We’re finally getting some summer heat here, along with our typical high humidity.  But that wasn’t how this day started.  We started the day trying to figure out where we could go to sketch indoors because it was too cold to be outside and there was a threat of rain.

We took the ferry over to Levis with the idea of sketching in the new passenger facility that I described in an earlier post and so off we went, Yvan, myself and Claudette.

The trip was uneventful except that the sun came out so when we got to the other side we thought we should walk along the street while searching for sketching opportunities.  There are many along the south shore of the St. Lawrence.

Being the sloth that I am, I was happy with the idea of lounging around in the grass of the park there.  Claudette and Yvan thought it might be fun to climb the stairs up to old buildings that reside “up there.”

Let me explain a bit.  These are not ordinary stairs.  We’re talking serious stair-climbing here as the stairs worm their way, serpentine fashion up the cliff face to the neighborhoods of old Levis.  These stairs have their own restaurant, the Restaurant de l’escalier for goodness sake.  Up we went.

At the top Yvan and Claudette settled into sketching mode and I realized that I’d forgotten to bring my stool with me.  I wandered around, looking for a place to sit that would afford a view of something.  The best I could muster was sitting on a curb at the bottom of the street, looking up at a couple houses.  This perch was right over a sewer grate that supplied free smells, direct from the neighborhood.  What more could a guy ask for?  Oh yeah…it was out in what had become a bright, direct, and very warm sun.

Undaunted, I started drawing a couple buildings.  They ended up a bit wonky but hey, at least I didn’t lose my pen, which fell onto that sewer grate I mentioned, but didn’t slip through the slots to a stinky grave.  It was a special day.

Stillman & Birn Gamma (10×7), Namiki Falcon, De Atramentis Document ink