Shapes Are Everything In Sketching

Posted on March 15, 2013 by Larry Marshall

I continue to sketch at the Musée de la Civilisation here in Quebec City because it’s turned cold again. Mother Nature seems to be reminding us that it’s too soon for spring. We’re supposed to have a big snow storm at the beginning of next week 🙁

But the practice I’m getting at seeing and depicting shape couldn’t be better as the Nigerian artifacts are truly extraordinary when it comes to shape. I’m starting to experiment a bit with technique, trying to do some more quickly than others, some less/more detailed. This is fun to do, though it takes a certain amount of gymnastics on the part of my brain to break out of my penchant for detail and a slow pace. I thought I’d share a few more with you.

I did these first two by creating a rough outline in pencil. I followed this by the addition of color using a waterbrush with a few drops of J. Herbin Lie de thé. Then I added the ink outlines and hatching. These were also done more quickly than my normal snail pace and while not as precise, I like the results of this process.

This one was done in the same quick style but I did it in ink and then added the color, again from the waterbrush/ink pen. It’s a large pestle used for smashing grain, or unruly husbands I suspect.

Finally, I’ve been waiting to do this helmet for a while. It’s something 0f an anomaly in this exhibit as most of the items are created in wood and covered with mud of varying textures. It seems cast in metal and is very detailed. It called out for a detailed sketch and so I went back to my more typical approach. I used a Pilot Prera and Lexington Gray ink. I added some shading using Faber-Castell watercolor pencils. The more I use these the more I love them for adding color as you can get the lines to completely disappear with a waterbrush. Very handy for shading.

All four of these sketches were done in a Stillman & Birn Epsilon (5.5×8.5) and I realized that I’ve never filled this one with just museum sketches this winter. But I’m ready for spring…aren’t you?

Sketching Other People’s Art

Posted on March 13, 2013 by Larry Marshall

Last Sunday Yvan, Pierre, Celine and I headed to the Musee de L’Amerique Francais because they were launching a new display of art done in Quebec long ago and donated to the Catholic church who kept the collection in their museum. We didn’t know what to expect but since it’s still too cold for outdoor sketching, what the heck, we were going sketch art.

Much of the art in this collection is religious art, not my favorite way to use display space. I find most of it too gawdy and repetitious. But one room was filled with some amazing Quebecois pieces, many that would be considered ‘urban’ art today. I was looking for a new challenge, something different… at least for me.

After looking around, I settled down to sketch a bronze statue of a woman carrying a heavy bucket. I was struck by how well the sculpture captured the physical effort and body/arm positioning to maintain balance with a heavy bucket in one hand.

This was a considerable leap for me as I’m not good at drawing human forms and I had no idea how to make one look like a bronze statue. Still, it was fun. I drew it in a Stillman & Birn Epsilon (5.5×8.5) with a Pilot Prera and Lexington Gray. I used watercolor pencils to fake the bronze look.

There were many paintings that seemed worthy of turning them into a Larry sketch but one in particular caught my eye. It was a painting of a 19th Century seminary courtyard, a courtyard that was actually just next door to the museum. I went outside to look at the real thing and found what a hundred years can do. The basic building layout remained. In fact, on one edge of the courtyard, the end where the artist stood, there exists the remains of an old wall, clearly a very old wall.

Aside from that, everything had been remodeled and updated. The two main buildings had an extra story added to them and all the windows had been modernized. The stairway was gone adn the entries had modern doors. It definitely looked cooler in the 19th Century so I went back indoors where it was warm.

I’d never sketched an oil painting before and converting it to my cartoon sketching style did present some challenges, but it was fun, too. Done in the same S&B sketchbook but with a Lamy Safari as my Prera ran out of ink . I’m not sure I’ll add color to it as I like it au natural.

We’ve vowed to return to sketch some other pieces, particularly some of the sculptures. A great day was had by all, but every sketching day is a great day, isn’t it?

Nigerian Statues And Museum Sketching

Posted on March 7, 2013 by Larry Marshall

I continue to use our Musee de la Civilisation as though it were closing soon. That’s not the case, thank goodness, but I need need my daily fixes of sketching, now, don’t I?

I’ve switched my attention from Nigerian masks to Nigerian statues, of which there are many in the exhibit. Before sharing them with you, however, I thought I’d talk a bit about sketching in museums.

Museum Sketching

I’m no expert about anything related to sketching but I play the role of an urban sketcher almost daily. Because it’s cold in Quebec, my urban sketching for the past few months has been in museums and here are a few things I’ve learned.

1) Know the rules

Every museum has rules and the best way to get on the good side of the administration and security is to follow them. Even inquiring about rules is seen as a good thing.

2) Talk to the people who work there

This is particularly important. Show them your sketches. Tell them how great it is that you can sketch in ‘their’ museum. Make a point of asking if your location is ok, and try to choose locations that will be out of the way of people wandering the museum. There’s no need to hide but often a bit of thought leads to a good compromise.

3) Adjust your materials to a museum milieu

My outdoor sketching kit includes watercolors, collapsible brushes and small bottles of water. My museum kit includes watercolor pencils and a waterbrush. If you use a pencil, consider switching from an eraser that drops debris all over the floor to a kneaded eraser. And keep your working footprint as small as possible. I have a tripod stool and my small art bag leans against it behind my feet while I’m sketching.

4) Buy a light

Museums often keep light levels low in their exhibit rooms because many of the artifacts can be damaged by light. Buy a clip on light to illuminate your work. These are inexpensive – mine cost me $13.

I also carry a small piece of masonite, cut to the size of an open sketchbook. I clip the sketchbook to this, making this unit easy to hold while walking around. It serves two purposes. One is to support the sketchbook while you sketch but the other is to keep it open when you’re not as open sketchbooks stimulate more interest from museum-goers.

5) Talk to patrons

Museum goers are curious folks and they’ll be curious about your sketching. Talk to them; particularly the kids, who are often more bold than their parents. Engage them in conversations. Not only is this fun, if done regularly, the museum staff will notice and come to understand that you are an asset as well as a dumb cluck who sits in their museum day after day sketching.

About Them Nigerian Statues

I promised some Nigerian statue sketches. Here are a few that I’ve done recently. All are done with Pilot Prera, Lex Gray ink, in a Stillman & Birn Epsilon sketchbook.

While the masks seem to be made of wood, the statues are made from a variety of materials. This one is carved from a gray rock that looks like granite. It is truly gorgeous, much more so than my sketch indicates.

I fell in love with this bird which isn’t, strictly speaking, a statue. Rather, it’s a stopper for a large jug of some kind (thus the pointy thing at the bottom) It’s made from wood and, as tradition seem prone to dictate, covered in a very thin mud of some kind.

This next one isn’t a statue either. The large hollowed out area on its belly serves as a cup and, somehow, it’s used during funeral ceremonies. The sign says it allows two people to drink simultaneously. All I can say is that they’d better be very good friends.

This is a wonderful statue of a person carrying a child on their back. Very stylistic in its elongated proportions, I just love it. It’s made of wood with a sculpted clay covering and is more sophisticated than many of the other wood statues.

I’m hoping spring will be sprung from its hiding place ‘real soon’ and I can get back on the street. Until that time, I’ve got lots of great statues to sketch. Hope you’ve got a museum too.

The Hidden Fun Of Urban Sketching

Posted on February 27, 2013 by Larry Marshall

We’re lucky in Quebec City. Every year we host the International PeeWee Hockey Tournament. Kids come from around the world to spend 10 days playing hockey and walking around saying “Bonjour” to everyone because it’s the only French word they know. I know the feeling.

We live down the street from one of the two venues where the tournament takes place and I was shoveling snow when one such group walked by my house. Several of them used their one French word but one kid said, “We really like your snow.” They were from Maryland. When I said, in English, “You can have all and I’ll help you load it,” I swear a couple of them jumped off the ground.

But this post isn’t about hockey, Pee Wee or otherwise. It’s about sketching. But it’s not about the sketches I’m presenting either. Rather, it’s a post about the evening I spent with my family and thousands of hockey fans.

My habit of sketching every time I stop moving found me sitting among cheering fans, watching hockey and sketching, trying to create quick hockey player sketches by jumping from one player to another to grab a complete outline. I’d never done that before and the results show my lack of experience with the technique. But it was a LOT of fun and when the dust settled, I’d done eleven pages (5.5×8.5) of the darn things.

Ok…so if the post isn’t about hockey, and it isn’t about sketches, why are you reading this, you ask. I want to tell you a couple short stories about my interactions with some of the spectators. Too often I hear people say they are too shy or not good enough to sketch in public. These two stories, I hope, will convince you that none of that matters and that people LOVE sketchers.

The first story begins between periods during the second game. The players has just returned to the ice and I was sketching, as I had been for the past couple hours. There was a very gentle tap on my left shoulder. I turned to find it had come from the finger of a young girl, probably no more than 12-13 years old. She very shyly said, “Do you speak French?” I guess she’d heard me speaking English. I told her yes and she immediately looked up a couple rows and waved. Another young girl jumped up and ran down to us. “Hic c’est beau! J’aime beaucoup vos esquisses,” (I think) immediately came from her and she asked if she could see all of my sketches. Of course I complied, sheepishly showing her these crude sketches as she went on and on about how great they were. I showed her my pens, my waterbrush, and how I used the waterbrush to shade the sketches. They were thrilled; I was chuffed. Nothing like an appreciative audience (grin).

At the end of the second game I got a cup of tea. The food vendor lady ‘made’ me a tea, stuffing a tea bag in a styrofoam cup full of hot water. I guess she was more used to people ordering coffee as she said, “I don’t know how to make tea. If it’s no good I’ll give you your money back.” I just smiled. Quebecers are so nice.

As there were no skaters on the ice I did a quick sketch of the Zamboni (ice cleaning machine) and then decided to sketch a guy who was sitting a couple rows below me. Again, it was just a quick sketch, but at least he wasn’t in constant motion. I was nearly finished when I got a tap on my shoulder. This time it was a great big guy who was sitting behind me. He asked “Are you drawing that guy down there?” and he pointed at the guy I was sketching. My immediate thought was “Oh crap, I’m in trouble now”, but I admitted that I was. I didn’t dare let on that I didn’t think it was even close to a likeness as he obviously saw something I didn’t. He said, “That’s what I thought. He’s my friend,” and he stood up and yelled, “Marcel, viens ici” Marcel turned around, got up and came up to where we were sitting. I showed him the sketch, he told me it was nice, the two friends kibbitzed a bit and he returned to his seat, and I did a quick shading of the sketch.

Sketching on location is special, even if nobody talks to you. But when they do, it’s really special. I’m convinced that there are people in the world who think my sketches are horrible and a waste of time…but they never talk to me.

Urban Sketching, Nigeria Style

Posted on February 24, 2013 by Larry Marshall

Now that the Samurai exhibit has left our museum I’ve been concentrating more on the Nigerian exhibit. The more I sketch it the more I gain insights into life as an urban Nigerian of the past. While many (most?) of the masks, crests and statues that make up the exhibit were ceremonial in nature, the early Nigerians used carvings to grace everything. If they needed to stopper a bottle, they made a plug with a head or statue on top of it. Combs were carved from wood and had ornate handles. Even spoons and ladles were handsomely carved. Because of this, there’s a lot to sketch and because of the complexity of these objects, it’s the best sketching practice an urban sketcher could want.

Here are some examples of what I’ve done recently. All were done in an Stillman and Birn Epsilon sketchbook (5.5×8.5) and all with a Pilot Prera pen filled with Noodler’s Lexington Gray.

Color comes from watercolor pencils as they’re just more convenient in museum setting than are my actual watercolors.

Have you done any sketching in museums? If so, do you find it fun?