The Fun Of Being Stumped

stumpMy friend, Hubert Langevin, is on vacation but he took the time to send me this photo.  He knows I don’t sketch from photos but he thought I might make an exception in the case of this big, beautiful stump.  I suspect that he might also have been smiling with the thought of me trying to draw it (grin).

It did seem to be a worthy challenge so I dove in with pointy device flying and more confidence than was reasonable.  It’s a subject where you could easily get lost so I started very slowly, placing marks at major intersections.  Speed picked up as the overall shape was established and I started drawing the internal shapes. More than once I thought of the Cathy Johnson mantra – “they’re only shapes” as I tried to ‘see’ how everything fit together.  Once it was drawn I switched to a brush pen (Kuretake #13) to lay in some of the darks.

It was a really fun drawing to do and it was nice to sit at a desk, with no wind, no tripod stool, and the ability to have good light on both photo (actually my computer monitor) and sketchbook.

Thanks, Hubert.  This was lots of fun.

Stillman & Birn Alpha (5.5x8.5), Esterbrook J9550, diluted DeAtramentis Document Black

Stillman & Birn Alpha (5.5×8.5), Esterbrook J9550, diluted DeAtramentis Document Black

A Church Spire To Rule Them All

I suspect that Quebec City has more church towers per capita than most place on Earth so a sketcher has many to draw,  but none of them comes close to the this amazing structure.  It reminds me of structures that the Legos folks come up with when trying to show off the complexity they can produce with colored blocks   This church is for sale, by the way, if you need a spacious art studio with some flare.

Anyways, on a sunny, but very windy day, I drew it, having a ball in spite of the wind and having to chase my hat on a couple occasions.  Hope you like it too.

Stillman & Birn Alpha (6x9) softcover, Esterbrook J9550, diluted DeAtramentis Document Black

Stillman & Birn Alpha (6×9) softcover, Namiki Falcon, DeAtramentis Document Brown

Karen Casper – Part 4

Part 1 here.    Part 2 here.  Part 3 here.

We’d agreed to meet at a park near Karen’s hotel.  There’s a large statue of Joan of Arc that she wanted to sketch.  Sadly, this was Karen’s last day here and only the morning at that, but with smiles on our faces, we embraced the morning.

Smiles broadened as our mystery sketcher, who turned out to be Alex Gouelky, from Winter Park, Florida arrived.  He’s only been sketching for a year but he gets to do it with Thomas Throspecken in a place with no snow so I consider him a lucky guy.  We talked a bit about sketching swapped sketchbooks and then sat down to sketch.

Both Karen and Alex drew Joan.  I’d drawn her a couple times and decided this would be an opportunity to draw Karen instead.  Because it was a simple drawing, I had time to do a small sketch of one of the lamp posts that surround the garden.  Have I mentioned lately how much I love to draw lamp posts (grin)?

Karen lamented the loss of Joan's sword to her "zooming" but her color more than made up for it. I think Joan would be happy.

Karen lamented the loss of Joan’s sword to her “zooming” but her color more than made up for it. I think Joan would be happy.

It’s always fun to draw someone who is sketching because you know they’re not going anywhere for a while.  Karen was typical in that regard.

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Stillman & Birn Alpha (3x5), Esterbrook J9550

Stillman & Birn Alpha (3×5), Esterbrook J9550

I hated to see Karen go.  She was heading towards Tadoussac to do some whale-watching and camping.  I was heading home where I had put off replacing a set of stairs.  I was certain that she would be having more fun.  Thanks, Karen, for such a inspiring few days.  And thanks to USK for letting her find me.

Karen Casper – Part 3

Part 1 here.    Part 2 here.

Stillman & Birn Alpha (3x5), Esterbrook J9550

Stillman & Birn Alpha (3×5), Esterbrook J9550

The third day of Karen’s visit started with me getting to the rendevous point a few minutes early so I sat down, grabbed my Pilot Metropolitan and started doing a quick sketch of one of the decorative facades that sit between the more major towers of the Parliament building.  I wanted to see if I could capture such a complex thing quickly, sort of “Liz Steel” style.

I was pretty happy with the results until I tried to put some watercolor on it and realized that I’d forgotten that I’d filled the Metro with J. Herbin Cacao de Bresil, a washable ink.  A bit of smearing ensued but I switched to a waterbrush and finished up with clean water.  I was still pretty happy with it given that I’d spent less than 10 minutes on it.

When Karen showed up we headed towards the ferry landing, though we took a route so she could see some other parts of the old city as we went.  The ferry ride was a joy, as always.  I love being on the water, even for only the brief minutes for this trip.

We decided to sit in the new park area associated with the south shore landing.  This is a wonderful place for sketchers as they’ve got large, comfy chairs pointed at the north shore.  We took two of them and got to work.  I gotta tell you a story first, though.  We’d been discussing a difficulty that Karen and I have about ‘zooming’ into our subjects.  Karen lamented that no matter what she did she always over-did this and ended up with things going off the page.  I have this problem to a lesser degree but more along the lines of the size of my scene being limited by the zooming.

I mention this because I was determined to “push things back” and I did so by including some foreground in the scene.  Unfortunately, this “pushed” the north side of the river so far back that I had a hard problem getting fine enough lines to depict all the building shapes.  I’m presenting my sketch without any color so you can see what I mean.  I improved this at home by thickening the foreground lines and using very pale color on the main subject but even so, I’ve got to go back and try it again.

Stillman & Birn Alpha (6x9)

Stillman & Birn Alpha (6×9)

True to the discussion, Karen had the problem she mentioned but by selectively moving stuff around, she ended up with a sketch that I thought was pretty good.  It may not be geographically correct but it presents Quebec City and all its parts in a whimsical way that I liked.  Karen didn’t like it so much, though, and decided that she wanted to try again.  We both decided that it was time for lunch, which became at least an hour of talking color.

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Karen’s second attempt at the skyline was done just as outlines of the levels in the scene.  The results were awesome in my opinion.  I stood and watched as Karen chose colors for the various parts of this sketch and it just seemed magical to my ‘reflect reality’ brain and she’s convinced me that I need to play with color more.  I’m mostly a line guy who sees color as an afterthought.  My bad.

I stood and watched as Karen chose colors for the various parts of this sketch and it just seemed magical to my 'reflect reality' brain. The result was spectacular.

While Karen was doing her second sketch, I decided to draw a house that’s high on the hill overlooking the park we were in.  I’ve drawn the house before but this new park provided a much better viewing angle.

Stillman & Birn Beta (6x9)

Stillman & Birn Beta (6×9)

When we finished up we were both worn out.  We grabbed the ferry back to Quebec.  We were walking in the old city when we came across a guy who was sketching.  We stopped to talk with him and invited him to meet us the next morning for Karen’s last sketching session in Quebec City.  He said he might come and we continued on towards her hotel.  At Parliament we split up and I headed home.  Day four… coming up.

Karen Casper – Part 2

Stillman & Birn Alpha (3x5), Esterbrook J9550

Stillman & Birn Alpha (3×5), Esterbrook J9550

 

Yesterday I talked about Karen Casper coming to town and the beginnings of our sketching adventure together.  We’d agreed to meet the next morning (Thursday) near Parliament and when I arrived she’d already started a quick sketch of some of the windows.  Knowing that I only had a couple minutes to do one, I did this small sketch of one of the lamp posts.  Unfortunately I didn’t get a photo of Karen’s sketch.

Then, off we went, chattering away as we headed into the old city.  We ended up in Place D’Youville and this church steeple caught Karen’s eye as did a convenient place to sit.  All it required was that I buy a cup of coffee.  The sacrifices I make for sketching…

Karen uses white space to great effect here and I learned something this morning.

Karen uses white space to great effect here and this was just one of the “somethings” I learned this morning.

 

Here's mine. The steeple is seen between two buildings and Karen's simple depiction of this is far superior to my own. Stillman & Birn Beta (6x9)

Here’s mine. The steeple is seen between two buildings and Karen’s simple depiction of this is far superior to my own. Stillman & Birn Beta (6×9)

We mixed some touristing, some sketching philosophy discussions, some anthropology talk and some general kibbitzing in with our sketching day but ultimately our wandering took us to the Canadian Customs building, something that Karen wanted to see.

From a sketcher point of view these are pretty great buildings.  The day was boiling hot so we required shade for sketching, found some, and we did these sketches of the large dome on one of the buildings.

Karen uses color with more freedom than I do. I'm still stuck in "if it looks like a pig, paint the color of a pig" mode but here Karen's color choices are magnificent, don't you think?

Karen uses color with more freedom than I do. I’m still stuck in “if it looks like a pig, paint the color of a pig” mode but here Karen’s color choices are magnificent, don’t you think?

Here's mine. Stillman & Birn Beta (6x9), Esterbrook J9550

Here’s mine. Stillman & Birn Beta (6×9), Esterbrook J9550

By the time we finished it was time to head back towards her hotel and for me to get home myself.  We wanted to take the ferry the next morning so we could sketch Quebec from the other side of the St. Lawrence River so we agreed to meet at the same place the next morning.  On to day three…