I’m going to keep this short because we’re experiencing really low barometric pressure which is giving me a horrible arthritis attack in my knees and hands. I’ll also apologize for the typos because my typing is being affected…bigly.
But last Sunday I was in heaven. I met Marc Holmes for coffee before the event and when we arrived at the Pointe-à-Callière museum there were 30 or so sketchers waiting for the place to open. The goal for the day was to sketch the Asian exhibition and it was a doozy.
The exhibit is on two floors and I probably should have made a quick run around to inventory things but I just started sketching these small clay figures. They were simple, crude, and I managed to make them even more so when I went out in hall and tried to paint them while standing. I was at least a couple of hands short for that exercise.
Stillman & Birn Beta, Platinum 3776, Platinum Carbon
I did those quickly, all the time thinking of heading upstairs in search of something better to draw. The second floor had one display of larger statues, a bunch of pottery, kimonos, and a couple samurai suits. I decided to draw a couple of the larger statue artifacts. Those were fun but I really hope that some day I’ll get better at drawing while standing.
Stillman & Birn Beta, Platinum 3776, Platinum Carbon
The area around the samurai suits was pretty crowded so I decided to draw a piece of pottery. Then I went outside and found Marc creating a masterpiece. Watching work with watercolors is always a treat. I never did add color to my pottery.
We only had 20 minutes left so we went back in and I decided to take that time to read about some of the smaller pieces which were at the other end of the first-floor room from where I had done my first page. That’s when I saw it… a large door into yet another room. Dare I say this was where thek really good stuff was? Large buddah’s statues of all sorts, large busts of Asian characters. Wow…and me with only a few minutes left before we were to rendevous for lunch and show-n-tell. I quickly drew one of the heads, using pencil this time. Yet another skill I need to work on.
We met for lunch and passed sketchbooks around. USK Montreal has a lot of talented people among its ranks and it was fun seeing their results. This day was pretty special to me and I hope to return for some of their future sketchcrawls. Thanks, Marc, for organizing the event.
So glad to hear you made it to a sketchcrawl! Sounds like a fun day, indeed.
Tina
Tina, you can’t imagine how jealous I am when you write about a series of talks by a veritable who’s who of urban sketchers so it was great to be able to spend some time with some of the icons from this side of the planet. I wish I could attend all of USK-Montreal sketchcrawls but it requires six hours of driving for 4-5 hours of sketching. But a better group could not be found and I do hope to get there more often. This was my second; it won’t be my last.
I dunno about the “need to improve” stuff your work is growing stronger every time I check in !
I hope the weather changes so you can get some relief
All the best
Alan
If I ever get to a point where I don’t think I can get better, I’ll quit. What fun would that be? Fortunately, I don’t think I’ll ever have to worry about that 🙂 Oh…and the weather is improving, as am I. I can walk, type and draw again.