Sketching The Past

Winter sketching, as I’m mentioned before, is confined my sketching to indoor venues.  That’s ok because there are museums, coffee shops, and librarys to provide sketching opportunities.  But what’s a guy supposed to do when he’s sitting at home and wants to draw?

Photos?  I’m not very good at drawing from photos as I don’t feel I can ‘see’ the same as when I’m actually on location.  It’s also not as much fun for me.  But that’s the choice that Mother Nature gives me so what the heck…photos it is.

What photos, though?  I’ve taken a lot of photos of Quebec City with the thought of using them as sketching material but it’s occurred to me that there may be better alternatives.  Why not sketch stuff I can’t see any more?  Dirigibles, Victorian hats, inkwells, carrier pigeons or steamships?  Or trains….that’s it…trains.

Our society decided we’d subsidize the trucking industry in the 50s and 60s by building a highway system which allowed that industry to outcompete the railroads, that had to maintain their own ‘roads.’   So, now we’ve got LOTS of trucks to draw, lots of trucks burning fuel, and the warehouses of our world have become 18-wheel diesel-powered boxes clogging up our highways.  Oh and we have far fewer trains.  So yeah, I could draw trains.

And what better place to start than with the lowly caboose.  As a kid, train watching was a big deal.  We’d wave at the engineer as the engine went by, hoping he’d blow the whistle for us.  Then we’d wait…and wait and finally, after a bunch of boxcars, tankcars, and hopper cars, here it would come…the CABOOSE…the crummy, the brain box, the dog house…whatever you called it – it was RED!  They were mostly eliminated from trains in the 1980s, replaced by “EOTs” (End Of Train device) which are boring boxes of electronics and a red light that get hung on the end of the train.  Kids don’t watch trains any more and I don’t blame them.  My daughter didn’t even know what a caboose was when I showed her my sketch.

Stillman & Birn Alpha (9x6) sketchbook, Pilot Prera, Lex Gray ink.

Stillman & Birn Alpha (9×6) sketchbook, Pilot Prera, Lex Gray ink.

I sketched this one from a black and white photo in a book I own.  It was fun.  My daughter learned what a caboose was.  Maybe I’ll draw some other things she has never seen.

Street Sketching in Paris – Sort Of

This is a hard time of year for me.  Not only do I not like winter, as a street sketcher my daily routine is snatched from my by the cold.  My Arizona fingers just won’t hold onto a pen when it’s cold.  I know, I’m a sissy, but I’ll point out that the birds leave because they can.

But all is not lost.  Last year I lived in the museums, sketching Samurai helmets, Nigerian masks, statues, and paintings.  This year I have decided that I will spend more time in coffee shops, drawing people, tables, and countertops AND heading to the museums.  One of the big exhibits at our Musee de la Civilisation, this year, is Paris on Stage, that reflects Paris as it was at the beginning of the 19th Century, with emphasis on the world expositions that took place there in 1889 and 1900.

And this is where I was, with a couple of friends, for a pleasant Saturday morning of sketching.  We’ve done it for two weeks, now and I think it will become a regular thing for us as we’re having lots of fun, sketching, followed up by a pleasant cup of tea and the ever-present discussions of art materials.

Three women from LHermitte painting

Stillman & Birn Zeta (6×9), Pilot Prera, watercolor pencils

There’s a huge mural called Les Halles by Léon Lhermitte.  It hangs at the entrance of the multi-room exhibit.  It’s an amazing work that captures the outdoor marketplace in Paris at that time.  One could sketch portions of it forever and not become bored.

My skills, thought, are too limited to do it justice but here is my attempt at three of the women in the painting.  Lots of fun to do and, for me, very difficult.  I’ll be sketching more of this mural as I hibernate in the museum this winter as it was lots of fun.

I find watercolor pencils and a waterbrush to be a great way of coloring sketches while in the museum.  I use Albrect-Durer pencils as I love the way the lines completely dissolve, unlike other pencils I’ve tried.  I do use watercolors in the museum sometimes, though.  This museum is very accommodating to sketcher-persons (grin).

Le Lapin Agile in Paris

Stillman & Birn Zeta (6×9), Platinum Carbon pen, watercolors

This week I had decided I would fill two pages with ‘cabaret’ sketches.  There is a significant portion of the exhibit devoted to the ‘hot’ cabaret scene in 19th Century Paris, with posters, paintings, signs and photographs of the places (eg – Moulin Rouge, Chat Noir) as well as early videos of dancers, patrons, and even the prostitutes who were part of that scene.  I began with this sketch of a painting featuring Le Lapin Agile, a cabaret owned by a prostitute who rose in the ranks of the community.  I  loved the winter scene particularly the many trees, devoid of leaves as they hunkered down, much like I’m doing right now, against the cold.  This sketch is about 6×6.

Cabaret page, sketched at Musee de la Civilisation

Stillman & Birn Zeta (6×9), TWSBI mini, watercolors

My eye caught a large brass sign hanging high above me.  It was the original sign that hung to announce Le Chat Noir, possibly second only to the Moulin Rouge for notoriety in Paris.  I quickly sketched it and then followed it up with a loose rendition of a portion of a Moulin Rouge poster that was, itself a pencil sketch of the place.   Then it was time for tea so we packed up and headed to Cafe 47, the museum coffee shop.  It was a great day.

 

 

How Long Does It Take To Do A Sketch?

One thing that many of us who sketch on location talk about is how much easier it is to fit sketching into a busy schedule.  We contrast it to creating fine art and the need for large blocks of time.  We emphasize the point by quoting the many laments from fine artists about not having time to do their art.
There is truth to our claim but, on some level we exaggerate, as when many of us sketch a complex scene, or simply a sketch with lots of detail, we can burn away a couple hours without problem, and many a fine art piece is created in the same amount of time.

But, nevertheless, what we say is true.  I sketch almost every day, often more than once a day.  Unless you’re making your living as a fine artist, few could make that claim.  As I look at what I do and how I do it, I see that there is a ‘trick’ to fitting sketching into a busy schedule, whether it be by wandering the city as a street sketcher or sitting at home doing sketching at the kitchen table.  For lack of a term for this trick, I’ll call it time-result flexibility.

I learned this concept from Yvan Breton, the guy who has taught me more than anyone else about drawing.  What amazes me about Yvan is his ability to do 30-second sketches, 2-minute sketches, 20-minute sketches, 2-hour sketches, and pieces of fine art requiring multiple sessions and many hours.  I guess, to be more precise, it isn’t being able to draw something over differing periods of time as any drawing book will talk about doing gesture sketches, contour sketches, and various forms of more detailed art.

What is impressive about Yvan is that he does this seamlessly, magically fitting a true, realistic sketch into each of these time frames.  He has developed the ability to assess his available time and approach and develop his sketch such that, as the wizard Gandalf said in Lord of the Rings, “arrives exactly when he means to” and his sketches are complete.  Short time periods, of course, have less detail.  Maybe one could argue that they are less precise, but it’s really hard to tell and, to me, that is downright magical.

And while some sketchers fit sketching into their busy schedules by always sketching quickly, I encourage those interested in fine art to consider this alternative approach – adjusting the result of your sketch to the time available for it.  This does require adjusting your expectations to time frame but it goes deeper than that.  It means being able to identify and prioritize the various aspects of what you’re drawing and organizing your approach to capture the high priority things, in a quick sketch, adding a few more if you have a longer time and only capturing everything when you have an unlimited amount of time.

I know..I know…this is simply restating “just simplify” but that’s not what I’m talking about.  We can talk about ‘keep it loose’ til the cows come home but loose is a different debate entirely.  Yvan can do this time-result trick with portraits and each of them will look LIKE the person he’s drawing.

I wish I could better describe his thoughts and actions as if I could understand and do it well myself, I might better use words to explain it.  I cannot, but it is something that we can all think about and with practice implement in your own work.  The first step is to think about the time-result equation as you sketch.

The next step, I’m convinced, is to start drawing in radically different time frames.  I was resistant to this idea, mostly because I couldn’t do it.  The thought of drawing anything in 30 seconds was beyond my abilities.  Heck, the thought of drawing anything in 20 minutes was beyond my abilities until I’d drawn a few hundred things that took 1-2 hours.  But you’re all more experienced than I am, right?  So give it a try.

Pilot Prera and Lex Gray in a waterbrush

Pilot Prera and Lex Gray in a waterbrush

Here are my attempts at this sort of thing, all done within the last week or so.  The first is a very quick sketch of a friend.  I spent about 30-seconds capturing his shape, and little more, as he was talking to someone.

Is it great art?  Nope, but I can look at it and remember that day.  I also got some practice capturing a shape quickly.  I got to do art while I waited for him.  I had fun.  I’m just guessing but if I do another 120 of these I bet my ability to do it will improve.  What do you think?  And how long will that take to do 120 sketches like this?  In real sketching time, ONE HOUR, and it will be one hour spent drawing instead of just standing around.  Everyone has ‘dead time’ in their life.

Platinum Carbon pen, 3x5 notebook

Platinum Carbon pen, 3×5 notebook

I was out to lunch with a friend and afterwards he had to stop at a store, run in, and pick something up.  I sat in the car for 3-4 minutes.  As I sat I realized there was a building before me so I got out my small sketchbook and started drawing.  I spent 2-3 minutes on this sketch before my buddy returned and I quickly slapped on some color before scanning it.  I could have just sat and watched cars drive by but what fun would that be?  Doing 100 of these sketches would require seven hours of waiting for people, sitting in a doctor’s office, waiting for lunch to be served.  Sadly, we all spend lots of time doing nothing.  And again, the result is fun and I get more experience “seeing” things and recording them.  If you did one of them a day, you’d have 365 sketches like this at the end of the year.

2013-10-28Lamp_72

Pilot Prera, 3×5 notebook

I was in a mall, again… waiting.  I looked up and noticed the large light fixtures that light the mall corridors.  I’d been in the mall a gazillion times but never noticed them before.  Again, I got out my sketchbook and spent 10-12 minutes drawing one of those lights.  I found it something of a challenge as I always have trouble with angles when I have to look up a lot.  In the end, though, the waiting became fun and productive.

When I have more time, but not enough for a complex scene, I’ll do something like this:

Pilot Prera, Platinum Carbon Ink, Stillman & Birn Zeta (6x9)

Pilot Prera, Platinum Carbon Ink, Stillman & Birn Zeta (6×9)

Which one do you like best?  Yeah…me too, but those quicker, more spartan sketches allow me to build the ability to do the sketch above in about half an hour.

And when I have a lot of time, I’ll do something like this:

2013-08-27HouseI can’t tell you how long this sketch took me except to say that I need a significant block of time to do a sketch like this.  If I only did sketches like this I would have a lot less fun, a lot less often, and I’d have a lot less experience in laying line to paper than I currently have.  The time-result ‘trick’ is working for me.  My results are not up to what Yvan can produce in a few minutes but if I’m convinced that working in different time frames, fitting in as much drawing as I possibly can into my life, I will improve.  Maybe it can help you as well.

First Museum Sketching Session Of 2013

Winter is descending upon us quickly.  It actually snowed yesterday, though it’s still not cold enough to stick around.  That will happen soon enough.  There’s still the occasional day when I can brave the temperatures and sketch outdoors, as long as I don’t do it for very long.

So I’m in the middle of summer-to-winter sketching transition.  I’m warming up my watercolor pencils for visits to museums but, for the moment, the watercolors are close at hand for when its possible to use them.  I’m getting out my heavy coats, hats and gloves, for the walks to those museums and I’ve buffed up my winter boots.

It’s all sort of depressing when I think about it.  I try hard not to but the short day lengths are a constant reminder of what the next five months will bring.  We’re down to ten-hours of daylight and by the time we get to mid-December, we’ll be in the dark for all but eight hours of every day.  I guess it could be worse; I could live in Finland.  Those guys have really short days.

And that reminds me, I had to get new batteries for my museum light.  A light is a requirement for sketching in our museums as while the subjects are lit, the rooms have subdued lighting.  I use a Mighty Bright book light that clips to my sketchbook and it works great.

2013-10-26GillesCharron_72The light and the rest of my materials showed up at the Musee de la Civilisation last Saturday.  I was with them.  I was there to meet three other sketchers and to sketch in the warmth and comfort of a great museum.

When I arrived they were checking in.  Gilles wasn’t yet a member of the museum (a real bargain for a sketcher in a cold place – I went there over 50 times last winter) and he was filling out the form to become one.  I sat down and quickly sketched him.  We all chuckled over the result and headed to the exhibits.

The new big exhibit is Paris, 1889-1914.  At that time, Paris was a hotbed of technical achievement in addition to its famous art and cabaret communities.  Paris hosted the worlds fair in 1889 and in 1900, a time when things like telegraph and electricity generation and uses were still novelties.  This exhibit reflects this, with a mixture of art (eg – Rodin sculptures and a lot of paintings of Paris), lots of material from stage, screen and cinema, early bicycles, steam-powered cars, and a lot of different electrical gizmos and gadgets.  In short, there’s lots of stuff to sketch.

I’d met two of the sketchers at our recent sketchcrawl and as this was the first time to be sketching in a smaller group with them, we (well, I mean I) spent a lot more time talking than I did sketching.  We had a lot of fun talking about materials, what winter sketching in Quebec is like, and just a bunch of general chit-chat.

Stillman & Birn Zeta (6x9), Pilot Prera F, Platinum Carbon Black ink

Stillman & Birn Zeta (6×9), Pilot Prera F, Platinum Carbon Black ink

My plan was to sketch three things on two pages and knit them together into a ‘journal’ page as this is an area I want to experiment with more.  Sadly, I only managed to get two sketches finished so the page isn’t quite what I had planned, but here it is in any case.  Hope you like it.  I hope the four of us can get back to the museum real soon.

Happy Halloween, Everyone

I’m not a big holiday celebration kind of guy but when I was out walking I saw this small cluster of pumpkins, put on a doorstep in honor of Halloween.  So, here’s my attempt at being in the Halloween spirit.

2013-10-21Pumpkins_72

This sketch was fun to do in a Stillman & Birn Zeta (6×9) with a Pilot Prera and Platinum Carbon Black.