Spur Of The Moment Road Trip To Ottawa

Posted on June 7, 2015 by Larry Marshall

One of the fundamental skills learned while pursuing a university education is how to dodge and weave through the ever-changing bureaucracy of university administration. My daughter found herself trying to straighten out a registration problem via email. We decided that a trip to Ottawa would go a long way to cutting through the red tape so we piled into the car and headed west.

Cheap notebook, Platinum Carbon Pen, Platinum Carbon Black ink

First stop was administration, where we were handed a number and told to wait. Better organized than when I spent many an hour standing in lines waiting for similar things but still, we got to sit around for an hour waiting for our number to be called. I exercised my mustache notebook and the paper in this $2 sketchbook continues to amaze. I even got brave and put a bit of color on this quick sketch of a couple people, equally bored, who were watching something on their cell phone. No show through, not buckling, no nothing.

Surprisingly, once our number came up, everything was resolved in a matter of minutes and we were off to have fun in Ottawa. We ended up at the natural history museum where this guy posed for me. He seemed as curious about me as I was about him.

Moleskine watercolor notebook (3x5), Namiki Falcon, Platinum Carbon Black

Moleskine watercolor notebook (3×5), Namiki Falcon, Platinum Carbon Black

I couldn’t pass up the chance to draw some bones and so I chose the head of this monster. As I was drawing I had a nice conversation with a young girl who had more questions than I had answers. She was an absolute delight, though, and interactions like this is one of the reasons I love location sketching.

We were sitting in a park just west of the US Embassy, enjoying manga bubble tea. I decided to quickly capture this view through the trees and I spent a leisurely 15-20 minutes or so doing that. I generally use these small notebooks for really quick sketches but I really found it fun to do a few more precise sketches in them. I think I’ll do more of it.

Moleskine watercolor notebook, Namiki Falcon, Platinum Carbon Black ink

Why Is Confuscius In Quebec City

Posted on May 31, 2015 by Larry Marshall

Quebec City is a great place for sketchers as we have a lot of stuff to draw. It’s the same stuff that tourists point their cameras at, snapping endless photos, hardly taking the time to actually “look” at anything.

One thing that has always baffled me about Quebec City, however, are the statues. We have statues of EVERYBODY. Gandhi, Churchill, Japanese Emperors, what seems to be every South American general that ever lived – EVERYBODY. Why this is I can’t fathom a guess. More odd is that there are many prominent Canadian and Quebec historical figures who don’t have a statue. Go figure.

Anyways, the members of our group decided we were going to draw Confuscius. Yep, we’ve got a statue of him. When we showed up, it was decided that it would be best to wait an hour or so for the sun to move and maybe, just maybe, we could get some contrasting shadows. As it turned out, we didn’t have enough sun to make a difference but that’s how street sketching goes sometimes.

The group decided to draw De Gaulle (yep…got a statue of him too) but I wasn’t interested. Instead, I wandered around the area and never did get inspired, probably because all my buddies were huddled around the De Gaulle statue.

Ultimately I returned to find them about half done with their sketches so I sat down, got out my doodle book and started drawing his hand, which I did poorly. Then I started drawing a lamp and did so until everyone was ready to move on.

These doodles were done with a Pentel Kerry 0.5mm pencil with Faber-Castell red lead. This lead is less pink than most others I’ve tried and I really like how it looks. The brown paper is in the cheap ‘mustache’ books I talked about recently. I’m really enjoying those but have only found them in one of our dollar stores. Not sure what’s up with that but I now own a dozen of them. I’m a shameful notebook hoarder. Oh…sorry about those black marks. I guess I was testing a pen or something as those marks were there before I started drawing on the page. These are doodles, after all.

On to Confucius. Surprisingly, he was waiting for us, with the same pose as when we left him. Statues are like that. We all set up on the sidewalk across the street from him and started making marks. Sketchers always have the same pose too. This was my effort. Thanks to Confucius for standing still so long.

Stillman & Birn Beta (9x12), Pilot Falcon, Platinum Carbon Black

Stillman & Birn Beta (9×12), Pilot Falcon, Platinum Carbon Black

Quebec City In 1759 – Well, Almost

Posted on May 29, 2015 by Larry Marshall

The short story that everyone is taught about how Quebec City went from being a French colony to one in which the British were in charge goes something like this:

Battle on the Plains of Abraham
The Brits sailed up the St. Lawrence and spent some months lobbing cannon balls at Quebec City. The French lobbed some back. Then the British climbed the cliffs to the Plains of Abraham, where General Wolfe and General Montcalm pointed their respective troops at one another and after a short battle, the British prevailed and both Wolfe and Montcalm were killed.

There is truth to that story but so is “The Roadrunner ran fast and Wile E. Coyote got an anvil on his head.” There’s just more to it than that. In point of fact, there were battles up and down the St. Lawrence and Wolfe and Montcalm’s troops had more than one encounter.

What does any of this have to do with sketching? Well, Le Collectif arranged a sketching adventure to Maison Vezina, a beautiful house and historic site that sits on the east side of Montmorency Falls, a huge waterfall that is fed by the Montmorency River and which dumps into the St. Lawrence.

This house is fully renovated and was home to the Vezina family for much of its existence. But prior to that this area was one of the encampments of General Wolfe. Back then, the buildings were a bit more spartan but neverthess, they indicate the longer-term nature of the battles for Quebec. Wolfe had built a fort, complete with dry moat as well as several buildings on this high perch above the St. Lawrence. From there he could see the French troops on the other side of Montmorency Falls and had a good view of Quebec City itself. It’s likely that he could also see his ships and encampments on the south side of the St. Lawrence. It was an ideal place if you were a British general.

There are many things to draw in this area but I settled on the more mundane, the main doorway into Maison Vezina. I just liked the rocking chair on the porch.

Stillman & Birn Beta (6x8), Pilot Falcon, Platinum Carbon Black

Stillman & Birn Beta (6×8), Pilot Falcon, Platinum Carbon Black

Sketching Is A Windy Business

Posted on May 28, 2015 by Larry Marshall

It’s very windy here at this time of year, but the temperatures and sun (heck, it was all the way up to 16C this day) has caused my emergence from hibernation and I’m dancing in the streets.

I headed towards the port area. At this time of year the boat yard operators are like squirrels, looking for nuts. There’s a constant scramble to set up the marina docking system (removed for winter so it’s not destroyed by ice) and to get the boats back in the water.

But this day it was very windy. I tried to find a place to sit out of the wind that also gave me something interesting to sketch and I failed. In the end, I was sitting at a picnic table that sits in front of the farmer’s market. My thought was that if I was going to sit in a 30 km/h wind, it might be nice to have a platform for my sketchbook. The platform was nice – the 30 km/h not so much.

I drew the Telus (cell phones) building, hiding a lot of it behind trees, which are much more interesting than the building. It was done in a Stillman & Birn Beta (6×8) with my Pilot Falcon and Platinum Carbon Black.

Sketching St. Jean Baptiste Church

Posted on May 26, 2015 by Larry Marshall

Le Collectif (CALVAQ) organized a sketchcrawl at the Eglise St. Jean-Baptiste on rue St. Jean and we all met at 11:30 after the mass was over. It was a really nice day and I had a hard time with the thought of going inside to sketch but in I went.

I confess that I find few places less inspiring than the inside of a Catholic church. I think it must be the gaudy gold everything that turns me off. But they have one of their old bells on display so I drew it in my Stillman & Birn Beta (6×8) with my TWSBI Mini.

The other sketchers seemed more inspired than I was and everyone was deep in sketching mode when I finished. All I could think of was the sunshine I was missing out on. Maybe I was a plant in a previous life. Anyways, I went outdoors.

Ahh…..”Good morning sunshine…the Earth says Hello…” Who sang that song? So long ago. I wanted to stick with the church theme as that’s what the sketchcrawl was about, but as I walked around the church I couldn’t find a location that gave me a scene that inspired me. So I walked further away and found a tiny park area that gave me a view of the really tall church steeple. I sat down in the sun and started drawing, this time with my Pilot Falcon but in the same S&B Beta book. We had a great day and I hope you like the sketches.