Montreal workshop day 1

It’s a bit of a different post today because it’s day one of the first of my summer workshops. The weather took a turn for the better so we were able to paint outside all day which really helped. It would have been quite a different experience had we been inside a classroom! I have to say it was a really fun group of people who were all up to the challenges I gave them and they turned out some wonderful paintings by the end of the afternoon. Today we worked on finding and keeping lights and darks in the painting and tomorrow we will experimenting with wet on wet. I think they are ready for that. As for me, it was a bit of a challenge to paint in front of a crowd and talk at the same time but you can see my demo below, in progress and at the end of the day.

Here is my demo in progress:

Here is the painting at the end of the day:

And here is a montage of the great work the students did:

Superhospital

The most striking feature of the Montreal skyline for the past few months has been the construction site of the MUHC superhospital. The six or seven giant cranes that hover over the area are visible from the highway that goes into downtown and for months I have been trying to find time to do a sketch of the site. I was nearby this afternoon and found a good parking spot but it wasn’t exactly the angle I wanted. The view from a distance is very dramatic because you look upwards at the site but I would have to stop in the middle of the highway to do that. So I had to settle for setting up my travel stool on a corner and doing a drawing from below. Far less interesting but infinitely safer.

Front steps

Here is the pretty much finished painting that I started yesterday. The scene was as I left it except for a cushion on the wicker chair and two cats who perched on the stairs and were definitely hoping for a place in the painting. When I scan my work I always see a few things I want to change but for now I will leave it as is.

In progress

I ran out of time today so for the first time ever I am posting a work in progress. My preference is to sketch in the morning but that’s not always possible so today I started quite late. And while I was rushing to finish I realized that it might be interesting to do a two-part post. There is a risk here, of course. If I mess this up, like I do quite often, I will still have to post it tomorrow. But I’m living life on the edge. Here’s a scene I started in Ste. Anne de Bellevue and will finish tomorrow morning. Hopefully my parking spot will still be there when I arrive.

Sunset on the boulevard

While walking south on Boulevard St. Laurent I happened to turn around and notice an amazing sunset happening. Almost everything was in silhouette so I found a bench on the corner of Marie-Anne and did a 15-minute sketch in my little Moleskine. Colour was added later.

Brick and stone

Here’s the second painting from my afternoon in Old Montreal. I chose this view of the Les Prêtres de Saint-Sulpice (which by the way is Montreal’s oldest building) because I loved the layering of the brick buildings behind it and the late afternoon shadows. Unlike my friend Marc, who can just set himself up and start a painting (something I greatly admire), I have to do a few faster sketches first and calm down a bit before I can launch into something more ambitious. This was painted on Fabriano soft press paper in under two hours because that was the time I had in my parking meter.

The first skyscraper

Ironically the first skyscraper to be built in Montreal was the New York Life Insurance Building (also known as the Quebec Bank Building). It still stands, in all its red sandstone beauty, facing Place d’Armes in Old Montreal and that’s where I sketched today with Marc Taro Holmes. We thought it might be a good idea to paint together in preparation for our upcoming Portland workshop. I did a little sketch in my Moleskine while he started a larger, more ambitious painting which hopefully he will post on his site. Place d’Armes is a really busy place with busloads of tourists visiting the Notre Dame cathedral across the square but it was good practice to be outside in a crowded area. At one point a huge gust of wind knocked over everything on Marc’s easel including his nearly completed painting but he managed to rescue all his gear and even fill up his empty water container with water from the fountain in the middle of the square.

Under the tree

In preparation for my upcoming workshops I have been working more on paper instead of in my sketchbook. I did this in my garden, which looked pretty fresh after last night’s thundershowers. The sun came out and lit the hostas that I had potted on the weekend. This took a little longer than my usual sketches, I confess.

Making decisions

It is difficult when you look at a complex scene to know what to sketch. This morning I sat on the steps near the Venture Sailing Club in Pointe Claire, drinking my coffee and contemplating what to paint. When I am in my car the scene that I paint is often obvious because it is framed for me by my front windshield but when I am out of the car there’s so much more to choose from — a big vista in front of me. Today I had the lake as a backdrop, boats in the water as well as on land and a red building on a hill to my right. I started several sketches but none of them had any focus. In the end I decided to simplify and chose three boats on the ground and three in the air. There was plenty going on the background too — a crisscross of masts and boats on the shoreline but I tried my best to just hint at that.

Sailing lesson

I’ve been parking and sketching near a deserted marina for months so it was great to see the boats out in Pointe Claire yesterday. I sat in the grass to sketch so the view I had of the lake was a bit like a vignette — just a little bit of the lake and the students coming in from their sailing lesson. It was also a great day for catching up with people I haven’t heard from in years including former students, work colleagues and friends who saw the article about the blog in the Montreal Gazette. I still haven’t finished returning emails and phone calls…