Urban Sketching On A Rainy, Windy Day

Posted on June 16, 2015 by Larry Marshall

What’s an urban sketcher to do when the weather turns bad. One thing is to go with other sketchers to a cafe where you can sketch and talk about sketching, pointy devices and anything else that might interest the group.

That’s what we did on Thursday. We drove to a great cafe and bakery on Ile d’Orleans. Called La Boulange, it’s a grand old house that’s been converted to a cafe. Great place to sketch in good weather and bad as there are lots of great scenes to sketch outdoors when weather permits.

On this day Yvan and I rattled on about fountain pens while Fernande and Claudette had fun drawing a family. Looking through a passageway from the bakery to the restaurant tables, I saw this scene.

Stillman & Birn Beta (6x8), Namiki Falcon, De Atramentis Document Black

Stillman & Birn Beta (6×8), Namiki Falcon, De Atramentis Document Black

There’s More To Urban Sketching Than The Sketch

Posted on June 15, 2015 by Larry Marshall

Studio artists get their enjoyment from two sources. They can enjoy the creatiive process or they can enjoy the creation itself. Urban sketchers enjoy these things too but for them there are other options. Maybe it’s a special place or just a nice, sunny day that brings them joy during a sketching session. Maybe it’s the comaraderie of drawing with a group of friends. But sometimes the most enjoyment comes from the people you meet.

That’s how it was this day as I was wandering around Quebec’s port area. I sat down to do a quick sketch of a guy who was fishing. In my mind it would be a quick, inconsequential 2-minute sketch, maybe less.

The young fisherman had an even younger person hanging out with him. The little guy saw me as I began the sketch and came over to take a look. He said nothing and went back to the fisherman. He returned a minute later, looked at my sketch and said, “Il est mon frère!” He was excited that I was drawing his brother. He ran back to tell his brother. Lucky for me his brother was more interested in fish than drawings of himself or I would have lost my model.

The little boy, probably no more than 5-years old, started pointing at the sketch. “His shirt should be red,” and he pointed at the shirt sleeve. I was using pen in my cheap book and had no intention to add any color to this little sketch but he persisted. “The chair is blue,” and he pointed at it.

Succumbing to my audience turned co-creator, I got out my watercolors and a waterbrush. I plopped some red on the shirt, blue on the chair. Buoyed by my response he started pointing to other things, telling me what color they should be. I told him that the paper wasn’t very good for color and he seemed to understand, though I think he was a little disappointed. But I thanked him for helping me with the drawing and he was pleased.

Saying goodbye, I walked away with a memory of the day I sketched with that little boy.

Cheap mustache notebook, Namiki Falcon, De Atramentis Document Black – done with the assistance of a new friend

Sketching Rue Champlain

Posted on June 12, 2015 by Larry Marshall

The tourist season is heating up and places to put my tripod stool are already getting harder to find. But I love the hustle and bustle of tourist season. And there’s no place with more hustle and bustle than Rue Champlain, the street that runs along the St. Lawrence River and wraps around old Quebec. This is where the cruise ships dock and where the ferry shows up every half an hour with another pile of tourists, each wandering around while looking up to see the buildings high on Cap diamant, the location of the walled city. Lots of outdoor cafes, stores, and historic buildings give them plenty to do.

I was there on Wednesday and decided to draw one of my favorite buildings. It looks like something from a fairy tale, with larger buildings on either side of it, squeezing it into its tall, thin form. I wanted to sketch it with its windows bulging out from the pressure but decided that reality was good enough. Instead I did the black window thing and I don’t think I like that approach very much. Live and learn.

Stillman & Birn Alpha (10x7), Namiki Falcon, De Atramentis Document Black

Stillman & Birn Alpha (10×7), Namiki Falcon, De Atramentis Document Black

Sketching St. Jean Baptiste Church

Posted on May 26, 2015 by Larry Marshall

Le Collectif (CALVAQ) organized a sketchcrawl at the Eglise St. Jean-Baptiste on rue St. Jean and we all met at 11:30 after the mass was over. It was a really nice day and I had a hard time with the thought of going inside to sketch but in I went.

I confess that I find few places less inspiring than the inside of a Catholic church. I think it must be the gaudy gold everything that turns me off. But they have one of their old bells on display so I drew it in my Stillman & Birn Beta (6×8) with my TWSBI Mini.

The other sketchers seemed more inspired than I was and everyone was deep in sketching mode when I finished. All I could think of was the sunshine I was missing out on. Maybe I was a plant in a previous life. Anyways, I went outdoors.

Ahh…..”Good morning sunshine…the Earth says Hello…” Who sang that song? So long ago. I wanted to stick with the church theme as that’s what the sketchcrawl was about, but as I walked around the church I couldn’t find a location that gave me a scene that inspired me. So I walked further away and found a tiny park area that gave me a view of the really tall church steeple. I sat down in the sun and started drawing, this time with my Pilot Falcon but in the same S&B Beta book. We had a great day and I hope you like the sketches.

A House On Rue St. Jean

Posted on May 25, 2015 by Larry Marshall

Tourists to Quebec City come for what’s contained within the walls of the “old City,” a city that has expanded into a large metropolitan area (7th largest city in Canada) with the central core becoming more of a tourist attraction than a “downtown” area.

As the city grew beyond those walls, the St. Jean and St. Louis “gates” were enlarged so that more traffic could flow in/out of that part of the city and people, living out of town, could get back and forth.

Rue St. Jean and Rue St. Louis were the main thoroughfares for that traffic and very quickly, “out of town” was no longer out of town. In fact, just west of the old city became the ‘downtown’ area. It’s where the provincial parliament building stands, where major hotels reside, and, at last count, one restaurant for every citizen. But one can see that, “back in the day” the prime real estate along these routes was built up by wealthy businesses and people and while many of the stores and nightclubs along these routes are no longer banks and law offices, their architecture smacks of high times.

For a sketcher these older buildings are very inviting as subjects but it’s hard to find a place to sit or stand while drawing them because the sidewalks are narrow and there’s lots of traffic on them. Still, I venture there sometimes and I managed to draw the upper portion of this stately house last week.

I did it in a 6×8 Stillman & Birn Beta sketchbook with a TWSBI Mini and De Atramentis Document Black ink. I added some darks with a Kuretake #13 brush pen and Platinum Carbon Black ink. All of my watercolors these days are Daniel Smith. Hope you like it.