A Man’s Gotta Know His Limitations

Posted on February 7, 2013 by Larry Marshall

“A Man’s Gotta Know His Limitations” is a famous line by Clint Eastwood in one of his Dirty Harry movies. And yesterday, that quote came to mind. I was in the Nigeria exhibit of the Musee de la Civilisation and attempting to sketch a complex ceremonial head dress. If one squints it looks like the caricature of a rocket ship with a head on the front of it. If you look at it closely, however, you see that it has a head/face on one end, and another, more stylized face, with a couple of tusks on the other. These two ‘heads’ are separated by a large, half-disk that holds the eyes of the second head. It’s about 2-feet long and someone wore it on their head.

I just had to sketch it. I was in the mood to give a pencil another try, though I don’t know why I punish myself like that. Pencils and I don’t get along and my results are always smeared by the very action of creating them. Have I mentioned that I’m a pen guy?

Anyways, there isn’t a vertical or horizontal line in this object but I started by drawing a square, somewhat tilted to reflect the main ‘body’ of the object. This set the angle for the large plate and that back end that looks like a doghouse.

A ball drawn in front of it and a couple sticks out the back and I had the ‘bones’ for this sketch. I started the actual drawing by doing the measure-with-your-pencil trick to determine what part of this object went through the centerpoint of the drawing and I roughed that in. Then, he said confidently, the rest was just a matter of filling out/in the bones… and it only took forever and half a dozen Staedtler erasers. I guess that’s a slight exaggeration – it only felt that way.

Once I finished this sketch I decided to do something a bit more tame so I quickly sketched this wooden Nigerian comb. This one was also done in pencil but in my Stillman & Birn Epsilon sketchbook and I added a few scribbles of watercolor pencil.

What object(s) show you your limitations as a sketcher?

On Nait Tous Artistes!

Posted on February 5, 2013 by Larry Marshall

On nait tous artistes (We are all born as artists) is what is written on the sides of a tiny Fiat car owned by DeSerres, our local art store. They have just opened a new store within walking distance of my house which was event enough but in the parking lot was this really amazing Fiat, it’s paint scheme that of a young child drawing herself I suppose.

Anyways, I just had to sketch it but it was far too cold to sit in the parking lot to do so. I took a couple photos, came home and sketched it off my computer monitor. I guess that disqualifies it as a true ‘urban sketchers’ sketch but this one deserves an exception.

Stillman & Birn Epsilon (5.5×8.5), Lamy Safari, Noodler’s Lexington Gray. Faber-Castell watercolor pencils provide color.

Strathmore Series 400 “Toned Gray” sketchbooks

Posted on February 3, 2013 by Larry Marshall

I’ve posted a couple examples of sketches I’ve done on Strathmore’s Series 400 gray drawing paper and it’s spawned a couple of questions about the sketchbook in particular but also the paper itself. I’m really new to the paper and I’m not a paper guru, but I thought it might be useful for me to discuss my limited experience with these products.

Strathmore’s Series 400 Drawing sketchbooks have been around for a very long time and most commonly found in various sizes of spiral-bound books with “Drawing” on the cover. According to Strathmore they are and “ideal surface for any dry media, suitable for pen and ink.” I’m not a pastel guy but I don’t think this paper would be useful for that medium but for pencil and pen and ink, it’s an excellent, inexpensive paper. It may lack a bit in ‘tooth’ for those wanting to do detailed pencil sketches.

The recent release of this type of paper in both gray and brown is an important event in the sketching world, I think, and even more so because Strathmore has wisely produced brown-covered sketchbooks containing these papers. I nearly went off the rails the first time I saw one of these beautiful sketchbooks. I get bored by the typical black covers and the matt-brown finish of these sketchbook covers speaks to me.

The binding looks good but I don’t have enough experience with it to speak further about it. I should also add that I have no experience with the brown paper version so my comments are limited to the gray paper.

Done with Pilot Prera and Prismacolor white pencil

But I’m getting ahead of myself as I first discovered this paper in a spiral-bound 9×12 sketchbook. These come with finely perforated pages so you can remove the papers cleanly. I did exactly that and use this paper as individual sheets. I found it very nice for pencil sketching, though I admit to know almost nothing about pencil sketching. What I can tell you is that my buddy Yvan is a long-time and certainly excellent pencil driver and he said that “it’s great for ‘sketching’ (in quotes because his sketches are framing quality) but for portrait work the paper lacks tooth.” Those of you who understand this can do your own interpretation. Me, I’m still trying to figure out how to do basic shading with pencils. I’m a pen and ink guy and so I provide the ink sketch on the left, done with Noodler’s Lexington Gray ink.

Series 400, done with Pilot Prera, Noodler’s Lexington Gray ink

My understanding is that the hardbound sketchbooks are available in 5.5×8.5″ and 8.5×11.5″ sizes. As I was in the market for a pen-only sketchbook that I could dedicate to learning how to draw people, I bought the smaller size. I admit that I much prefer drawing buildings, cars and even fire hydrants rather than sketch people but it’s winter and there are more people indoors than there are buildings, so what’s a sketcher to do?

My new Strathmore sketchbook has become my “people” sketchbook. Its 128 pages of gray, 80lb paper works well with the pens I use regularly (i.e. fine nib fountain pens). I did find that if I use a medium nib and lay down a significant amount of ink there is slight feathering with my typical sketching ink (Noodler’s Lexington Gray) but it wasn’t objectionable.

Series 400, done with Pilot G-TEC-C3 hybrid ink pen

As I haven’t done much with the sketchbook yet I don’t have much to show in the way of examples so I’ll include the only two pages of my book that have ink on them. The first is a set of scribbles I did of people parts. There was no intention of anyone but me seeing this and no rhyme or reason to it so I apologize for its scattered nature. The second sketch is my first attempt at sketching clothing folds with pen and ink. Need to work on my darks a lot and proportions even more, but again, here it is. This is a post about the paper, not this sketcher’s limited abilities (grin). In any event, I hope this answers some of the questions about this paper and the new sketchbooks.

Oh…I should add, this paper contains too little sizing and is too light for use as a watercolor surface in my opinion. I have done some experiments and I can get away with adding some shading using a Derwent Graphitone pencil and color with Faber-Castell watercolor pencils, moving both around with a small Sakura Koi waterbrush. Trying to add a graded wash down the side of a building wall, however, is 1) very difficult as the paper is so absorptive and 2) the paper starts to pucker. For myself, I’ll stick to my Stillman & Birn sketchbooks for all my color work. They’re simply the best there is, though I wish I could buy them with brown covers.

Museum Sketching With Claudette

Posted on January 31, 2013 by Larry Marshall

What’s going on? Last week it was so cold that it was fashionable to run outside with a bucket of hot water, throw it up in the air and watch it turn instantly to snow. Those -30C temps are tough so mostly we just stay indoors. But this week, we’re 40-degrees warmer than that and it’s RAINING! This doesn’t happen in Quebec, in February. These temps, however, are much easier to take.

And so it was, yesterday, when I walked in the rain to the Musee de l’Amerique francais to meet up with a new sketching buddy, Claudette Gauvreau, a very talented sketcher. I met her at our last sketchcrawl and we agreed meet at the museum for a sketching session.

I got there about half an hour or so before our scheduled meet time and decided to sketch an organ that sits high above the floor of a chapel associated with the museum. I always struggle with perspective when I have to look up this much and this case was no exception. I started with pencil, drawing and redrawing the basic columns and the ceiling curves. I even drew a big cube where the organ sits before turning to pen to do the actual sketch.

When Claudette arrived she needed to do some work in the chapel as well so I continued working and finished up the pen work. I did it in a Stillman & Birn Alpha sketchbook using Pilot Prera and Metropolitan pens filled with Noodler’s Lexington Gray. Shading was done with a Derwent Graphitone 8B pencil. These pencils are great because once you hit them with a waterbrush they ‘set’ and you can put watercolor washes over it.

Claudette finished up this great sketch of part of the railing around the main seating area, which holds a bunch of round banquet tables these days. I can’t speak to materials used but isn’t it great? The small bit at the bottom is an example of the flooring.

We headed into the museum where we sat in comfy sofas and sketched mannequins dressed in costumes used in movies and created by French costume designers. She started sketching the cowboy character that Owen Wilson played in Night at the Museum, while I decided to do something I’d never done. I sketched a Victorian dress using only a pen. I’m fascinated by clothing folds and want to learn to draw them in ink.

Anyways, in the time it took me to do this sketch, Claudette finished drawing her cowboy, then drew a security guard and an indian from the same movie. Then she wandered off to look at the exhibits while I finished up my single figure. Have I mentioned that I’m slow at sketching (grin)? This sketch was done with a Pilot G-TEC-C3, hybrid ink pen on Strathmore Series 400 toned gray paper (5.5×8.5). I wish I could show you Claudette’s sketches but I didn’t think to take a photo.

Next Wednesday, we’re meeting at the Musee de la Civilisation. Want to join us?

Music, Friends and Sketching – A Very Good Day

Posted on January 27, 2013 by Larry Marshall

One of the great things about Quebec City is that there are a lot of free concerts. Many are associated with the conservatory here and are mostly students – really good students.

Another source of free concerts are the ‘mid-day’ concerts associated with the Grand Théâtre de Québec. This venue is the site of operatic and symphonic programs, musical plays, and a bunch of big name but not big venue performers. I saw B.B. King there.

The mid-day concerts are held on the second floor foyer, however, and once they’ve set up a stage and a bunch of chairs, it’s about the size of a decent sit-down night club without the booze, though you can get coffee and danish.

And that’s where I was today, to listen to a fantastic group of six jazz singers, all people too young to have so much talent. I arrived a little after ten AM and the concert didn’t start until eleven, though I got a mini-concert as the group went through a couple numbers, getting warmed up and checking equipment, I suppose. With little to do besides look out the window, that’s what I did. I got together with this pine tree, which also didn’t seem to have much to do, and we made this sketch together. We had a good time together.

But when Yvan arrived, the fickle friend that I am completely ignored my pine tree friend. Yvan and I talked about sketching, his new sketchbook, the Series 400 toned paper that Strathmore is selling and some other stuff. When we could, we went up and staked out some primo sketching seats, saving one for Celine.

Celine and Yvan are quite comfortable doing really great sketches of singers and musicians. Myself, I still struggle with people who are moving around a lot. Heck, who am I kidding. I still have trouble sketching people who are comatose. Yvan has explained, in his patient manner that ALL I have to do is choose a position the person returns to frequently and sketch that position. So far my brain hasn’t gotten the message as it can’t quite sift through all the movement. Practice, practice, practice…

While I tried to sketch the singers, I didn’t do so well. So, I sketched people who were in the audience. These were all very quick sketches – another problem my brain has when in a crowd of people moving around. My brain goes into “you’ve only got a minute, dummy, go fast…blindingly fast.” So, while these spectators were going to stay put for me for the duration of the concert, I was doing 1-2 minute quick sketches. Darn brain.

All of these sketches were done in a 3×5 sketchbook using a Platinum Carbon Black fountain pen, filled with PCB ink. I’ve come to like this pen a lot for detail sketching as it’s really fine, like a .005 Micron. I’m not so sure about it as a people sketching pen for the same reason – the lines are just too fine.

The music was fantastic, being with my sketching buddies always a good time, and there’s no such thing as a bad sketch if you view sketching fun as coming from the process, not the result. I do.

As long as I’m talking about people sketching, here’s a slightly better sketch I did the day before, of a cooperative guy who sat reading. He changed his position only once in the 10 minutes or so I spent sketching him which I thought quite considerate. This sketch was done with my Hero 578 “Chinese calligraphy” (tip bent upward) pen, Noodler’s Lexington Gray ink, and a Stillman & Birn Epsilon sketchbook. You can see that I can get variable line thickness from this pen and I think it adds something to the sketch.