Sometimes It’s More Than Sketching

Posted on October 29, 2015 by Larry Marshall

The change of seasons, for me, means transition from street sketcher to museum sketcher. It’s a sad time, but also an exciting time. There’s so much shape variation in museum exhibitions.

Our Musee de la civilisation has a new exhibit just opened that presents Australian/New Zealand aboriginal art and as I play didjeridu and love aboriginal art, I’m quite excited about it. Most of the exhibit is paintings, rugs, and such but there are some statues and masks that I’ll be taking advantage of this winter.

I was there a few days ago, drawing a large wall-hanging mask. So were a bunch of kids on school outings. The kids were great as they’d come to see what I was doing and when I talked to them I got half a dozen more coming to see what was going on. This begat more and more kids to the point where I was mostly just talking to them about the watercolor pencils, waterbrushes, and how much fun it is to draw. Kids “get it.” They haven’t learned the feelings and emotions about art that adults somehow acquire.

Eventually they wandered away, though, and I got back to drawing. I was really enjoying the music and serenity of the room. A mother and her two young daughters (I’d guess they were 4 and 6) came by and, again, the kids were interested and, as is often the case with parents, the mother told them to leave me alone. I told her it was fine and I showed them what I was doing.

The older girl had some sort of writing/sketching book with her and started to draw with me. The younger one, of course, wanted to draw too, which sent mom scrambling for paper and pencil. She found some paper but had only a Seattle Seahawks pencil with her and it needed sharpening. I sharpened it and we chatted as I did. They were on vacation from where some of my favorite urban sketchers live – Seattle.

The kids drew a bit and I finished my sketch. The older girl came over to show me her drawing and I asked her if she wanted to use my watercolor pencils to color her drawing. Her look was priceless and I loaned her one pencil at a time. The same thing happened with the younger girl. We had a regular sketchcrawl going on.

I wish I had been smart enough to take some photos. Sadly, all I can share is the sketch I did, but it was the most insignificant thing that happened on this day.

Stillman & BIrn Beta (9×12), Namiki Falcon, De Atramentis Document Black, Albrecht-Durer watercolor pencils

Two Sketchbooks For The Price Of One

Posted on July 22, 2015 by Larry Marshall

Since I’ve been in a ‘cheap sketchbook’ rut lately, I thought it only fitting if I were to let it run its course and describe another approach I’ve taken, for when being able to stuff the book in one’s pocket isn’t important.

Sometimes I want to do larger quick-sketches are possible in a 3 x 5 “scribbler.” I could do them in one of my Stillman & Birn books but my quick-sketches are REALLY quick-sketches and typically they’re not very good, so I want REALLY cheap paper upon which to do them. Also, as I’m not doing watercolor I don’t need the paper quality of Stillman & Birn.

You can buy inexpensive 5×8 and 6×9 sketchbooks that have 60lb paper and are fine for such things. I’ve used Strathmore’s “Sketch” books for this purpose. They’ve got paper covers and cost $6-7 here. They’re fine. They work. Lots of people use them. Canson has equivalent offerings.

But one day, while I was padding around the art store touching everything, I saw 8.5 x 11, spiral-bound, hardcover sketchbooks (60lb paper) on sale for $8.

This is Fabriano's version of an 8.5x11 sketchbook. I paid $9.99CDN for it. Sometimes they're on sale.

This is Fabriano’s version of an 8.5×11 sketchbook. I paid $9.99CDN for it. Sometimes they’re on sale.

And I wondered. I wondered enough to buy one. I wondered enough to take it home and go into my ~~dungeon~~, err, workshop. I even wondered if I was nuts for doing it but a few seconds later I’d run that sketchbook through my bandsaw, creating two 5.5 x 9 sketchbooks.

If you don’t own a bandsaw, I bet you know someone who does.

Cutting them does leave bare cardboard edges on one side of each book but that’s easily fixed with a fat Sharpie marker. When bought on sale these cost me $4 each and provide 160 sheets of sketching fun.

One caveat about the cutting. You can cut right through the spiral binding and it will generally work (depends on saw and blade I suppose but even my wood blades worked fine). The potential exists, though, that the spiral will get bent at the point of the cut. It’s really easy, though, to use some wire nippers to cut the spiral in the middle, removing a small section of it before cutting the book. Otherwise, this is one of those no-brainer thingies that one can do to produce nice quick-sketchbooks in a more typical size than the ones I’ve been talking about recently. Here’s some lines I made in such a book while watching Paul Heaston’s class on Craftsy.

Yvan and I use these all the time when we go to music recitals or quick-sketch in places where we’re carrying our art bags and don’t have to worry about being inconspicuous as we sketch. Give it a try.

Walking Through The Park

Posted on July 8, 2015 by Larry Marshall

Summer means a lot of walking for me. I’ll regularly walk a couple hours a day and often those walks take me to the largest park in Quebec City, Battlefield Park, or what most still call the Plains of Abraham, after a farmer who tilled the area before British and French soldiers stomped around in the fields.

These days, the park is more tranquil, with rolling hills, lots of grass, lots of shade trees. Oh…and lots of stuff to draw, including this building, which serves as something of a service center for the park.

While I was drawing I was approached by a tourist from Peru. We tried our best to have a conversation but my Spanish is worse than my French and English and so we were limited, mostly, to smiling at each other but somehow we managed to communicate. Where there’s a will, there’s a way. You meet the nicest people while sketching.

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

Stillman & BIrn Beta (6×9), Namiki Falcon, De Atramentis Document 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.

Mustache Notebooks For Sketching

Posted on May 21, 2015 by Larry Marshall

If I were a fish, the ideal lure to catch me would be one that looked like a notebook or pen. Maybe a Red Lamy with some Field Notes hung on the back. Yeah, that would do it.

I cruise the stores, looking at every notebook and pen I can put my hands on. In a way I’m lucky that the selection in Quebec City is so poor or I’d need a second house to hold my collection. One of my favorite places is the dollar store. It’s not because I’m cheap; my favorite sketchbooks are Stillman & Birn, after all. I don’t scrimp on my ‘regular’ sketching surfaces.

I check the dollar stores regularly for cheap, small notebooks in which I do the quick-sketching I do as often as possible. I’ve filled about 20 of them in the past three years, though their contents have only rarely made their way to this blog. These are 3×5 or 4×6 books that generally cost me a couple bucks and contain 75-100 pages. I scribble in them constantly.

So I was in a dollar store this afternoon and found a new item – mustache notebooks. The neat thing about them is that they have both toned (light brown) paper and white paper. There are 96 pages divided into 6 stitch-bound signatures, with the white signatures in the middle of the book. The covers are simple brown cardboard with felt mustaches and glasses glued on them.

Kinda cute but it was the blank paper inside that caused me to snap up three of them for $2 each. Suddenly it was a great day. As I was walking home I couldn’t resist the urge to try out the paper so I stopped in a park and got out my Namiki Falcon with Platinum Carbon Black in it.

Generally the paper in these cheap books isn’t the greatest, and my fountain pens tend to bleed through a bit and there’s always ghosting. These are quick-sketch books, after all, so I overlook those failings.

The paper in these books is quite thick, however. I’m guessing but I’m guessing 70-80lb paper. And was I pleasantly surprised when I put ink to paper. There is no feathering whatever, at least in this quick sketch but more important was what was on the back of this sketch – NOTHING. There is no ghosting and no bleedthrough. I’m going back tonight to buy some more.

Back of the sketch above