Notre-Dame de Lourdes
Posted: October 9, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized 5 CommentsThe concepts I learned at the Urban Sketchers Symposium are thankfully still rattling around in my brain somewhere and I remembered one of them yesterday when I started this drawing. Architects and sketchers Frank Ching and Liz Steel taught me the importance of giving a sense of the whole building even if you are drawing a detail of it. Several months ago I might have only drawn the silvery, fishscale dome of the church but this time I remembered to suggest the rest of the building including the golden madonna. I am starting to appreciate the format of my new Moleskine sketchbook that allows me to continue my lines like this.
Église St. Jacques
Posted: October 8, 2012 Filed under: ink, Montreal 8 CommentsThe Judith-Jasmin pavilion of Université de Québec à Montréal is built around the Église St. Jacques. Marc Holmes and I had originally planned to sketch inside the building today because there’s an interesting view of rue Ste. Catherine from the 7th floor windows, but of course the university was closed because of the Thanksgiving holiday so we ended up drawing from across the street.
Marc did some beautiful ink drawings and this is another try for me with my new Moleskine sketchbook which, although I have not yet and may never master watercolour in this book, is wonderful for pen drawing. I love the smoothness of the paper, the creamy colour, and most of all the fact that because of the stitched binding, it lays flat in the scanner. I will just have to leave my experiments with watercolour for another day.
Near the airport
Posted: October 7, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized 2 CommentsI was hoping to work again in the Moleskine sketchbook, trying out some of the ideas people sent me after yesterday’s post (thanks to everyone who commented!) but I ran out of time (it is Thanksgiving, after all) so here is something I did in my tiny Laloran sketchbook on the way home from work the other day.
When it cleared
Posted: October 6, 2012 Filed under: ink, Montreal, suburban, watercolour 26 CommentsI went out today with the intention of trying two new purchases. One was a Raphael #8 watercolour brush (I’ll admit I have a weakness for these sable brushes!) and the other was a different format Moleskine sketchbook.
The brush, as expected, was wonderful. I already have a #14 from the same series but sometimes that is a little too big so I spotted a sale at one of my online suppliers, I jumped on it. The added incentive was that the brush came with free #2 and #0 brushes.
I’ve painted in many Moleskine books but they’ve always been watercolour paper. The new one I am trying is the Moleskine Sketchbook and I bought it because it is a vertical format instead of horizontal like the ones I am used to painting in. It’s listed in the online catalogue as “perfect for pencil, charcoal, fountain pen, tempera, acrylic, etc.” so I assumed it would be good for watercolour too, or at least light washes. Wrong! It is as if the paper has some type of resist on it and the wash just beaded and sat on top of the paper. My sketch in that book was of the same scene as this but it was very unsuccessful. I’ll have to do some more research into this to find out if other people have the same problem as me.
Jarry Park
Posted: October 5, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized 6 CommentsJarry Park Stadium was home to the Montreal Expos baseball team from 1969 to 1976, until the covered Olympic Stadium was built and the team moved there. The Expos (named after Montreal’s Expo 67 World’s Fair) played their final game in October of 2004 and the Jarry Park Stadium was eventually converted to a tennis venue, but for Montrealers of a certain age Jarry Park will always be associated with our beloved baseball team.
No right turn
Posted: October 4, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized 14 CommentsMontreal has so many interesting corners but it is often hard for me to find a parking spot where I get a good sketching view. I found a spot on the corner of Faillon and Chateaubriand and miraculously there were none of those pesky “Residents Only” parking signs.
Solving problems
Posted: October 3, 2012 Filed under: ink, Montreal, watercolour 4 CommentsWhile I observed and sketched today, these two guys solved all of the world’s problems. I kept expecting them to finish their cigarettes and walk away but they stayed on these benches for the whole time I was there (45 min approx.). Occasionally one of them would get up, make a point about some important issue — hands flying, face reddening — and then sit back down with a sigh. From time to time a third man would join them for a few moments and then be off. When I turned away for a few seconds to pack up my paints they disappeared. Solutions had been found.
At the carwash
Posted: October 2, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized 6 CommentsUsing my car as my travelling studio and sometime lunchroom has left it a little… DIRTY! While waiting for it to be cleaned I grabbed my little Moleskine and my Lamy pen…
Mixing greys
Posted: October 1, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized 14 CommentsThere was some discussion in the comments of yesterday’s post about mixing greys so I thought I’d do a little test today.
In the first little sketch (this is done on a 5″ x 7″ sheet of Fabriano cold press) I mixed my sky colour starting with Payne’s gray and then added some other colours to tint the wash. Payne’s grey is very dark and has to be diluted quite a bit to lighten it. I added some ultramarine because the clouds are very blue/purple today, and then a little bit of Alizarin. The mix of cool colours is pretty flat, I find.
This second test is on the same paper but this time the sky mix is one of my usual grey recipes: ultramarine and burnt sienna, with a bit of alizarin. A mix of the warm and cool colour makes a more interesting grey, in my opinion, one with more modulations in it and much more complexity. There are probably at least a dozen more ways I could mix greys with the colours I currently have on my travel palette so this is just one little experiment to do on a cloudy day with not much time to spend painting.
Cornfield
Posted: September 30, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized 16 CommentsCornfields figure prominently in the movie “Looper” that I watched last night (and I promise that there are no spoilers in this post). People are always hiding in the cornfield (or it may be cane!), emerging from the cornfield, or travelling through time and reappearing at the edge of the cornfield. That is probably why I woke up this morning with a hankering to paint a cornfield. Fortunately there is a cornfield not too far from where I live so I didn’t have to do any time travel to get there.
