Music, Friends and Sketching – A Very Good Day

Posted on January 27, 2013 by Larry Marshall

One of the great things about Quebec City is that there are a lot of free concerts. Many are associated with the conservatory here and are mostly students – really good students.

Another source of free concerts are the ‘mid-day’ concerts associated with the Grand Théâtre de Québec. This venue is the site of operatic and symphonic programs, musical plays, and a bunch of big name but not big venue performers. I saw B.B. King there.

The mid-day concerts are held on the second floor foyer, however, and once they’ve set up a stage and a bunch of chairs, it’s about the size of a decent sit-down night club without the booze, though you can get coffee and danish.

And that’s where I was today, to listen to a fantastic group of six jazz singers, all people too young to have so much talent. I arrived a little after ten AM and the concert didn’t start until eleven, though I got a mini-concert as the group went through a couple numbers, getting warmed up and checking equipment, I suppose. With little to do besides look out the window, that’s what I did. I got together with this pine tree, which also didn’t seem to have much to do, and we made this sketch together. We had a good time together.

But when Yvan arrived, the fickle friend that I am completely ignored my pine tree friend. Yvan and I talked about sketching, his new sketchbook, the Series 400 toned paper that Strathmore is selling and some other stuff. When we could, we went up and staked out some primo sketching seats, saving one for Celine.

Celine and Yvan are quite comfortable doing really great sketches of singers and musicians. Myself, I still struggle with people who are moving around a lot. Heck, who am I kidding. I still have trouble sketching people who are comatose. Yvan has explained, in his patient manner that ALL I have to do is choose a position the person returns to frequently and sketch that position. So far my brain hasn’t gotten the message as it can’t quite sift through all the movement. Practice, practice, practice…

While I tried to sketch the singers, I didn’t do so well. So, I sketched people who were in the audience. These were all very quick sketches – another problem my brain has when in a crowd of people moving around. My brain goes into “you’ve only got a minute, dummy, go fast…blindingly fast.” So, while these spectators were going to stay put for me for the duration of the concert, I was doing 1-2 minute quick sketches. Darn brain.

All of these sketches were done in a 3×5 sketchbook using a Platinum Carbon Black fountain pen, filled with PCB ink. I’ve come to like this pen a lot for detail sketching as it’s really fine, like a .005 Micron. I’m not so sure about it as a people sketching pen for the same reason – the lines are just too fine.

The music was fantastic, being with my sketching buddies always a good time, and there’s no such thing as a bad sketch if you view sketching fun as coming from the process, not the result. I do.

As long as I’m talking about people sketching, here’s a slightly better sketch I did the day before, of a cooperative guy who sat reading. He changed his position only once in the 10 minutes or so I spent sketching him which I thought quite considerate. This sketch was done with my Hero 578 “Chinese calligraphy” (tip bent upward) pen, Noodler’s Lexington Gray ink, and a Stillman & Birn Epsilon sketchbook. You can see that I can get variable line thickness from this pen and I think it adds something to the sketch.

Museum Time Again

Posted on January 26, 2013 by Larry Marshall

It’s been really cold here in Quebec. So cold, in fact that I couldn’t bring myself to go out at all, let alone walk the hour to the museums. I hadn’t sketched in several days because of this, so when the high temp hit -17C I jumped at this ‘warm’ day to head out.

I decided to go to the Musee de l’Amerique francais, the site of our recent sketchcrawl. As I was there on a Thursday morning, I think I was alone in the museum, except for the staff. It was quiet. It was comfortable. In fact, I sat in a nice, comfy sofa and sketched a mannikin who was dressed in a 16th Century gown worn in the movie The Fountain.

Still trying to figure out pencil sketching, that’s what I was using. I decided early on that the subject might be too ‘grand’ for my Stillman & Birn 5.5×8.5 Epsilon sketchbook as the dress has a very bold pattern that I simply couldn’t capture in a 6″ tall sketch but I persisted doing the best I could. Sadly, the sketch shows my biggest problem – I constantly smear the pencil work. I can’t seem to avoid it. It got worse, of course, when I sketched on the page opposite this one. So, the sketch is more than a little bit ‘muddy’ but I sure had fun doing it. The mannikin didn’t have much of a face and neither does my sketch. Don’t hold it against her 🙂 I’m going to have to carry a sheet of paper to cover these sketches while I work, or maybe just go back to using a pen.

I moved to another room and was taken by a pair of 19th Century snowshoes. These are the widest shoes I’ve seen and if horses made John Wayne bowlegged, these would surely do the same to their wearer. I also sketched a boot that was associated with this display. Here I used a Pilot Prera and some watercolor pencils.

Sketching On Toned Paper

Posted on January 21, 2013 by Larry Marshall

I’m no expert to artist materials. Most of the time when I talk about using them the discourse begins with me saying “This is the first time that…” This is almost true of my use of toned paper in my sketching activities. During last summer I made a small sketchbook from toned paper (Canson Mi-Teintes) and I did a few pen sketches in it. Unfortunately, the sketchbook itself wasn’t stiff enough (thin covers) to work well as a sketchbook to use on location while I held it in my hand.

Now that it’s winter and very cold here, I’ve been working a lot in museums. This shift in location and subject matter has been coupled by me doing some experimenting with different tools and materials and recently I’ve done a couple sketches on single sheets of gray, toned paper and I thought I’d share them here.

The first was done at the Musée de la Civilisation, in a large Nigeria exhibit that features lots of masks and headdresses used in ceremonies. This one was done in Canson Mi-Teintes paper. As I am also trying to learn how to use a pencil as a sketching medium, I used the smooth side of this paper and it worked well. Not being a pencil guru, I started layout with a 3H pencil and ultimately ended up with an HB mechanical pencil. Nothing special here and, I’m sure, most pencil experts will probably cringe that I didn’t use softer pencils. I added a bit of highlight using a Prismacolor white pencil but I was fairly tentative in this as I’ve never done that before at all. Still, the results ended up better than I expected.

The next sketch I did was done during our 38th Worldwide Sketchcrawl, which we did at the Musée de Francais and its associated chapel. The chapel has been ‘secularized’ and is rented out for meetings and banquets. Still, its walls are still adorned with statues of saints, the windows are stained glass, and a huge alter remains.

But I love to sketch buildings and being driven indoors by snow and cold is frustrating. I took advantage of the sketchcrawl to set my tripod stool in front of a huge window that looked out on a courtyard that was bordered by a very long, probably 150+ feet long building. Rather than capture the entire structure, I decided to concentrate on a slice of it and I came up with this sketch.

This sketch was done on Strathmore Series 400 “toned gray” paper. I bought a 9×12 spiral sketchbook of this stuff. The sheets are perforated and can be easily separated from the sketchbook. I did the linework with a Pilot Prera filled with Noodler’s Lexington Gray ink. The suggestion of snow was added using the same Prismacolor pencil I used in the first sketch. I like this paper a lot. It’s much cheaper than the Canson paper and it’s a great pencil paper. I felt that it was a bit too absorptive for ink, though. A heavy line tends to feather a bit.

I really like drawing on toned paper. I’m less wild about using single sheets of paper for my sketching and wish Stillman & Birn would create a gray version of its Epsilon sketchbooks. A sketcher has to have a dream (grin).

Do Nigerians Have Thick Necks?

Posted on January 17, 2013 by Larry Marshall

Goofy question, right? Well, I’m convinced there is evidence to support the notion that Nigerians have thick necks. It comes in the form of the Nigeria exhibit at our Musée de la Civilisation.

That evidence comes in the form of large, and I mean large ‘crests’ worn by Nigerian dancers. Some of these are huge and, supposedly, they wear them while doing ceremonial dances. I wouldn’t want to balance one on my head while watching TV, let alone while dancing.

Here’s just one example. This ‘little’ guy is roughly half a meter tall. The straw band at its base is where your head goes. I assume there’s a strap that goes through the lower hole and runs around under the chin. Thick necks… gotta be.

This next one isn’t quite as large and I’m not exactly sure how it’s even worn. It’s obviously an elephant who likes to play frisbee but other than that I know nothing about it other than that it too is labelled as a ‘crest’ and is part of a long line of them along one wall of the exhibit.

Both sketches were done in a Stillman & Birn Epsilon (5.5×8.5) sketchbook. The first was drawn with a Pilot Prera, Noodler’s Lexington Gray ink and Faber-Castell watercolor pencils. The elephant sketch was done with a mechanical pencil. Thank goodness for museums when it’s cold outside.

More Museum Sketching…Still…Again

Posted on January 15, 2013 by Larry Marshall

Yet another Samurai helmet. This is the eleventh one I’ve done and I think it’s time to move on, though there are still a bunch of cool ones to sketch. This one, like the others, was done in a Stillman & Birn Epsilon (5.5×8.5) sketchbook, using a Pilot Prera loaded with Noodler’s Lexington Gray ink. Faber-Castell watercolor pencils made it pretty. I couldn’t help but think about propeller beanies while doing this one.