The Vikings Showed Up In Quebec

Posted on June 20, 2016 by Larry Marshall

Some 500 years before Columbus, the Vikings were wandering around what is now the east coast of Canada. They came by ship of course and some of their descendents decided to make the trip again. Thirty-six days crossing the Atlantic resulted in them showing up in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

They decided to visit Quebec City and they showed up last Friday. I thought it might be fun to draw the ship so I headed down to the harbor area. Unfortunately, a lot of other people decided they should go to the harbor area too, armed with cameras, bicycles, strollers, and there was a guy with a wagon. There were enough people to make it difficult to stick your cell phone in the air to get a shot of the ship without a dozen heads in the picture. Sitting down to draw the ship caused one to get a great view of a lot of…well, let’s just say the view of the people was lower than those heads. The best I could do was to stand, actually having to move around to get a glimpse of the nose of the boat as I did this quick sketch of the dragon figurehead.

Field Notes, Platinum 3776

The Parents Head To Ottawa

Posted on May 27, 2016 by Larry Marshall

Last weekend Chantal and I headed for Ottawa. It was a holiday weekend and we went to visit our daughter who is in school there, but as I write this I realize that it was more than that. Because of a lot of good stuff that happened, our daughter wasn’t going to come home for the summer as she normally would so the trip was at least as much an attempt to deal with that disappointment as anything else.

That’s a simple way of explaining that this wasn’t a sketching trip. In spite of that, I did a bunch of quick sketches throughout the visit and I thought I’d present some of them as an indication of how easy it is to fit urban sketching into a trip that is otherwise occupied with things that make most people say “I was too busy to sketch.”

We arrived on Friday and our daughter was still at school so we got some lunch, went to an art store (more of a crafts store as so many have become) and then headed to one of the parks. As we walked around I saw this scene and decided that I’d do a very quick, thumbnail-style sketch just to capture the major masses. I didn’t worry much about proper perspective or drawing accurate lines and the initial sketch took only a few minutes. Then my daughter called and said she would be there shortly so we stayed put. I decided to add some more lines to the drawing and, ultimately, I slopped some color on the sketch.

Stillman & Birn Gamma (8x5), Platinum 3776, Platinum Carbon Black

Stillman & Birn Gamma (8×5), Platinum 3776, Platinum Carbon Black

Field Notes “Sweet Tooth” (3×5), Platinum 3776, Platinum Carbon Black, Uniball UM_153 white pen

I was sitting under a flowering crab apple tree (I think) and I decided to sketch of some of the flowers in my red Field Notes “Sweet Tooth” notebook and I thought it came out pretty well for a 3-4 minutes I spent doing it. I was rewarded by my daughter showing up with an “hic c’est beau.”

We spent the rest of the evening hanging out as a family, eating in market area, buying candy and listening to street musicians.

The next morning, however, was laundry day. We gathered up ever stitch of clothing, bedding, and towels and hauled them to a laundromat where we commenced to feed an obscene number of dollar coins into the machines. We drank coffee, ate muffins, and I drew this little scene in the tiny coffee shop associated with the laundromat. Not much but it was fun to do and made the time pass more quickly.

taned notebook, Platinum 3776,

Then it was off to the grocery store where we bought one of everything and two of some things. My biggest fear was that there wouldn’t be room for it all in my daughter’s apartment. Parents do get carried away some times. And we did, of course.

Once we shoehorned all the groceries into their proper places, we headed off on a quest for shoes. Understand, this was two women and an old guy. We went EVERYWHERE looking at shoes. I knew my life would end while looking for size 9 flats.

But surprise, surprise, we tracked down the illusive ideal shoe, bought two of them then went to a park where geese lived and they had lots of baby goslings running around. They were fun to watch and I should have sketched them but I was worn out from the shoe chase. Eventually we got hungry and headed for my daughter’s favorite Korean restaurant.

After dinner we walked to Major Hill Park, a park where the towers around Parliament poke up above the trees. We drank bubble tea and enjoyed the changing sky as sunset was near. I did a couple quick sketches in the failing light and probably should have settled for just a silhouette.

We did a bunch of park hopping the next day, mostly because we just wanted to be out in the sun. We sat for a long time in Andrew Haydon Park, looking out at the boats having fun in the Ottawa River. There wasn’t much close to me to draw so I drew some rocks. I love drawing rocks, though I’m not particularly good at it.

Stillman & Birn Gamma (8×5), Platinum 3776, Platinum Carbon Black

As it got hotter, though, the desire for shade took hold and we ended up in a park along the Rideau River. Another place to practice my sloth, I was getting quite good at it, particularly because there were a group of guys in a drum circle providing entertainment. I did break out the sketchbook to do this quick capture of a few of the players. It’s not very detailed but it’s the best I can do in a few minutes.

Stillman & Birn Gamma (8x5), Platinum 3776

Stillman & Birn Gamma (8×5), Platinum 3776

I did several really quick (< 1-min) sketches of people as they wandered by where we were sitting and I’ll share only this one of a small boy who stopped to admire the river. We had a delightful dinner at the apartment and then headed out to wander some more, ultimately ended up back at Major Hill Park. It was pretty dark when we got there so sketching anything other than the proverbial black cat in a dark room there were no real sketching opportunities.

That was a last thing on my mind anyway as we had our mitts full of frozen yogourt. It was the best there is, or so sayeth my daughter. I think its the first time I’ve ever had any that didn’t come out of a carton. We’d stopped at Menchies to get it and that was a fun experience unto its own because of the way you put together what you want and then pay by the weight of your concoction. I drew the spoon in honor of the place.

So there you have it – our trip to Ottawa. Urban sketching adds so much to trips like this, even if you don’t have time to do it. Does that make sense? Hope so.

Sketching A Native American Exhibit

Posted on April 11, 2016 by Larry Marshall

A pair of snowshoes provided some symmetry practice.

I went to our Thursday museum sketching session in spite of being more than a little bored with sketching at the museum. The walk was cold and snowy and when I arrived I wasn’t much in the mood to sketch but I found myself in the Native American exhibit, which is part of the permanent collection at the museum.

This large cup was made from seal skin and sewn with reindeer sinew.

I approached the morning with my little, red Field Notes book instead of my normal sketchbook. I spent a lot of time wandering but when I stopped I did these small sketches. It wasn’t the most productive morning but, as always, it was fun chatting with friends.

This is a small stone carving of an Inuit fisherman who is laying on the ice, looking into his fishing hole.

Sketching At A Plant Nursery

Posted on April 2, 2016 by Larry Marshall

I had a great time on Thursday. Normally we meet at the museum to sketch but Claudette knows someone at one of the major plant nurseries and she arranged for us to sketch in their large greenhouses.

We arrived at 10AM and spent the next two hours sketching, chatting, and generally having a great time. As I entered the room I noticed a large concrete tortoise sitting on a shelf. He was gorgeous and I lamented to Yvan that I wished he were on a lower shelf as if I sat on my stool, he would have towered overhead. But luck was with me as they actually had several of them, one of which was sitting on a large flat table at my eye height as I sat on my stool. So I drew him. Isn’t he cute? I should have drawn some ground for him to walk on. I think he would have appreciated that.

Stillman & Birn Beta (9x12), Platinum 3776

Stillman & Birn Beta (9×12), Platinum 3776

When I finished, my back needed a rest so I wandered around, checking what everyone else was drawing. I’m nothing if not nosy. Francine is just back from a couple months visiting the sun in Mexico so it was fun to catch up with her. She’d sketched a stone fish that I liked very much so I decided to draw it too. I decided to do it in my red Field Notes book, a small book that’s providing me way too much fun. I suppose ‘serious’ artists don’t draw stuff like this but I had a lot of fun doing it.

Field Notes (Sweet Tooth Red); Platinum 3776, Uniball UM 153 white pen)

When I finished I realized that it was almost 11:30 so I checked with everyone again to find out how much longer they would be sketching. We typically break for lunch no later than 12:00 and it sounded like today would be no exception. So, I started wandering, looking for something else to draw.

I was in a nursery so flowers and plants were everywhere but I just wasn’t motivated to draw any of them. Not sure why but I was more in the mood to keep drawing garden decorations. I spent time looking at garden gnomes, nearly decided to draw a different turtle but then I saw these fat green frogs. I couldn’t resist. It was akin to drawing a ball with eyes. Hope you like him.

Field Notes Sweet Tooth: A Sketchbook?

Posted on March 25, 2016 by Larry Marshall

I confess that I’ve been a subscriber to Field Notes, a series of small (3×5) collectible notebooks, for the past year. These are handy notepads but mostly they come with paper that’s too light for sketching, at least with fountain pens, and they generally come with pesky lines or grids on their pages.

A while back, though, they did one of their quarterly releases that included 70# white paper. It did have a light grid but it could be easily ignored and proved to be a useful sketchbook at least for those of us who like the convenience of having a small, light sketchbook with us at all times. And Field Notes have done it again… sort of.

This time they’re released a set of three colorful notebooks (Easter colors??) with a couple significant twists on their typical approach. This time, the 70# paper is BLANK… just like we like it. And it’s RED, BLUE and YELLOW… which we like…err…uhm… I’ll let you be the judge.

When I received mine I was very unhappy. Who the heck needs paper with these ridiculous colors. I threw them on the debris field and this my desk and didn’t even open them.

Then Tina Koyama “experimented.” She’s much smarter than I am and saw the potential. You can see her results here, and here. The results were undeniable; I had to try them.

Like Tina, I started with the red one. I took it with me when I went to meet some people to attend a small art exhibition. I stood outside and in spite of the cold decided that I should try to draw a lamp on red paper. This was not a great idea because my hands quickly became frozen and I was struggling to get the white Uniball pen to write in the cold. Nevertheless, I had started my adventure down the small red road.

That night I sat at my desk with a photo of a street lamp on my laptop. I only spent a few minutes on it but the red paper made it a lot of fun.

The next night I was watching TV with my wife and as I’m prone to do, I got a bit bored not doing at least one other thing while watching the glass teat. So, after checking my Instagram feed, becoming frustrated with vitriole on Twitter, and checking in to see what the Blue Jays are doing in spring training, I got my red Field Notes, my Platinum 3776 and I grabbed the glass container that holds my watercolor water on my desk. Watching TV became more fun as I drew that container.

I’m a guy who loves drawing lines more than anything else. I’m drawn to watercolors mostly cuz everyone else is, proving that I’m as much of a lemming as anyone else. But the red paper releases me from the thought of adding color so I can just enjoy drawing with my fountain pens. It won’t be the only sketching I do as I’m not sure how well it fits into my urban sketching passion, but for sitting around the house drawing, it’s pretty sweet… or is that sweet tooth?

I did give the approach a try while I was at the museum and drew this interesting flask. It’s a flask which was traditionally filled with perfume. Egyptians gave these to each other as part of a New Years celebration. This was fun and may show me the way to incorporate the toned paper into a location session as this only too me a few minutes between my normal sketching.

I was more doubtful about the other two colors but, again, Tina led the way. This morning I decided I should try the blue book so I could post a result in this blog post. I decided a fire hydrant might be nice and as I’d just filled a Pilot Metropolitan with Nooder’s Red-Black I started drawing. Not good…really bad, in fact. Noodlers Red-Black is supposed to be “water-resistant.” It is not… not even a little bit. I touched the drawing with a small brush with the idea of pulling a bit of shading from the lines and those lines just exploded. Thank goodness I was drawing a red thing because I was in chase my tail mode trying to clean up the mess. I wasn’t very successful and smarter people would probably not post this sketch. Here it is. Not the fault of the Field Notes but it’s a great example why I don’t use Noodler’s “water-resistant” inks.

And so I had to try again so I could provide something…anything in the blue book that looked ok. I did this quick architecture/landscape sketch from my limited imagination. Hope you like it.