The Public Pool In Limoilou

I walk a lot which means that I know every park within a couple hours walk of my house because I often take a break in them.  One such park is in Limoilou and it has a public pool.

I was sitting in the park, resting my bones when I decided that it was worthy of a sketch.  It’s not the best composition ever put to paper and it was done quickly, but it was fun so I share it here.

Stillman & Birn Alpha (5.5x8.5), Platinum 3776, Platinum Carbon Black

Stillman & Birn Alpha (5.5×8.5), Platinum 3776, Platinum Carbon Black

Heading Towards Autumn As A Sketcher

This time of year is crazy for me.  It’s entirely self-inflicted, though our orbiting world has some play in the matter.  You see, we’re hurtling towards the Autumnal Equinox.  Now, if you live in Arizona this probably means nothing to you but if you’re a sketcher, living in Quebec City, it means everything.

The Autumnal Equinox means my days as a street sketcher are numbered because it will soon be too cold to sketch outdoors.  It’s leaning that way already.  And so, each year, without intention, I become frantic to “get out there and sketch.”  I can’t help myself.  There are also the “We gotta go _fill in the blank_ before it gets too cold to do so” events and this adds short trips to hither and yon in an attempt to keep up with an Earth that’s flying along at 108,000 km/h.  How’s a guy to keep up?

So, we’ve been day-tripping and I’ve been sketching and the days have become so full that I don’t have any time to even scan my sketches, let alone write blog posts about them.

So I apologize for my lack of presentation but rest assured, I’ll make up for it as things slow down a bit.  In the meantime, here’s a rather quick sketch I did of a cute little storage building (not sure of its orignal purpose) that lives in the Parc des governors in Quebec City.

Stillman & Birn Beta (8x10)

Stillman & Birn Beta (8×10)

A Bit Of The Chateau Frontenac

The symbol of Quebec City is the Chateau Frontenac.  I call it Hogwarts as that’s what it reminds me of, when I don’t see it as a tourist attraction.  There’s a large terrasse that runs along in front of it and Chantal and I were sitting there, taking a break from a long walk we were taking.

We decided to draw.  It would have been impossible to draw the entire Frontenac as we were far too close to even see it in it completely, so Chantal drew one of the towers while I drew this portion of it.  I did it fast enough that some wonkiness (as Liz Steel calls it) was baked into the result and I confess that I like that.  Hope you do too.

Stillman & Birn Beta (8x10), Platinum 3776

Stillman & Birn Beta (8×10), Platinum 3776

Parc Cartier-Brebeuf On A Sunday Afternoon

While my daughter was visiting we were at Parc Cartier-Brebeuf, a park near my house.  It’s on the St. Charles River and was the spot where Cartier overwintered during one of his trips to what is now Quebec City.

While Chantal and Jodie talked, I did this sketch of the information center of the park.

Stillman & Birn Beta (8x10), Platinum 3776

Stillman & Birn Beta (8×10), Platinum 3776

Sketching On Ile Aux Grues

IleAuxGruesMapIle aux Grues (Crane Island) is the largest islandof an archipelago in the middle of the St. Lawrence River, near the point where it widens into the Gulf of St. Lawrence.  It can only be reached by ferry and then only when the tides are favorable enough to provide enough depth for the ferry.  The few children that live there go to school on an airplane every day, which sounds pretty cool to me.

Last Wednesday, though, it was sketching day and five of us went sailing to Ile aux Grues for a day of sketching.  It was an ideal day.  As we learned late in the day, this included a breeze which kept the mosquitos away from us.

The hike across the island is 1.2 km through oat and corn fields, with church steeples sticking up out of the greenery and everywhere you looked was a sketching subject.  There is just one idyllic scene after the other on the island and it was hard to decide where to stop, until we came to the location of this scene.  All of us wanted to draw it so we spread out to our favorite perch and point of view and set to work.  Next time I do this scene I’ll get closer.  Maybe I’ll also be better 🙂

Stillman & Birn Alpha, Esterbrook J2048, DeAtramentis Document Black

Stillman & Birn Alpha, Esterbrook J2048, DeAtramentis Document Black

Then it was time for lunch and more walking.  Some started searching for a bathroom.  But once lunch was over we split up again to sketch.  I walked back down the road to a place we’d passed that I thought particularly interesting and started sketching.  It was so pleasant that once in a while, I’d pop out of my sketching meditation and just sit, looking out at a ship passing by or a seagull squawking about something.  This was a day that sketchers dream of, only I was living it.

But, at one point, the rest of our group came marching down the road in my sketch and ‘decided’ that my sketch was finished, which is why I present it in kinda-sorta, almost finished condition.  They wanted to walk down to the cheese factory (the island is known for its high-quality cheeses) and that’s just what we did.

Stillman & Birn Alpha (6x9), Platinum 3776, Platinum Carbon Black

Stillman & Birn Alpha (6×9), Platinum 3776, Platinum Carbon Black

There’s not much point in buying cheese if you’re not going to eat some of it so we all reconnoitered around a picnic table in the camping area and chowed down on cheese and crackers.

After a while we realized that we had to make our way back to the ferry landing and the person in the campground gave us “instructions” (note the quotes) for how we could “just walk down this dirt road and turn right.”  Well, that put us in the middle of a mosquito-infested forest with what was sort of a trail, but not really.  We did eventually make it back to the ferry but this is exactly why men don’t ask for directions 🙂

Our day wasn’t done, though.  We had an hour to wait for the ferry and so we drank some coffee and I wandered down the queue with Yvan where he gave me a great lesson in starting with general pencil tone, followed by drawing on top of it.  It was quite an eye-opener.  Now, if only I can get it into my brain.