Quick-Sketching On The Bounding Main

Posted on July 20, 2015 by Larry Marshall

Sailing, sailing,
Over the bounding main,
For many a stormy wind shall blow
Before Jack comes home again!

I remember this bit of a song from when I was a kid. I’m not sure why. I’m less sure how. But it bounces between my ears every time I get a chance to get on a boat.

Platinum Carbon pen, Platinum Carbon Black ink

I was out walking and ended up near where the ferry docks on the Quebec side of the St. Lawrence River. I was looking across the river at the new ferry complex on the other side and decided to take a boat ride, but the two ferries had just started swapping places so I’d have to wait a bit. I sat down and got out my Field Notes book and did this quick sketch of the top of the old post office building. More a scribble than a sketch but, after all, it was done in my ‘scribbler’ so that was appropriate.

Sailor Profit fude pen, De Atramentis Document Black ink

I boarded the ferry and wandered around its decks, letting the fresh almost sea breeze blow across my face. I’m lucky to live in a place where I can be “on the bounding main” with nothing more than a swipe of my bus pass over a card reader.

I’d like to talk about taking a three-hour tour like Gilligan but the truth of the matter is that it takes only about 10-minutes to get to the other side. I did get a couple quick-sketches done.

Sailor Profit fude pen, De Atramentis Document Black ink

Once on the other side I wandered around, looking at the on-going construction, trying to figure out what the overall plan was for this new place. I decided that I wasn’t smart enough to understand and took a wait and see attitude. I went inside.

Once you get through the turnstile to get on the ferry heading north, you climb stairs to a large room with a wall of glass. What a great view of the Quebec City skyline there is from there. I’m going to have to go back when I’m in the mood to do larger sketches but on this day, I was in quick-sketch mode. I got out a larger, but cheap sketchbook (6×9) and did a 5-minute pencil scribble of the skyline. It’s not much but it will motivate me to get back there to do something better and provide a good excuse for another boat ride.

A bell went off and like a bunch of cows we were all herded through large doors and onto the ferry. I felt inclined to say ‘moo’, though I don’t think that translates well into French.

I watched a small tugboat chug by as the ferry was pulling away from the quay and once we started crossing I was amused by a couple sailboats trying to change course and/or stop so the ferry could proceed. Once that show was over, I got out my Field Notes book again and did a couple more people sketches, this time using my Platinum Carbon pen. It was a great day to be sailing on the bounding main. What is a bounding main anyways?

Sketching At The Zoo Park

Posted on July 10, 2015 by Larry Marshall

My wife, Chantal, took a vacation day and I coerced her into going sketching with me. She’s quite good at sketching but is convinced otherwise so it’s a special treat when I can get her to go out with me. I think it was my sneaky approach of suggesting a nice, relaxing time sitting in the shade at the Zoo Park that did it.

I really have no idea what name is currently slapped on this park. It may be the Parc des Moulins but don’t quote me on that. What I do know is that it’s a sad reminder of a bad political decision that resulted in our city losing our zoo. The park that remains is nice but not nearly as nice as when the trees had to share space with monkeys, bears, and eagles.

But we did find that shade, which disappeared half-way through our drawing. I think the tree we were shaded by moved. We took a break, ate a nice lunch and then continued to finish our sketches while sitting in the sun. Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.

Stillman & Birn Beta (6x9), Namiki Falcon, De Atramentis Document Black

Stillman & Birn Beta (6×9), Namiki Falcon, De Atramentis Document Black

When we finished up I suggested we stop and get an ice cream cone, knowing this would be get a positive response. We went to a store that’s in a house that looks exactly like the one the Adams Family inhabited and sat outside, in the shade of course, and enjoyed a slight breeze that kept the high humidity at bay. There was a nice, tall clock in the courtyard and I did this quick sketch of it in my Field Notes “scribbler.” I continue to be impressed with the paper in this new Field Notes issue.

Field Notes (3x5), Platinum Carbon Pen, Platinum Carbon Ink

Field Notes (3×5), Platinum Carbon Pen, Platinum Carbon Ink

Field Notes Workman’s Companion Edition

Posted on July 9, 2015 by Larry Marshall

I do a lot of sketching in tiny, inexpensive sketchbooks and ever since Marc Taro Holmes suggested using a Moleskine staple-bound notebook, I’ve been trying different notebooks in this 3×5 format. I was very displeased by the Moleskines as ink bleeds through their thin paper. So far, every book I’ve tried has that problem. I’m not talking about ghosting, where you can see the sketch on the backside but ink that actually shows up on the back of the page. While ghosting is also a problem in most of the notebooks, I’m more tolerant of that as my goal with these books isn’t high-quality sketches.

But FINALLY, I’ve found what I’ve been looking for and it comes in the form of the new Field Notes Workshop Companion issue. Field Notes are fun because they’re sold in a variety of cover formats. The problem with them is that they typically use 50lb, inexpensive paper and they’re just not fountain pen friendly. If you draw with ballpoint pens, they’re fine and very convenient. But I’m a fountain pen addict and it’s a no go as a sketching substrate.

The Workshop Companion books are different. They come with a new, 70lb paper that’s a higher quality than even the couple issues they’ve produced with 70lb paper in the past. I find I can force ghosting to the point of being annoying but it requires that I really dump a lot of ink on the page. So far I’ve yet to get any bleedthrough, even with brush pens. I’ve even applied bits of watercolor to the paper and even that works pretty well.

My first test was a simple outline image, done with a Platinum Carbon Pen and Platinum Carbon ink. This was a ‘soft’ test as most of these kinds of notebooks will handle this combination, though in this case there was no ghosting whatever, which was an improvement.

I went out sketching and did these quick sketches. My goal was to try adding some dark shading to see what happens. This is where most books in this format fail, with both bleedthrough and ghosting. Here there still wasn’t any bleedthrough and you had to look hard to see ghosting. Scanning didn’t pick up any of the ghosting.

No special tests here but I was drawing with my Namiki Falcon and De Atramentis Document Black and again, there was no bleedthrough and ghosting was hard to see.

I was doodling while watching a baseball game and dragged this image up from my imagination. It’s got enough darks in it to really test for bleedthrough and ghosting. Ghosting can be seen but again, it’s minimal.

I thought I’d do the acid test. I was watching some guys playing soccer and started drawing this building that was at one end of the soccer pitch. I added some darks with a Kuretake #33 brush pen and then added some color. Still no bleed through. Ghosting is a bit worse but everything’s relative as the ghosting doesn’t get picked up when scanning the backside of this sketch.

In conclusion, I’m a happy camper and I’ll be ordered some more of these Workshop Companion books. They’re wonderful. I can shove them in a shirt pocket if I want but more often I have it in a front pouch in my sketching bag so it’s immediately available.

While I can sketch in these books fine, when sketching a 2-page spread it’s nice to have something to hold the book open and flat without having to fiddle around. I solved that by cutting a small piece of Fomecore, which weighs nothing and I clip the book to this backing board. It works surprisingly well and really makes holding the book a lot easier.

This is what it looks like when clipped to the board. It becomes a single unit where you don’t have to worry about keeping the paper flat.

A Great Day At Trait Carre

Posted on June 10, 2015 by Larry Marshall

Quebec City is a mosaic of small enclaves, one of which is Trait Carre, an area filled with big, beautiful elms and maples that surround beautiful old homes, some of which have become art galleries. There’s a library with grass on its roof, a large dual-steeple cathedral and an ambiance of a very rural community, though it sits in the middle of the hustle and bustle of our city.

The sketchcrawl was coordinated by Daniel Chagnon and was part of the schedule of activities organized by Le Collectif (http://calvaq.com). We weren’t a large group this day but, in a way, that’s what made it fun. I got a chance to chat a bit with Lucien and Diane, who do most of the organizing for the group. My French is very poor and I get lost when there are a lot of people speaking French simultaneously so the low turnout this day was a bonus for me.

Daniel knows the area well and we got a tour of the area before we each headed off in our own directions to sketch. I decided to sketch this house and did it in a small format (3×5).

Moleskine watercolor notebook (3×5), Namiki Falcon, Platinum Carbon ink, Daniel Smith watercolors

We met for lunch, chatted about upcoming events, fountain pens and ink and we shared the sketches we’d done thus far. We decided to get back to sketching and I headed to a scene I wanted to sketch. It called for a larger format and the largest book I had with me was a Stillman & Birn Beta (6×8) so I decided to do a two-page spread. I spent nearly two hours on this one and thoroughly enjoyed the time spent and the conversation I had with a young guy who was interested in my work. Hope you like it too.

Stillman & Birn Beta (6x8), Namiki Falcon, Platinum Carbon ink, Daniel Smith watercolors

Stillman & Birn Beta (6×8), Namiki Falcon, Platinum Carbon ink, Daniel Smith watercolors

We Continue The Statue Quest

Posted on June 9, 2015 by Larry Marshall

We gathered at Quebec’s Place d’Armes to sketch the large fountain, or at least the statue that stands atop it. For some reason I just wasn’t in the mood. I’m not sure if it had to do with the subject or my new obsession of sketching in these small, mustache notebooks and their toned paper.

In either case, I decided to continue experimentation with that book, trying different approaches. I turned my attention to one of the buildings. I had luck adding a bit of color previously so I thought I’d see if I could use my waterbrush with dilute ink in it. It worked better than I thought and I’ll use this technique again. No ghosting or bleedthrough on the back side.

At this point the sun left us and I was wearing shorts and a t-shirt. I’ve been amazed at how much being cold has a similar effect on my desire to sketch. What happens is that my attention span goes to near zero so I cope by doing a lot of really quick-sketches, just trying to grab proportions of the people walking around. I won’t bore you with a bunch of scribbles but here’s an example of people walking across a street.

I’ll include this one too as it’s an example of what happens when you decide to draw a guy standing, while talking to a couple people sitting on a bench. I was a minute into this sketch when the people stood up and the three of them walked away (grin). It was time to turn the page and I did.

Once the statue sketchers had finished, it was decided that we’d head to another location to sketch the bust of another guy. At least the sun had returned.

I still wasn’t excited about sculpture sketching and I continued to work in tiny format. It was an opportunity to try red lead in a Pentel Kerry 0.5mm pencil. I did the sculpture sketch quicker than I should have and I generated a head that was too tall, but it gave me time to do a second sketch of a hotel entry on the other side of the street. It was fun and, once again we had a great time.