Author Archives: Larry Marshall

A Bit Of Quick Sketchcrawling

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People say that getting “out of your comfort zone” is a good idea.  So, I drive twice the speed limit, drink excessively and pick fights with NFL players.  Just kidding…maybe that isn’t what they mean, though in the art world these catch-all phrases are ill-defined and hold little real meaning.

But this week seems to be a week where I’m doing things different from my norm and a couple days ago Yvan suggested that we do a ‘real’ sketchcrawl, where we go to a spot, sketch something quickly and then move on to the next spot, repeating until the day got too hot to continue, or until Larry got completely frustrated (grin).

And that’s exactly what we did.  We hopped a bus and headed to a neighborhood where we’d never sketched and decided that we’d walk until one of us (took turns at that) decided it was time to stop.  There, we would choose a subject and spend only a few minutes capturing the scene.  Easy peasy, right?

For Yvan it was.  He’s a superb sketcher and with decades of experience, he’s also really quick when he needs to be.  Me, not so much.  I’m still vying for the “slowest sketcher on the planet” award and I think I’m still in the lead.

When I start sketching quickly all sorts of things go wrong as I lose control of linear perspective, proportions, and relationships.  These things cause my sketches to be barely recognizable as the scene before me.  But heck, I was out of my comfort zone.  That has to be good, right?  These are three sketches I came up with during our quick-sketchcrawl session.

A Sketching Adventure To Miriam’s Cottage

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One of the nicest people in the world has a cottage and a large tract of land on the south side of Ile d’Orleans, which itself resides in the middle of the Ste Lawrence River.  Her name is Miriam and she invited Yvan and I to sketch with her and we jumped at the chance.

We started the day with tea on the deck, watching for boats going by.  Miriam has decided to draw the large ships as they go by, not a small feat since the view of the river is little more than an opening in the tree canopy and these ships, big as they are in reality, are pretty small when seen from her cottage.  But binoculars and a sketcher’s will surmounts these minor problems.

After tea we hiked up the hill to sketch a small barn sitting at the top of a hill.  It’s a beautiful scene but I confess that I got overwhelmed by the sea of green which, we concluded, was a field of bok choy.  Throw in a forest on the other side of the road and I didn’t know what to do with all that green.  I didn’t really need to tell you that; it is evident in the sketch.  Still, the weather was wonderful and the shade plentiful so I was a happy camper.

Jinhao ‘el cheapo’ pen, R&K SketchInk (Lily), DS watercolors.

As we were walking back to the house we were blessed by a conga line of four young racoons as they made their way up a creek bed.  That was quite fun.  Eventually they entered a culvert under the road and we never saw them again.

Lunch required a return to the deck, more ship watching and a session of “let’s get our palettes out and start making blotches of color  and mixing them together.”  Everyone plays that game… don’t they?  Well we did and had a ball for at least an hour.

When it was time to return to sketching, Yvan and Miriam wanted to draw the large rocks in the forest next to her cottage.  We walked in to the forest and all I could see was green, green, and more green.  This wasn’t reality but my PTSD from the morning’s greenery wouldn’t let me see anything else.  So I started wandering until I found this lonely shovel leaning against the barn wall.  It needed to be sketched.

We gathered for another cup of tea and discussed future plans.  Miriam agreed that if we’d leave, she’d let us return ‘real soon’ so we did.  I can’t wait to get back there.

Sketching A Kid’s Puzzle

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You know those puzzles we had when we were kids?  They were cut from wood and had no more than half a dozen pieces, which matched with our little hands and puzzle-making abilities when were three.  Well, it seems, I drew one.

Not really.  In reality I was standing at the end of St. Denis street in Quebec City, looking up the hill at the depicted scene.  What was different was that I decided to paint it as a bunch of interlocking shapes.  As a basis for this I drew, in pencil, a very light box around the building and then drew boxes where the windows rested.

Then I grabbed a paint brush, a scary instrument in my hands.  You see, I’m trying to figure out a few things with watercolors.  I’m trying to figure out how to mix paints thicker than the pastel-like colors we beginners often use.  Mostly this has resulted in over-kill in my sketches but I’m making progress.  The other thing I’m investigating is whether I can sketch directly with a brush.  This is definitely putting the cart before the horse but it’s become a nothing ventured, nothing gained sort of thing for me.

Anyhow, I became overwhelmed with painting thoughts as I tried to ‘draw’ this with a brush.  I drew each shape, trying to “build the wash” (Holmes-style), avoid any outline effect, and also trying to keep the shape correct.  I was so consumed with those tasks that the thought of actually trying to draw the scene got lost in the shuffle.  After I’d created my kid’s puzzle, I used a pen to draw window frames and such but nothing was going to help this sketch much.  Interesting exercise.  It’s said that we learn from our mistakes.  I must have learned a lot with this one.

A Little Store Called “Ketto”

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The heatwave has driven us into the parks because we can sit in the shade.  But before that happened, I’d drawn a little store on the corner of rue Cremazie and rue Cartier in Quebec City and I’d forgotten about it.  I added some color to it this weekend and thought I’d share it as a change of pace from all the trees I’ve been drawing lately (grin).

Jinhao ‘el cheapo’ pen, R&K SketchInk (Lily) and DS watercolors

Sketching With The Artistes Du Parc

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Last week Yvan told me of a group, the Artistes du Parc, who were meeting at a large park, Domain Maizeret, and that he was going there to sketch with them.  They are a watercolor group and I tagged along. We had a great time in spite of the heat wave.

When we arrived there was only one person there.  She was painting the large community building that’s the centerpiece of the park.  It turned out that she was the organizer, Denise Bujold.  Denise is a bubbly, enthusiastic person whose personality says “Join us, we’re about to have fun.”  I now have a brochure with a schedule of another half a dozen events that she has planned.  If you look up the word organizer in a dictionary you might find her picture.  Yippee!

Yvan and I did the sketcher thing, which was to wander around, looking for something to draw and then we proceeded to ignore one another for the next hour or so.  I went to the other side of the large building and decided to draw the scene shown below, mostly because there was a good patch of shade where I could plunk my butt on my stool and draw.  Here, courtesy of Denise, is a photo of my fat self doing just that, or rather faking that I was painting because by then I had finished.  I don’t normally have a big, silly grin on my face when I draw but heck, she was taking my picture.  Ya gotta smile for the camera.

I’ve got to do something about that tiny tripod stool though.  It’s really hard for me to sit down and even harder to get up.  I’m convinced that some day I won’t be able to (grin)

 

I did get to meet another person who came to the event, Nicole.  I suspect that most stayed away because this was in the middle of our heatwave and by then we were all hearing about the people dying because of it.  Still, it was a great day and the beginning, I hope, of a new sketching/painting relationship.