A few poppies and a poem for today

I always think of my dad on November 11. He would have been 100 this year, and was a WWII veteran, although he was too young to serve overseas during the war. Instead he was sent to northern Ontario to serve as a guard in a Japanese internment camp in Angler, Ontario. It’s an experience he talked about often with us, and I think of him often when I look at the inlaid wooden jewelry box that one of the internees made for him in appreciation of his compassion and empathy in that terrible situation.

In Flanders Fields
By John McCrae

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Definitely no parking

We just finished the video recording of a new online course. There’s still lots to get ready before we release it, but after many days in the studio, my reward is to go out to sketch.

We’ve had an incredible autumn here in Montreal. The colours have been spectacular and the leaves have stayed on the trees for what seems like longer than usual, I guess because of the lack of rain. Because of work commitments, I never made it to my former neighbourhood to paint my favourite tree, but this maple in Hudson has a similar shape and a crooked road sign in front of it too. This year, it will have to do.

The light was glorious this morning and the shadows sharp on the tree. I painted on a pad of Arches CP paper, using a limited palette of Cobalt Blue, Quinacridone Rose and Hansa Yellow Medium, plus a bit of warm red for the parking signs.

Rustling up some corn

If you read my newsletter “The Wheelbarrow” this week, you might have seen this little value sketch I painted. It was a quick study for a painting I had in mind of a cornfield that I saw when I was out on a drive in my area.

I just finished the painting, and thought I’d post it here. It was a bit of a crazy subject to paint: all pattern and texture but no central focus. I wanted to convey the waves of horizontal movement that I saw on the swaying corn that day, as well as the dried corn stalks that still had bits of green on them.

I introduced a few colours to my palette for this one, inspired in part by the incredible Andrew Wyeth watercolours that I saw last month at the Farnsworth Museum in Maine. I used lots of Raw Umber, Yellow Ochre and Payne’s Grey — colours that don’t have a permanent spot on my 18-colour studio palette but that were well suited for this almost monochrome subject.

Before starting the painting, I made myself a colour chart so I could decide in advance what mixes I wanted to use. As you can see, Raw Umber creates a very mottled effect on the paper because of its large pigment particles. I wanted to make sure that the texture was not too distracting in my mixes so I tried it on its own as well as mixed with other pigments. I also did a little swatch for the blue sky.

Here’s the final watercolour. If you’re wondering how long a painting like this takes, the answer is: many hours! To keep all of these shapes separate, my pencil drawing is fairly detailed. And then it takes some time to paint all the positive areas and then the negative shapes between them. I painted this on a 20″ x 16″ sheet of Arches CP 140 lb paper.

Sketching Retreat: a FREE 6-day online event

When I was teaching in Rockport, MA, this summer, I spotted this little red shed on a quiet side street. Several of my students drew it on location and, I have to admit, I was a little envious. I even took a picture of it. So, when I was invited to be part of this year’s Sketching Retreat, I had the perfect solution (and photo!), and chose the red shed as my video demo.

If you don’t know about it already, Sketching Retreat is a FREE 6-day online event with 50+ workshops (mine included!) focused on architectural sketching & drawing – using both analog (paper) and digital (tablet) techniques.

All the demos are free to watch, and the instructors include some amazing sketcher friends such as Paul Wang, Reham Ali, Darman Angir and Simone Ridyard, plus many others I’m excited to learn from. The dates for the event are October 28 – November 2, 2025, but registration is already open and you can sign up now.

In my Red Shed demo, I’ll show you all the steps I used for this sketch, from drawing to ink lines to watercolour. And, finally, how I treated the shadows on the red shingles. I hope you’ll sketch along with me!

I’ve had a look at what people are teaching, and you can be sure there’s a lot to learn from these brilliant sketchers. Hope to “see” you there!

Plants & Flowers in your Sketchbook: my first one-day in-person workshop, close to home

A few weeks ago, I posted that I would soon be offering some local in-person workshops. I’m excited to announce that the first one — Plants & Flowers in your Sketchbook — is now scheduled and ready to go (for dates and details, see below).

In this new workshop, I’ll share with you design techniques I use to create my sketchbook pages — techniques such as composition, hand-lettering, drop shadows and framing devices.

We’ll also work on strengthening your sketching skills for capturing the plants and flowers you bring to the workshop. This includes learning to mix a variety of greens for foliage, putting down large shapes first, and suggesting depth and volume through shadows — all in the service of creating livelier and more compelling watercolour sketches.

We’ll begin the day with my demonstration of how I design a page, filling it with a variety of flower and plant sketches, as well as hand-drawn lettering.

Following that, I will work with you to develop your own page. My goal is that, by the end of the day you’ll return home with your own well-laid out sketchbook page — and, I hope, with the skills to complete many more on your own.

Interested? Here is the date and details, as promised.

When: Thursday, November 6, 2025.

Location: 472 Main Road, Hudson, QC J0P 1H0

Cost: $175 CDN per person (plus applicable taxes). Materials not included.

Maximum workshop capacity: 12 participants.

Skill level: Some experience with drawing and watercolour required.

Note: You must bring your own plants or flowers to sketch. And, since we will be sharing large worktables, please ensure that your plants or fresh or dried flowers are modest in size, so we can comfortably accommodate everyone.

To register, drop me a line at: info@shariblaukopf.com

Hope to see you there!