The Surrey With The Fringe On Top

Posted on March 3, 2015 by Larry Marshall

In my last blog post I talked about how dark it is in the museum exhibit room where the new carriage exhibit is displayed. I bit the bullet and decided to try to draw one of them. I took a sketchbook light with me and I needed it. In fact, if I’d had three of them, I would have used them all. It was so dark where I was sitting that I couldn’t see what pens I was pulling from my bag without shining the light onto the bag.

Here’s the sketch I generated before I just gave up. I was sitting no more than 8-10 feet behind the rear wheel and yet I could not see the front of the carriage and had to walk up beside it to figure out what needed to be drawn. You know how they tell you to spend 80% of your time looking at the subject and 20% at your paper so you can get the proportions correct? Well, I’m sure I did that but I don’t think the advice assumes you have to walk around the room to see the subject. What I’m certain of is that this sketch is wonky from all the movement. In the light or in the dark, those big, thin, spoked wheels made me go cross-eyed.

And so, as I write this, I rely on the axiom, “Any day that includes sketching is better than a day without it.” But I think our museum is taking photon austerity just a bit too far.

Stillman & Birn Alpha, Sailor calligraphy pen , De Atramentis Document Black

Drawing Lights In A Dark Room

Posted on March 1, 2015 by Larry Marshall

There’s a new exhibit at Quebec City’s Musée de la civilisation. It’s thirteen gorgeous carriages and sleighs from a large collection. They are amazing examples of transportation from times past… all crammed into a room where, apparently, someone forgot to pay the light bill.

I understand the crowding problem. These things are very large objects and displaying them indoors requires a LOT of space. It’s also the case that it’s not the museum’s prime directive to provide enough space for artists to get back to a proper viewing angle for drawing. I get that, and some imagination is going to be required to capture these objects on paper.

But why does it have to be so dark? It’s so dark that it’s hard to see the details. I had to get up regularly to look at what I was sketching to see its construction. The fact that many of them are black makes this even more difficult. It will be a challenge and doesn’t do justice to the objects.

I spent most of my first sketching session in this exhibit just looking. The carriages are amazing and it’s interesting to compare and contrast the different ways the undercarriages were designed and built.

Stillman & Birn Alpha, Namiki Falcon, De Atramentis Document Black

I don’t know if it was because it was so dark or something else but I was drawn to the lights on some of these carriages, which were much more than lights; they were works of art unto themselves. I drew two of them. Hope you like them.

Stillman & Birn Alpha, Namiki Falcon, De Atramentis Document Black

Even The Plants Stay Indoors

Posted on February 26, 2015 by Larry Marshall

In Quebec City, if you want to see growing, green, happy plants at this time of year, you’ve got to look for them inside and that’s exactly what Claudette, Yvan and I did on Tuesday. Claudette had a connection at one of the largest plant stores in the city and arranged for us to spend a couple hours sketching there.

So I don’t get caught up in the “was he really there?” disease that has hit Brian Williams and Bill O’Reilly recently, here’s a photo, taken by Yvan, of me sketching up a storm. Well, not really – I was actually sketching cactus but a guy’s got to exaggerate occasionally or he wouldn’t be a guy. Note that, even indoors, I had my coat on. And here’s the result of that old man scrubbing an Escoda travel brush over some Stillman & Birn paper.

Stillman & Birn Alpha, Namiki Falcon, De Atramentis Document Black

After a short break I went hunting for something else to sketch. Lots of targets but eventually I chose this guy… wouldn’t you? I really wanted to buy him and take him home to our garden but as it’s under a mountain of snow, and I don’t really like gardens much, I decided the sketch would suffice.

Stillman & BIrn Alpha, Namiki Falcon, De Atramentis Document Black

In spite of the bitter cold outside, we had a great sketching day. I think the plants enjoyed the attention we gave them too.

Sketchcrawl With Le Collectif

Posted on February 24, 2015 by Larry Marshall

Quebec’s Collectif mostly organizes life drawing and portraiture workshops, but it does, occasionally organize sketchcrawls. One such event took place last weekend when we all showed up at the Place Royale Information Center to sketch in its small museum.

This museum is mostly full of artifacts dug up during archeological exploration of Quebec’s old port area but the basement contains a couple rooms containing kitchen and bedroom furniture, as well as a large collection of traditional clothing. I’m a sucker for old wood and so I ended up there, where I sketched an old kitchen cabinet and a butter churn.

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

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

I took a short break and then turned my attention to a pre-digital age way of having fun, when imagination was the currency. I’d suggest I’m old enough to remember these but this one has wheels, which were invented about the time I was finishing up high school so that would be a lie.

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

We finished up the day comparing sketches over a nice lunch. It was a great day.

Sketching At The Cafe Au Temps Perdu

Posted on February 22, 2015 by Larry Marshall

Claudette and I decided to meet at the Café au temps perdu to draw people. Literally translated, the name of this place means Lost Time Cafe, which probably is a subliminal message from those who say that doing anything that doesn’t make money is a waste of time. But on this day, maybe it was a warning.

We arrived just after 9:30 to find the place closed. What kind of coffee place doesn’t open until 10AM? We got lucky and the woman running the place let us in early. We got coffee and set up with a good view of the place, anticipating the throngs of people who inhabit coffee shops every morning.

But they never came. Not one. Nobody. Besides us, the only person in the place was the woman who let us in and she was running around, placing silverware, placemats and menus on the tables and restocking the bar.

Yes, I did say bar. As it turns out, Café au temps perdu is a bar/restaurant more than it is a coffee house. A few people did straggle in about 11:30, as we were getting ready to leave. They were ready for lunch.

So, what do you do when your subject doesn’t show up? You switch subjects, of course. After drinking our coffee and kibbitzing about coffee shops that aren’t, I drew this and we had fun anyway.

Stillman & Birn Alpha (10x7), Sailor fude pen, De Atramentis Document Black

Stillman & Birn Alpha (10×7) sketchbook, Sailor fude pen, De Atramentis Document Black