Last Saturday was a good day.  The Queen Mary 2 arrived in Quebec and Nicolas and I had decided to meet it.  He’s a photographer and wanted to get some photos of it as it steamed up the St. Lawrence towards Quebec, so we decided that a good way to make that happen was a very long walk down the south shore of the St. Lawrence, across from Ile d’Orleans.  You see, photographers are as crazy as sketchers when it comes to getting to the right place to capture a scene.

To get there I walked nearly an hour to get to the ferry landing in the old port.  We met up and took the ferry to get across the river.  Then it was a very long walk, along a beautiful walk and bikeway that runs along the coast to the Davie Shipyards.  From there we continued walking through the St. Lauzon part of Levis and on to a gorgeous view of the island and when we arrived we could see, far into the distance the QM2 heading in our direction.  It only took 2 1/2 hours of walking to get there.

My plan was to sketch as we waited but I think I’ve mentioned that I’m a sissy when it comes to cold.  It’s my Arizona upbringing I think.  While the sun was shining and it must have been at least 10C, we were getting some very significant northeastern winds that were….brrrr….cold.

Nicolas set up to take photos.  I stood with my neck scrunched down into my jacket and my hands in my pockets.  And I stood.  And stood.  Then I stood some more.

Finally, I couldn’t stand it any more.  I got out my sketchbook, gritted my teeth and did this sketch.  It took me no more than 2-3 minutes and I didn’t add any color until I got home.  Still, I managed to one sketch.

Once the QM2 had passed, and Nicolas had gotten his photos, we headed back to town.  It occurred to both of us that we were hungry so we headed to the main street of old-Levis and had a great lunch.  With belly full, and some 22,000 steps behind me, I was beat and ready to head home.

We got a good view of the QM2 moored to the Quebec City side of the river from the top of the gazillion stairs that are required to get a person down to river level and we headed directly to the ferry.  As the ferry docked in Quebec City we got a close up view of the ship.  It was a very good day.