Rushing Into Winter

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We were having some wonderful late summer weather this year but when Quebec decides to head toward winter it does so in rapid fashion.  It seems that even the trees have a hard time keeping up as they try their best to turn bright colors and then lose their leaves.

The year change of seasons has put me into near-frantic mode.  I’m trying to build up my bad leg, having lost much of the muscle mass of my right leg.  That means walking all the time, or at least as much as I can.  Often I do two walks a day and this eats a lot of time but once the snow starts falling, long walks will be out of the question.

At the same time I’m in ‘it’s almost winter’ mode with my sketching.  Happens every year as I realize there are only so many days when I can sketch outdoors.  Honestly, this part of frantic is coming to an end as it’s becoming too cool for this ex-Arizona boy to be outside sitting on a stool.  Museum season will begin soon.

Because of this I’ve been neglecting the blog a bit.  Some of the neglect is because I’ve been doing a lot of experimenting rather than sketching for display.  My garbage can is well-fed, though.  I’ll probably talk about some of that stuff as we drop into winter.  My apologies.

Chantal made a pie the other day and I decided I should paint it.  This was one of those wacky experiments as I’m not much of a watercolorist.  I’d like to be but mostly I just color in the spaces of my ink sketches.  I was happy with my pie experiment though.  The pie was good too.

Stillman & Birn Beta (8×10), DeAtramentis Document Black, Wing Sung 3009

Sketching Session At My House

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We’re on the verge of actual spring and I can’t wait for it to happen.  My excitement is tempered only by the fact that my bad knee is getting really bad, as in I can’t walk at all some days.  Anyways, my buddy Yvan felt sorry for me and agreed to come over so we could sketch together.  He’s got the best studio a guy could want but I’ve got some stuff to sketch that he doesn’t.  Even the king can get bored in his castle.

On the morning of his arrival I realized I didn’t have a cookie or cake in the house.  One must have sketching snacks.  A few days earlier we’d discussed me making biscuits and we realized that we didn’t know what you call them in French.  You see, ‘biscuits’ in French are cookies.  A day later, Yvan came up with biscuits à la poudre à pâte.   The word galette could also be used but this is a very broad term that includes a lot of sweet biscuits/scones/cakes.

All that is the lead up to me quickly whipping together some biscuits as a snack and so he could actually see what I was talking about.  While the idea was to eat them (we did), we took advantage of them as sketching material too.

Yvan got the bright idea to start with paint rather than my typical ink first approach.  Talk about walking out on a thin limb.  I admit that I struggled with this, a lot, but I also had a lot of fun and think it may be the way to get my brain to believe that watercolor is as important as line work.  Here’s my result:

We took a break and he showed me a copy of the classic book Nature Drawing by Claire Leslie Walker that he picked up for only $5.  What a gorgeous, but out of print book [face turning green with envy] this is.  So, I showed him my copy of Living History by Cathy Johnson, one of the gems of the book world.  And we ate another biscuit and admired the great drawings in both books.

Conversation led to me cutting up some sheets of paper for Yvan while he grabbed a stuffed animal (Dudley the Dragon) and started drawing it.  When I finished I decided to quickly sketch the same animal but he had the good view so I drew the side view.  Apologies to Dudley as I didn’t spend enough time organizing and blocking in the drawing.  This was done ink first with watercolor as an afterthought, my typical way of working.

At the end of this fun day, I’d experienced a new way of sketching and I plan to do a lot more of this paint-first approach.  It’s confusing as can be to think of outline, tone, form and color simultaneously but I like a challenge.  Thanks to Yvan for a great day.

Fisherman Wood Carving

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Canson XL Multi-media (7×10), Wing Sung 8008, DeAtramentis Document brn/blk, DS watercolors.

My hands were working Friday night so I decided to sketch a small wood carving we have.  The actual carving is of a grumpy old man like myself but decided to draw him younger.  In the end, it made me smile.

I was sketching while watching the Blue Jays so I was drawing in a Canson XL multimedia book that I use for scribbling during TV time.  This is not watercolor paper but if you go easy on the water, you can add some color.  I used a Portable Painter filled with Daniel Smith watercolors that I keep available for these purposes.