Tag Archives: Stillman&Birn Epsilon

Montreal Day 3: Meet Liz and Anne-Laure Day

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Sunday was meet and greet day, where people could come, meet and sketch with Liz Steel and Anne-Laure Jacquart.  Marc was, once again, the organizer of said event and I really don’t know where he gets his stamina.  All three of these folks had just returned from several days in Chicago for the USK Symposium and so they’d been doing sketching events non-stop for more than a week.

I figured that since I’d gotten to spend an entire day with them, today would be a day where I’d just hang back and get some sketching done.  As I’m an early riser, by 7:30 I was walking towards the City Hall meeting place (at 10AM).  I figured I’d play tourist and get some early sketching done before other people showed up.  This was a simple enough plan but one that went horribly wrong.

The problem came in the form of rain and by the time I arrived at City Hall it was pouring rain and I was soaked to the bone.  I had a raincoat but it didn’t seem to help much.  I ducked into a place called Eggspectation to get some breakfast but mostly to dry out.  I was successful with the first part but I was too wet to expect to leave dry.

That didn’t really matter because when I left it was still pouring rain and so, the idiot that I am, I walked around for nearly two hours looking at stuff I’d like to sketch if not for the rain falling from my hat. My hands permanently wrinkled from the water.  Oh, and did I mention that I’d approached this entire weekend with a sprained ankle.  My FitBit said that I’d walked over 50km on it this weekend.  You’ll see how that becomes important as this saga continues.  Let me just say here that the walking, combined with soaking wet feet, weighed heavy on this old man by the time things got rolling on this day.

But roll along it did and people started showing up between 10-10:30 and the rain started to give us a break as well.  We huddled on the patio of a restaurant that hadn’t opened yet while introductions were made.  Marc laid out the game plan for the day and we soldiered out in the hopes that the rain had finally abated.  For the two or three of you that don’t know these artists, I provide these snapshots.  If you look closely you might be able to see the aura that surrounds each of them wherever they go (grin).

Anne-Laure Jacquart (gray sweater)

Marc Taro Holmes

Liz Steel

Our hopes were not realized as shortly after we started sketching, it started drizzling.  I’m not one for sketching in the rain but we really had no choice, and so I learned something.  Raincoats aren’t useful for sketching in the rain.  While many of the women tucked themselves AND their sketchbooks under umbrellas, even my small sketchbook was a target for the raindrops.  Marc was worse off than I was.  We were both doing quick sketches in small 3×5 notebooks but he had neither umbrella or raincoat.  He was just tough.

Anyways, here are the few little sketches I did during this session.  You can see evidence of the rain hitting the paper, causing the ink to bloom.   I spent a lot of time sitting, while lamenting the growing pain in my ankle, the beginnings of a limp and my growing sense of oldness as my body was letting me down.

Stillman & Birn Epsilon (3×5)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then it was time for lunch and I was sure ready for it, or rather I was ready for a dry place to sit.  The normal sketcher talk took place over lunch and I learned something else.  I’d come to this sketchcrawl with the thought of traveling light so each day I had three pieces of Coroplast with watercolor paper taped to both sides of it.  For the drawing portion of the day this is wonderful, maybe even ideal.  For the “show me yours” part of the day… not so much.  I had none of the sheets I’d done the day before, nothing I’d done in the past, and so, I had nothing to pass around while others were doing that with their sketchbooks.  I felt bad about this; I were getting to see all their great sketches without me “paying back” the favor.

It’s something to think about for the future.  I love the set up Anne-Laure uses.  She explains it in this YouTube video.  I’m going to try it.  I’ve seen it done on a smaller scale but I like to work on a bigger sheet than A5 or A6 sizes so this might be what I need.

When we came out of the restaurant it had stopped raining and so we spread out around Place Jacques Cartier and started sketching.  By this point my ankle was barking loud enough that I’m sure others heard it too, but I sat down and tried to draw City Hall.  I made a lot of errors in this sketch but if you know nothing of what Montreal City Hall looks like, it might be ok (grin).

At this point I started evaluating my situation.  I was limping quite a bit  and I started thinking about the fact that I was supposed to help my daughter move from Ottawa to Montreal the next day.  My body had won over my desires and I made my apologies and left, limping my way back to the apartment.  I felt sad and somewhat guilty to bail out on such a wonderful adventure but, to quote my daughter, “It is what it is.”  Maybe that should be “It was what it was” to keep the verb tenses consistent (grin).

But wow…what I learned this weekend will require a lot of thought and even more action.  I’ve been doing dozens of quick gestures in a style as close to Marc’s as I can.  These are actually going well and lots of fun.  Lots of problems with proportions though, because I’m working too fast to carefully analyze what I’m drawing.

I’m also mixing lots of blotches of watercolor, trying to figure out how to get the proper thickness for drawing lines with watercolor, figuring out the effects of multiple layers of wash, etc.  And I’ve been reviewing sections of Liz’s courses and trying to achieve a better understanding of how to apply what she explains in them.  Oh…and I’ve been trying to emulate the amazing beautiful people that Anne-Laure does.  So much inspiration, so little time.

Emergency Road Trip

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This summer has become one for the record books in terms of how little sketching I’ve been able to do.  The lousy weather was bad enough but being rushed to the hospital with heart problems really put a damper on my sketching just when we started getting some good sketching days.  Happy as a clam following recovery from that, though, I was starting to get out sketching until…

My daughter is still in Ottawa and she decided to fall down a bunch of stairs.  It could have been worse, but she badly sprained her ankle and was suddenly on crutches.  To put this in context, she’s in Ottawa alone and needs to walk 20-25 min each way to work every day.  To make matters worse, her timing was unfortunate because she had arranged to take the bus to Montreal to pick up the keys for her new apartment.  And so she called mom and dad.

The result was that we dropped everything and drove five hours to Ottawa and the next morning we drove to Montreal and back (another four hours).  Back in Ottawa, we spent the night and the next day we drove back to Quebec City (another five hours).  What a weekend.  I’m old; I was exhausted.

So…not much sketching time that weekend, but we did sit in a park or about an hour and once we got Jodie sitting and her leg propped up I did some quick sketching.

Certainly not the best scene ever but this is what I could see over the trees.  It was nice to scratch out this sketch in a Stillman & Birn Beta (8×10).

Stillman & Birn Beta (8×10), Platinum 3776, diluted DeAtramentis Document Black

I then go out a small Stillman & Birn Epsilon (3×5) book, looked around and quickly drew these two apartment buildings on the other side of the Rideau River from where I was sitting.

I took a short break and took a walk along the river.  The Rideau River has bike/pedestrian paths on both sides of the river and it was nice to get out and do some walking.  When I got back I drew this little scene, again, viewed across the Rideau River.

Sketching At Lysander Waterfalls

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A river, northeast of Quebec City, creates a spectacular display as it tumbles through a small series of rapids and waterfalls near Inverness, Quebec.  At the lip of the river canyon, fellow sketcher and all-around great person, Claudette and her chum have a really nice place and we were invited to spend the day sketching.

It was a great day and I wish I’d been feeling better.  The drugs I was given for my heart, while fine now, weren’t doing me any favors that weekend.  Nevertheless, it was a great day in spite of this small problem.  There were nine of us and we headed into the canyon shortly after we arrived.

Everyone started to draw and, of course, it started raining.  Some had brought umbrellas but I was not so equipped and as the rain hit my ink, it blossomed across the page.  What a frustrating mess that was.  So, I grabbed my 3×5 Stillman & Birn Epsilon sketchbook and drew Lisette in her “July in Quebec” sketching suit.

The rain was not long-lived, though, and the rest of the day was under a bright sun and warm temperatures.  Rain free, I made a second attempt at drawing the road bridge over the river and above the falls.

Fabriano Artistico (CP), Platinum 3776, diluted DeAtramentis Doument Black

Eventually hunger drove us from the canyon and we headed to Claudette’s place for lunch and conversation.  I confess that my limited language skills are not up to the task of keeping up with the rapid fire French that occurs when so many fluent speakers are together, but lunch was fun anyway.   At one point, though, I got up from the table and took a seat outside the fray. Again, in my small sketchbook I did this quick sketch of the party.

I wasn’t feeling that well and so didn’t get much accomplished the rest of the day but it was really nice to get out of the city.  Thanks Claudette, for a great day.

A Great Day At Miriam’s Cottage

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What’s your ideal sketching day?  I think mine is spending the day at Miriam’s cottage.  Miriam’s cottage is an idyllic place on a large island in the St. Lawrence River, near Quebec City.  She’s got a wonderful artist’s cottage, a huge barn full of sketchable stuff, and a chunk of land you could get lost in as long as you didn’t run out of paper.  All of that would be great enough but there’s also Miriam, who is an inspiration.

She approaches art the way we all did as kids.  She’s very much a “let’s try this” and “just have fun” kind of gal.  Her house has one wall with animal heads looking down on the proceedings.  These are not just any old animals either.  There’s a unicorn among them and all are made from paper mache.  In her loft there’s an full size man done using similar materials.  She draws with abandon and with considerable skill, choosing her tools on a whim.  It’s hard not to be humbled and harder still not to be thrilled just to be there.  Her dog Nikki is a joy and he loves to sit at a sketcher’s feet, apparently enjoying our silence, or maybe the scratching of a pen on paper.

Yvan and I went out to visit her a few days ago.  It was a rainy day but we were able to find cover and did some drawing.  The first drawing I did was this one.

Stillman & Birn Alpha (8.5×5.5), Pilot 78G, diluted DeAtramentis Document Black

Yvan was drawing next to me and I grumbled about how hard it was to draw this simple scene because nothing on this old barn was in alignment as it should be.  He took that as an opportunity to give me an art lesson and we had a great conversation about lines, squinting, and my problems with both things.  It was perfect.

I got out my little S&B Epsilon (3.5×5.5) book and drew this small sketch of the pool shed, trying to keep what Yvan had talked about in mind.  Then it was time for lunch so we headed to the deck, put up an umbrella over a table and ourselves and then spent an hour or so eating and enjoying each other’s company.  Miriam’s sister, Sarah, joined us.

The rain stopped and we decided that we should walk a bit so we headed down the hill, down the road and ended up at low tide next to the St. Lawrence.  In this location, huge rocks are exposed at low tide and we got the bright idea to try to do a drawing, in spite of the fact that it was threatening more rain.

I only had my little sketchbook with me and a Pilot 78G but that was enough.  I sat down behind where Miriam was sketching and drew her and the surrounding rocks.  I had no color with me but it didn’t much matter because I had to rush the last few lines because the rain had started to fall again.  I added the color when I got home.

We climbed the hill back to Miriam’s place and all agreed that we were going to have to do this again…and maybe again.  It was, indeed, an ideal sketching day.

A Weekend In Ottawa

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For the last few years I’ve gotten to draw in the museums of Ottawa because my daughter was going to school there.  This past weekend was the end point of that part of her life as she graduated Magna Cum Laude from the University of Ottawa.  We went there to spend some time with her and to attend her graduation.

I didn’t make it to any of the museums because we spent the weekend doing more exciting things, like laundry, shopping and grocery shopping (grin).

It was a hectic weekend, made a bit more unsettled by the fact that high humidity and high temps combined to provide a near constant threat of thunderstorms.  There was even a tornado warning at one point.

As it turned out, we didn’t see a lot of rain but there was a lot of wind.  We did sit in Andrew Haydon Park, though, and I did some quick sketches.  It’s hard for me to spend much time on sketches when I am with other people who are not sketching.

Stillman & Birn Epsilon (3×5), Platinum 3776, Platinum Carbon Black

Stillman & Birn Alpha (8×5)