I was walking back from the museum and found this guy, sitting in the park, looking out at the river. I could almost see what he was thinking. All of us who live in Quebec City are thinking it. Note his heavy coat. Note the lack of vegetation of any kind. This is nearly mid-May and while Quebec City is known for its cold, this is getting ridiculous (grin).
Stillman & Birn Alpha (9×6), TWSBI Mini, Noodler’s Lexington Gray
One of the things I’ve always wondered about are the small ice cream places that exist in Quebec City. We have a fairly short summer and most of them simply close up in the fall and sit idle all winter. Things must be moving slowly for them this spring as we haven’t had much ice cream weather thus far. But the stores persist, in spite of the short selling season. I wonder how.
This is one of the cutest. It’s on chemin St. Louis in the old city and is very inviting, or it will be when it warms up a bit more. Done in a Stillman & Birn Alpha (9×6) with a Hero 9296 pen and Lex Gray ink. New pen for me but so far I like it. I always like new pens.
It’s amazing! As I headed for the museum I couldn’t believe it. Spring had really sprung. The sun was out. It wasn’t windy. And it was warm. Well, maybe not warm by normal standards. It was 47F, but compared to what we’ve been experienced it was warm.
I’d told Yvan that I’d meet him at the museum but I couldn’t resist stopping in the park in front of the train station to draw a cool kiosk that resides there. I was about 20 minutes late to the museum but it was worth it. It felt sooooooo good to be sketching outdoors.
Stillman & Birn Alpha sketchbook (9×6), Pilot Prera, Lexington Gray
I spent about an hour sketching at the museum and decided that I “needed” to get back outside to enjoy the sunshine. I was almost giddy as I walked the town, looking for things to sketch. But I didn’t want to stop to draw. I was having too much fun wandering, taking inventory of my city, making a mental list of things I want to sketch. In the end, I only did a couple really quick sketches but I walked nearly nine kilometers. It was sooooo fun, but I was beat by the end of the day. It’s gonna be a fun summer.
It’s the end of April and our high temps are still in the mid to low 40s (F). Couple that with spring rains and I haven’t had much opportunity to sketch outdoors. So, when the new Masters of Olympus exhibition opened at the Musee de la Civilisation I saw it as an opportunity to sketch something new. Museum sketching is a winter thing, even if winter is at the end of April.
This exhibition is a presentation of Greek and Roman gods, mostly in the form of statues, busts, and painted pottery. The exhibition must have been laid out by a sketcher as there are lots of little nooks and crannies in which you can stick a stool to sketch and most of the statues are viewable from multiple points of view. In fact, following the opening ceremony the news promo for the exhibit made a point of saying that people were there sketching. I love my sketcher-friendly museum.
I decided to start this new exhibit by putting a toe in the water. In fact, I drew the whole foot. This foot came from what must have been a huge statue as this broken portion of the foot is at least three feet long.
Pilot Prera, Lex Gray ink – Stillman & Birn Alpha sketchbook
I bought a sheet of Arches hot-press watercolor paper and wanted to see how it responded to my pens and watercolors. I cut a small section from the sheet (4×6) and got out a Pilot Prera.
Thinking I would let Google give me inspiration I searched for, and found, a bunch of small houses. One of them reminded me of the many houses Anita Davies has drawn (https://www.flickr.com/photos/anitadavies/) and I love her clean, simple, approach to her architectural sketches. I decided I’d try to do one in her style. Apologies to Anita as I didn’t come close to her standards and probably missed her style. But it was fun and I found working on the hot-press paper to be lots of fun.
