Steel. She can sketch and eat at the same time. I’ve seen her do it and more importantly she did it outside, at night, with not much light to paint by, while having a conversation.

This month’s sketch outing for Urban Sketchers Montreal was in Chinatown where we met for some dim sum and drawing. This “drawing while attempting to eat” is pretty new for me. Yes, I do paint food but usually before I cook it.  On her recent trip to Singapore, Liz Steel  recorded almost every meal she ate — and there were many — with her Singapore sketching hosts. I know from meeting her that she’s a fast sketcher but it’s still a mystery to me how she gets any eating done or at least any eating while the food is still hot.

To add to the discomfort of having my palette on my lap (didn’t want to get paint on the white tablecloth!) I also tried to eat someone else’s food thinking it was from one of the communal plates and shortly after I dropped egg tart all over my palette.

Hats off to you Liz. You are the queen.

Daffodils

Someone told me recently that we’ve had 30 fewer days of sun this winter than we usually have in Montreal. I tried to confirm that but couldn’t find any reliable news articles about it. In any case, that could explain why I needed to paint some sunshine today.