To Pick Apples Or Sketch – That Was The Question

Posted on September 16, 2014 by Larry Marshall

We apple picking in St. Nicolas on Sunday. It’s a great place on the south shore of the St. Lawrence. Very agricultural, very beautiful. As I always do, I took my sketching stuff with me but didn’t figure I’d get a chance to use it. We were foraging.

Apple picking is pretty light duty. We had a large bag and wandered around pulling the red orbs off the tree. Made me wish that money really did grow on trees as that would really be fun.

We’d filled a bag of McIntosh apples and had started on a new bag, to be filled with Lobos, when I saw this old, three-legged ladder. I couldn’t resist and handed the bag to my wife, saying “I’ll do it quickly.” She continued picking and I sat down, pulling out a small sketchbook of brown paper and my TWSBI Mini.

I became a kid magnet and a bunch of kids surrounded me to watch. It was fun. They were all very young (less than 10) and very shy but curious of this big person doing what they do all the time. None of them were art critics. Wanting to put on a show, I guess, I sort of cut short my actual sketching and got out some watercolor pencils. I showed them around and then added a bit of color to the sketch. In the end, I had an incomplete sketch but a fond memory. Location sketching at its best.

TWSBI Mini, Platinum Carbon Black, watercolor pencils

Sketching Landscapes At The Quebec Aquarium

Posted on September 14, 2014 by Larry Marshall

The grounds of the Quebec Aquarium are great for a sketcher. Whoever designed them had esthetics in mind as well as the ability to accommodate families with kids running all over the place. And so it’s a fun place to do small landscape sketches. With winter looming in front of us, I’ve spent most of my aquarium time doing those kinds of sketches.

Monologue sketchbook (4×5), Pilot Falcon, Platinum Carbon ink

Claudette and I were at the aquarium this week (last week?). While waiting for it to open I quickly sketched a grouping of large rocks that sit near the entrance. I’m still trying to get a handle on drawing rocks.

Monologue sketchbook (4×5), Hero 578, Platinum Carbon Black

Later I made this little sketch out the window of the cafeteria. I was drawing trees but more, I was playing with my Hero 578 “fude” pen. I still haven’t tapped the expressiveness of this pen and should use it a lot more.

But I spent most of my time drawing this scene. It took me the best part of two hours to complete it. This included a chat with the security guard, another with a grounds-keeper and a couple visitors stopped to comment. The weather was ideal, as were the social interactions.

Stillman & Birn Alpha (10×7), Pilot Falcon, Platinum Carbon Black

Sketching Down A Different Road

Posted on September 12, 2014 by Larry Marshall

Fabriano Artistico paper, Hero 578 w/Platinum Carbon Black

My urban sketching has become pretty well-defined. My ‘style’ is sort of cartoony with a heavy emphasis on linework as that’s what I like to do. Color is thrown in as an afterthought.

But if I’m ever going to improved with color I’ve got to experiment and so here’s a couple baby steps down that road. In both cases I’ve retained my penchant for fountain pen line work but I started by doing a wet-in-wet background. Much to learn here but I had fun which is, afterall, the whole point of my sketching. Hope you like these little guys, done from my imagination.

Fabriano Artistico paper, Hero 578 w/Platinum Carbon Black

Book Review: Urban Watercolor Sketching

Posted on September 11, 2014 by Larry Marshall

The complete title of the North American edition of this book is Urban Watercolor Sketching: A Guide to Drawing, Painting, and Storytelling in Color by Felix Scheinberger. And if the recent flood of books about urban sketching and art journaling isn’t an indication that what we do has hit the mainstream, the title of this book most certainly let’s us know that “urban sketching” has become a marketing tool, like ‘new and improved.’

Why do I say that? Because the only place that urban sketching is mentioned in this book is on the cover. The author never references either urban sketching or storytelling. Mr. Scheinberger wrote a book that would be better titled “Watercolor Sketching: The Effective Use of Watercolor in Sketching.” And lest you think I’m faulting the author, the book was written in German and the original title translates to Watercolor for Illustrators (I think). It ain’t his fault. The sad thing is that I suspect the book would appeal to a wider audience if they’d put that on the cover rather than tried to fool people into thinking it an urban sketching book.

The book does a segment on each of the primaries and their compliments.

There are sections on how to use glazes.

Enough with the grousing over publisher folly. This is a REALLY GOOD BOOK! Felix Scheinberger is an illustrator of children’s books and his loose style, with both pen and watercolor are wonderful to behold. The emphasis of the book is on color and its use. It’s not a step-wise approach to watercolor techniques, but more of a mental toolkit for how to view and use watercolors.

In addition to discussions of color itself, Scheinberger talks about making decisions about color combination, using color sparingly, creating harmonies, atmosphere, and composition. His discussion of materials assumes the use of single sheet or blocks of watercolor paper so brush talk revolves around that sort of presentation rather than small sketchbooks. There is no discussion of pencil/pen, which allows him more space to discuss color philosophy and decisions.

Color harmony is an important theme in this book

The other main theme of the book is how to loosen up the use of watercolors and use it sparingly.

The name of this book may be way off base but if you’re an urban sketcher you’ll still find much that will float your boat. Scheinberger’s style is very loose but he turns his art towards urban landscapes quite often so his advice applies to these subjects. I never sketch outside of a sketchbook and yet I thoroughly enjoyed this book and highly recommend it.

Sketching At The Quebec Aquarium

Posted on September 9, 2014 by Larry Marshall

Claudette, Fernande and I headed to the Quebec Aquarium because predictions were for rain. This is an ideal sketching venue when weather is suspect because there are both indoor and outdoor sketching available. As it turned out, the weather was pretty nice so we all stayed outdoors.

I started my day with a sketch of the largest building complex. It was a nice building scene and I could sit in the shade of a large ash tree. I had fun sketching the tall, large-leaf plants I was looking over from my tripod stool view.

Stillman & Birn Alpha 10×7, Pilot Falcon, Platinum Carbon Black

We met for lunch at a picnic bench in the kid’s playground and compared sketches. Then we talked about their sketching sessions while I was in Ottawa and I told them about my sketching in Ottawa. I really enjoy this part of urban sketching. There’s just nothing like the camaraderie among sketchers.

We split up again and I did a bit of wandering. There are several ponds on the grounds and I found a water lily that grew in just the right spot for me to sketch and so I sat down and did just that.

Moleskine watercolor book (5×3), Pilot Falcon, Platinum Carbon Black