Sketching Ottawa’s Buildings

Posted on July 8, 2016 by Larry Marshall

As I was riding the train to Ottawa I was planning where to point my feet for my upcoming sketching adventure. First stop was to be Parliament, where I wanted to sit directly in front of Parliament’s Peace Tower and draw the entire building in one-point perspective. It’s classic Ottawa.

There were two problems with that idea. The first is that every government building in the city seems to be under construction, or if it isn’t, you can’t go there because of some other construction. The entire Parliament area is full of cranes, fencing and the buildings are shrouded in scaffolding. All of this, I’m told is being done in anticipation of July 1, 2017, which will be the 150th anniversary of Canadian confederation.

Ok…but what’s that huge, can’t see the building stage that’s sprawled out in front of Parliament. Well, that is for Canada Day 2016. Sometimes timing is everything and mine wasn’t great this time.

Undaunted, I decided to draw a portion of the Langevin building, which is a very long government building. I have no idea what they do within it but the south side steps of the East Block building served as a great perch to draw it. And so, with lots of tourists walking by, I drank coffee and drew a building.

Stillman & Birn Delta (8x10), Platinum 3776, Platinum carbon black

Stillman & Birn Delta (8×10), Platinum 3776, Platinum carbon black

If you walk south on Elgin from Parliament you’ll find an old house (mansion?) that seems to have been converted into a small hotel or B&B. What’s striking about it is that all around it are modern high-rise buildings. It was a must-draw but I was unsure what to do with it. On the one hand I wanted to draw it small with the huge skyscrapers surrounding it. But this would shrink the building so much that I wouldn’t be able to give it any of the ‘from a different time’ feel that it exuded. In the end I decided to just draw the building, without any of the large buildings. Someday I’ll do it the other way I’m sure.

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

Sketching Ottawa Statues

Posted on July 6, 2016 by Larry Marshall

There are a lot of “old dead guy” statues in Ottawa and while interesting, I was looking for something different when I wandered around evaluating statues for sketching. I found two that I liked a lot. Hope you approve of my choices.

This statue sits in a small triangle of dirt/grass with cars whizzing by on all three sides of it. It’s near the National Art Gallery and while I’ve been there several times, I’ve never even noticed it because of its location. But heck, there it was and there was a large tree under which I could sit while I sketched it. Like the streets surrounding it, the statue is a 3-sided affair, though you can only see two sides of it in my sketch. It’s Haida, I think and quite beautiful.

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

I was walking from Parliament towards Confederation Park and as I passed the post office on Spark Street I noticed a couple of large lions protecting the doors. In truth, they themselves were caged by large fencing put up to protect people like me from construction going on around the facade of the building. This made it hard to find a place where I could sit to draw. I walked around the building and found there are actually half a dozen of these guys standing around in the sun. They’re enlarged heads make them all the more majestic and I had to draw one. I found a place where I can climb up on some large concrete blocks, set up my stool and draw. I only fell off once.

Stillman & Birn Delta (8×10), Platinum 3776, Platinum Carbon Black

Dinosaur Hunting In Ottawa

Posted on July 4, 2016 by Larry Marshall

My favorite place in Ottawa is the Museum of Nature. It’s four floors of sketching heaven. Museums seem to be turning into videos and photographs but not the Museum of Nature. It’s all about “stuff” and most of it is worthy of a sketcher’s time.

Right now, the Museum of Nature has a special dinosaur exhibit. While their permanent collection holds a large exhibit of North American dinosaurs, a new exhibit features dinosaurs from other parts of the world. The significant thing about this is that while those of us in the US and Canada know the dinosaurs of North America, the breakup of Pangea and resultant dinosaur species radiation on their respective continents produced a diversity we don’t normally get to see. And there I was, looking up at a whole bunch of them. All of these sketches were done in a landscape format (5.5×8.5) Stillman & Birn softcover sketchbook.

Amargasaurus sp. from Argentina. Huge herbivore (9meters)

Suchominus, a bipedal dinosaur with a crocodile-like head. This guy was 11 meters long

Drawing bones may not be for everyone but for me, there is no better exercise for the visual brain as there’s so many facets, so many overlapping parts, and so many contours that they really require keen observation and some relationship planning if you’re going to get sketches even a little bit correct. And so I did a bunch of them during my time in Ottawa. The fact that the museum is air-conditioned and Ottawa was quite toasty while I was there didn’t hurt my motivation either.

Another reason this sketching was fun was the kids. The museum was full of them everytime I went there and while this meant is was quite loud, there’s nothing better than kids when you’re sketching. They ask all the right questions and none of the wrong ones. They don’t ask you why you do it or give you excuses for why they ‘have no talent for drawing’ because all of them draw. Many fine discussions with the kids.

Carcharodontosaurus from Egypt. This guy is distantly related to the Great White shark and its teeth reflect that relationship. Huge is the operative word. I sketched this from the only skull example of this animal

Carnotaurus from Argentina. I found this on interesting because while it was huge, its head was much smaller than most of the carnivores

The newest acquisition to the museum is this skull. It’s called Xenoceratops foremostensis and it lived in Alberta. Similar to other ‘ceratops’ species in the permanent collection, but with two huge horns above its eyes. I thought it was gorgeous and had to draw it.

If you want to improve your drawing “eye”, give dinosaurs a try. They’re fun.

Sketching At Jardin botanique Roger-Van den Hende

Posted on June 28, 2016 by Larry Marshall

When I want to draw some plants I head to Jardin botanique Roger-Van den Hende. It’s a very large garden that is something of a large library of plants rather than a coordinated esthetic garden. So many textures, so many shapes.

Stillman & Birn Delta (8×10), Platinum 3776, Platinum Carbon Black

Our sketching group met there on Thursday and the weather couldn’t be better. Lots of sun, little wind, and it was warm enough that even I was searching for some shade. I was planning on drawing flowers but didn’t draw a single petal. Funny how fickle the sketching eye is and I went down a different path. We’ve scheduled a sketchcrawl in the garden for July so many I’ll get to the flowers then.

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

Stillman & Birn Alpha (5×8), Platinum 3776, Platinum Carbon Black

Drawing Carriage Horses

Posted on June 24, 2016 by Larry Marshall

All summer long tourists pay to be hauled around the old city behind beautiful horses who just shake their heads, saying “Why can’t they walk? They could use the exercise.” These horses are beautiful and we got the opportunity to visit the facilities where the horses live and where carriages are maintained.

I couldn’t stay long this day so I started with a bunch of quick sketches of horses, or rather horse parts because the horses were moving around the yard a lot early in the morning. I sat down and did a quick sketch of the building area and then then I got out a Field Notes red notebook and drew an interesting set of shapes in the form of a fence post with rope wrapped around it.

As I was doing that a horse walked over to find out what I was doing. It just stood there, watching. It was a perfect portrait angle so I started drawing its head. What a magnificent animal. He (?) was mostly black with a bit of white along the top of the muzzle. And then he walked away, satisfied that I was not very interesting afterall. I had half a drawing.

I finished up the post/rope sketch and was about to draw a dandelion when another horse, this one light brown wandered over. Not the same angle but I started talking to him and he maintained his interest in me long enough for me to finish this sketch. I think the muzzle is too thin but otherwise I kinda like it. Then it was my time to leave and so I headed for a bus.