Collectif Rendevous At The Museum Of Civilisation

Posted on January 28, 2016 by Larry Marshall

The Collectif group in Quebec City held its annual rendevous at Quebec’s Musée de la civilisation last Saturday. Unfortunately, a bunch of the regulars were playing snowbirds in one for or another and so turnout was down from previous years. Nevertheless, we had a great time.

I started sketching in the Egypt exhibit, where I drew this pharoah mask. I used Faber-Castell Albrecht-Durer watercolor pencils for color. It’s hard to deal with color in that exhibit because it’s so dark so it’s hard to know what you’ve got until you’re done and eating lunch (grin).

Fabriano Artistico CP, DeAtramentis Document Black, Pilot Falcon

I took a short break by wandering around a bit and when I saw this large Australian aboriginal totem I had to translate it to paper. Pretty simple drawing. Lots of fun. It’s good to be back out sketching.

Fabriano Artistico CP, DeAtramentis Document Black, Pilot Metropolitan

Sketching Over The Holidays

Posted on January 4, 2016 by Larry Marshall

I suspect I’m not the only one who feels that the holiday season is more a disruption than something to celebrate. I’m an old guy, set in my ways and those ways are for me to go sketching. But with all the hoopla my routine has gone bonkers and my sketching has become scattered. I thought I would just post a smattering of the many small, generally incomplete sketches I’ve done over the past week or so leading into New Years.

Here’s a sketch I did one day at our museum. Another Egyptian guy, standing stiff against a wall, or so it seems. I don’t really know who he is but he was fun to draw and that’s good enough for me.

He was done in a Stillman & Birn Gamma book with my Namiki Falcon and DeAtramentis Document ink. Color was mostly burnt sienna with a bit of ultramarine to produce the grays. I played with the notion of making him look like stone, which he was. I’m not sure how successful I was in this.

Otherwise sketching has been a bunch of doodles here and there, mostly on photocopy paper. On New Years Eve, however, I was watching TV with Chantal and I drew these three ornaments that were laying on a table. Color was done with watercolor pencils but the sketch was done on cheap paper and so I couldn’t use a lot of water or move the color very much.

I was still bored by the TV so I picked up my Sailor fude pen and decided to give it a whirl. I’ve never adapted to the fude pens because I typically want thin lines and there are better tools for that. But I’m determined to improve my ability to draw heavy-line, quick sketches for some reason. I started out by drawing the same three ornaments.

As I scanned this for the post I couldn’t help but think of a conversation I’ve been having with Tina Koyama about what or whether the degree of expressiveness in a sketch says about what the artist was feeling, either about the sketch or the subject. The two sketches above were done within minutes of one another and yet one was done with an “expressive” stroke while the other was done in a more controlled fashion. I’m pretty sure I was wishing the holidays would be over during both sketches (grin).

I turned my fude pen to my imagination and one thing I drew was a bunch of imaginary carriage lanterns. I’d talked to Yvan about meeting to draw some at the museum where there’s a carriage exhibition going on so they were probably on my mind. Anyways, prior to drawing these I looked at a couple sketches I’d done of some a few months ago but these were all done in a very few minutes. While I think they reflect bits and pieces of ‘the real thing’, they’re purely imaginary.

Now that the holidays are over, I should return to a more normal schedule. I’m still a couple sketches/days behind on the blog but I’ll get caught up “real soon.”

Thursday Museum Sketching Group

Posted on December 22, 2015 by Larry Marshall

Some of us in Quebec City have met at our Musee de la Civilisation for a while now, sometimes on Tuesday, sometimes Thursday, and sometimes both days, but we seem to be making the Thursday morning meetings a regular event, mostly due to emails sent out by Claudette to let us know what day we’re supposed to show up.

These sessions are really fun and quite different from a typical sketchcrawl. Rather than an all day affair, these are only two to three hours. We sketch for most of that time but then meet in the cafe for coffee/tea and to talk about drawing. If we’re lucky we can get Yvan talking as he always teaches us something interesting about drawing. Mostly, though, it’s just a regular, fun get together that keeps us all in touch and yet doesn’t require the commitment of an entire day.

At the last session I drew this Egyptian musical instrument called a sistrum, or at least that’s what the sign said it was. I’m not sure how it’s supposed to work or what sounds it makes but I suspect it’s sort of like a tamborine and that you shake it. I suspect there are supposed to be wires running through the other sets of holes. In any case, it’s a paradox of simple, rusted strap-metal with small, carved characters stuck onto it. Very interesting shapes to draw.

Stillman & Birn Gamma, Namiki Falcon, DeAtramentis Document Black

I wandered around, had a conversation with Claudette and knew I was running out of time. Claudette had shown me her sketch of this little guy so I sat down and did this quick drawing of him, or her. Hard to tell with otters.

Stillman & Birn Gamma, Namiki Falcon, DeAtramentis Document Black

Right now, there are eight of us who are regulars at Thursday Sketching Group. We won’t be meeting Christmas Eve day and probably not New Years Eve day, but otherwise, why don’t you come out and join us. You’ll have fun. I guarantee it.

Sketchcrawl at Pavilion Laurentienne

Posted on December 20, 2015 by Larry Marshall

In what seems a recurrent theme, I’m way behind in blogging. Maybe it’s the season, or maybe I’m just slowing down. It was a week ago that we held our monthly sketchcrawl, this time at Pavilion Laurentienne, which is a building on the Université Laval campus. They have a series of statues and they were our targets. I missed them entirely, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

I arrived about 15 minutes ahead of schedule and since it wasn’t bitter cold (probably 38F) I decided to try to do a quick sketch of the building entrance. While probably not the right format, I decided to do it in my new, 3×5 softcover Stillman & Birn sketchbook. I sketched it quickly but even so, I was pretty cold by the time I finished so I didn’t add any color until I got warmed up inside.

Stillman & Birn Alpha 3x5, Namiki Falcon, DeAtramentis Document Black

Stillman & Birn Alpha 3×5, Namiki Falcon, DeAtramentis Document Black

Once inside there was the normal meet and greet that starts most of our sketchcrawls. We ended up with eight people and the day was really fun. Everybody but me was sketching statues but I was into ‘testing’ my new sketchbook so I continued with the tiny format. Instead of statue sketching, I began to draw fellow sketchers.

Andre Gagnon was my first subject. He’s not only a really fun guy, he’s a wonderful artist. This day he was doing some fantastic work with a white pencil on black paper.

As I did this sketch I thought about testing something I thought of after I did the review of the Stillman & Birn softcovers. Since the Alpha paper buckles slightly if you use a lot of water, I wondered how not having a hardcover would affect how the book would close. With the hardcovers the buckling isn’t a problem as it happens as the sketch dries and once the cover is closed, the paper tends to flatten out. So, as I added color to Andre, I really dumped a lot of water onto the paper. In fact, it was too much for me to manage as I’m mostly ignorant of wet-n-wet techniques.

I continued these little sketches, avoiding the statues for the day. Here’s one I did of Yvan Breton, artist extraordinaire, who I consider both mentor and friend. Note the “easel” he’s using. It’s hung around his neck, very portable, and it can be used whether standing or sitting. We’ve sort of jointly been improving the design and I’ll do a blog post about it “real soon” (which means I have no idea when I’ll get to it). Again, I went heavy on the water as I wanted several pages that had been abused badly.

There’s one thing I noticed from my sketches that day. I made everyone much fatter than they really are. I wonder if they’re going to speak to me after I post these. We’ll see.

After lunch Yvan started drawing a fig tree that was in the atrium. He said it was hard to capture without adding all the details and I quipped (it’s easy to advise if you don’t have to take the advise), “Just draw it in two minutes and you’ll figure out how to do it.”

Unfortunately, my brain was listening and it decided that I was going to draw the tree quickly. I exceeded “two minutes” by an order of magnitude but I did draw it fairly quickly, leaving out much of the detail. I used watercolor pencils to color this one.

At this point we wrapped up the sketchcrawl and some of us headed for the bus stop. Yvan and I ended up on the same bus and he started drawing a woman he could see in front of him. She had a bright red hat that was an eye-catcher but I couldn’t really see her face because of a “thingie” that blocked my view. I drew her anyway, or at least her hat. This was done in a Field Notes book and thus the gridded paper.

Oh yeah…my watercolor/softcover experiment. The paper holds up better than it should for a 100lb paper, but those of us who use S&B Alpha paper have come to expect that. And I think I’m correct to be a bit more concerned about these softcovers staying closed after soaking pages with watercolor. It’s not a big deal but as there’s no weight to the cover, it simply won’t squish the paper flat. But, I now carry it with a rubber band wrapped around it and all is well. I may even install a more typical closure band if I can ever get caught up on the blogging (grin).

It’s Winter – Gone Fishing

Posted on December 14, 2015 by Larry Marshall

I knew it couldn’t last. I was forever hopeful but our balmy low 40s (F) December has come to an end with freezing rain. Oh well, I’m way behind in my blogging anyway.

Last week I met the gang at the museum but I decided to give the Egypt exhibit a break from me and sat down instead in front of a fishing exhibit. Seems there was a prominent Canadian ethnologist by the name of Richard Gauthier who a day job in the field, but his hobby was fishing and the study of fishing practices in Canada. To that end he amassed a large collection of old fishing equipment. We’ve been blessed with a small exhibit of some of these fishing artifacts and they’re great sketching subjects.

I started with Richard’s hat. I have much to learn about the use of watercolor pencils to achieve tonal gradation but here’s my rendition of his hat.

Stillman & Birn Delta (5.5x8.5), Namiki Falcon, DeAtramentis Document Black

Stillman & Birn Delta (5.5×8.5), Namiki Falcon, DeAtramentis Document Black

When I finished with the hat I got up and wandered around the museum. Half of it has been closed due to a fire that took place in early summer (construction guys seem prone to burn things down as they try to build them up) and I wanted to have a look at what it looked like now that that wing of the building was open again.

I spent so much time doing my walkabout that by the time I got back the other sketchers were nearly finished for the day. I did this quick sketch of a fishing scale as they finished up. You know what they say, “A bad day fishing is better than most other days.” I think that applies to sketching as well.

Stillman & Birn Delta (5.5×8.5), Namiki Falcon, DeAtramentis Document Black