The space between two buildings
Posted: December 9, 2025 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: ink and watercolour sketches, ink sketch, Pointe Claire, Pointe Claire Village, St. Joachim 17 CommentsWhat fun to go back to one of my favourite winter sketching spots: Église St. Joachim in Pointe Claire. In this -15C weather, of course I sketched from my car. It’s always a little difficult to balance the mechanics of it all. If I wear my warmest coat, it’s hard to keep the puffy sleeves from grazing the wet palette. And even with heavy boots on, I know I only have a limited time before I start to get too cold. But I guess I was well prepared because I was able to stay long enough to get the sketch done.
I don’t remember how often I’ve painted from this same vantage point but I’m always attracted to the patch of sky between the church and the presbytery. If you were to walk through that bit of snow-covered lawn, you would see a frozen Lac St. Louis just beyond it. The vast open space behind the buildings, as well as the brightness of the snow-covered lake creates a wonderfully lit backdrop for the buildings. Sketched in my Hahnemuhle 100% cotton sketchbook.
A few days of summer
Posted: May 21, 2025 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: boat sketch, hahnemuhle book, Lintner palette, Pointe Claire Village, Pointe Claire Yacht Club 26 CommentsLast week we enjoyed some glorious days of summer. The thermometer went up into the twenties (in Celsius, of course) and stayed and stayed and stayed. This week we are back to spring in Montreal, but that’s ok because I enjoyed the foretaste of summer while it was here.
Fortunately those days coincided with a visit from a friend, and I was able to tour her around the city and stop at my favourite sketching spots. She’s a sketcher too, so we made the most of the blue skies and spectacular weather. One of our stops was in Pointe Claire Village, where we bought some sandwiches, had a picnic by the lake, and sketched the just-launched boats at the yacht club. We were sitting in the blazing sun (who wants to sit in the shade on the first hot day??) so I sketched very quickly, but it gave me a good chance to try out my new Lintner palette too.
You can see the palette below. It’s a pretty cool setup but I’ve only tried it once, so I can’t it give a full write-up until I’ve used it a few more times. In the meantime, I filled the 8 full-pan wells with a split triad (a warm and a cool of each of the primary colours) plus Raw Sienna and Burnt Sienna. That seemed to work well for most of the sketch but I had to dip into my friend’s palette for a few dots of turquoise that I needed for the sail covers. What I can say about the palette is that I appreciate having the full size pans for the colours I use most often AND the palette has deep mixing areas which makes me very happy since I often use very juicy washes when I’m sketching in my A4 Hahnemuhle sketchbook. More to come on this!
The big city
Posted: December 6, 2024 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: ink drawing, Pointe Claire Village, snow scene, winter painting 24 CommentsI went downtown extra early before an appointment today just so I could draw. I love my quiet neighbourhood but there’s nothing like drawing in downtown Montreal. I parked on Blvd. St. Laurent and had a view down Milton, where there were buildings, cars, a truck, pedestrians, graffiti, and the sound of sirens. A perfect city experience.
I only had a 005 Micron pen with me so I did a lot of excited scribbling. So much scribbling that I wore down the nib of the pen and had to discard it. But it was just great to be sketching from my car again.
On my way home I made a little detour to Pointe Claire to sketch in one of my favourite spots. The village has changed a bit. Now there’s no parking on Ste. Anne, a street where I painted so many winter scenes. And my favourite yellow building has been renovated and now is clad with a dull brown siding. Oh well, it was still great listen to the cold wind howling outside while I painted my first snow scene of the season.
