sketch, Sketching Small In Ottawa

I got to spend a week in Ottawa, mostly visiting my daughter but I also wandering around and sketching.  I’m in the process of scanning the sketches and thought I’d start a short series of posts with a few of the many tiny sketches I did while there.  The tan ones were done in one of my mustache books while the red ones were done in a Field Notes Sweet Tooth notebook.

2016-06-20people1I’m going to include only two of the people sketches I did, mostly because I’m lazy and didn’t want to scan any more.  The first is my favorite of all of them; a woman wearing a hijab.  This scarf was gorgeous, with silver threads running through it that made it glisten.  I got caught up in the curves and folds of the fabric to the point that my coffee went cold.

2016-06-20people2This one was a bit unique in that I was waiting for me daughter at school and saw this unusually talk Asian woman.  Not an important sketch by any measure but I enjoy capturing the variability of the human form.

If you follow this blog you know that I’ve been having fun sketching with the Field Notes Sweet Tooth edition, particularly the red notebook of the set.  I’m going to have to buy a couple more packs as I’m using up my red ones.  It’s really fun having the red as a mid-tone with black and white inks on either side.  Here are a couple lamp posts, one of my favorite sketching subjects.

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My daughter and I bought sandwiches and walked down to the Ottawa River where 7-stage canal locks lower boats from the Rideau Canal to the river.  It’s a beautiful place and we fed chipmunks and watched a young rabbit chow down on the foliage a few feet from us.  I mentioned to her that I wished that I had a loose and quick style that would allow me to capture things like the Art Museum that was visible up the hill from where we sat.  To demonstrate that I don’t have one, I did this sketch of it in just a few minutes between sandwich bites.

On another day I started walking from Parliament towards a pair of statues that honor firefighters, but I ended up doing sketches along the way and didn’t get to the firefighters until late in the afternoon.  By then I’d been pretty well beaten down by the particularly hot day so I decided to do a small ‘red’ sketch.  I’m really glad things worked out the way they did as I really liked the result.  Hope you do too.

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Sketching At Jardin botanique Roger-Van den Hende

When I want to draw some plants I head to Jardin botanique Roger-Van den Hende.  It’s a very large garden that is something of a large library of plants rather than a coordinated esthetic garden.  So many textures, so many shapes.

Stillman & Birn Delta (8x10), Platinum 3776, Platinum Carbon Black

Stillman & Birn Delta (8×10), Platinum 3776, Platinum Carbon Black

Our sketching group met there on Thursday and the weather couldn’t be better.  Lots of sun, little wind, and it was warm enough that even I was searching for some shade.  I was planning on drawing flowers but didn’t draw a single petal.  Funny how fickle the sketching eye is and I went down a different path.  We’ve scheduled a sketchcrawl in the garden for July so many I’ll get to the flowers then.

Stillman & Birn Alpha (5x8), Platinum 3776, Platinum Carbon Black

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

Drawing Carriage Horses

All summer long tourists pay to be hauled around the old city behind beautiful horses who just shake their heads, saying “Why can’t they walk?  They could use the exercise.”  These horses are beautiful and we got the opportunity to visit the facilities where the horses live and where carriages are maintained.

2016-06-17fencepostI couldn’t stay long this day so I started with a bunch of quick sketches of horses, or rather horse parts because the horses were moving around the yard a lot early in the morning.   I sat down and did a quick sketch of the building area and then then I got out a Field Notes red notebook and drew an interesting set of shapes in the form of a fence post with rope wrapped around it.

As I was doing that a horse walked over to find out what I was doing.  It just stood there, watching.  It was a perfect portrait angle so I started drawing its head.  What a magnificent animal.  He (?) was mostly black with a bit of white along the top of the muzzle.  And then he walked away, satisfied that I was not very interesting afterall.  I had half a drawing.

I finished up the post/rope sketch and was about to draw a dandelion when another horse, this one light brown wandered over.  Not the same angle but I started talking to him and he maintained his interest in me long enough for me to finish this sketch.  I think the muzzle is too thin but otherwise I kinda like it.  Then it was my time to leave and so I headed for a bus.

2016-06-17horse

The Vikings Showed Up In Quebec

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.

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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

Field Notes, Platinum 3776

Sketching Around Bassin Louise

A popular place in Quebec City is Bassin Louise, the sheltered harbor area where people keep their sailboats and mini-yachts.  There’s also a large market complex that is popular with tourists and locals alike.  And that’s where our sketching group was on Tuesday morning.  We’re finally getting decent sketching weather so we’re taking advantage of it.

This is a view I’ve wanted to sketch for a while.  It’s nothing special but the trees frame up a group of building shapes that has always attracted my eye.

Stillman & Birn Delta (8x10), Platinum 3776, Platinum Carbon Black

Stillman & Birn Delta (8×10), Platinum 3776, Platinum Carbon Black

Sometimes I’m attracted by a shape, sometimes a texture.  Unlike a lot of artists, I’m not driven to find “great scenes” but rather I like things that look like they’d be fun to draw.  I think this sketch illustrates this point.  I was walking along the harbor and found the sacks that cover furled sails create an interesting draped fabric shape and I thought they’d be fun to draw one… and so I did.  Ain’t sketching fun?

Stillman & Birn Alpha (5x8), Platinum 3776

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