Quebec Sketchcrawl: Musee De La Civilisation

Posted on January 14, 2014 by Larry Marshall

Saturday, January 25th is the date for the 42nd Worldwide Sketchcrawl. It’s very cold in Quebec City this time of year so we’ll be having our sketchcrawl indoors at the Musée de la Civilisation. We’ll be at the museum from 10h to 16h, breaking for lunch at mid-day. Bring a lunch or buy it at the museum but we’ll gather at the museum cafeteria around 12:30.

Participation, of course, is free. Normally, entrance to the museum is only available from 10h to 12h but the museum has generously offered free admission to all participants regardless of your time of arrival. Just let them know that you’re with the sketching group. Coat check is also free.

It should be a great day as there’s plenty to tempt you to put pen to paper. While a bit bizarre, the Haiti In Extremis exhibit offers some macabre sketching possibilities.

The newly refurbished and expanded Native American exhibit is also full of goodies to sketch, from snowshoes, utensils, weapons, carvings, paintings, mannikins all waiting for interest a sketcher.

There is a large computer games exhibit and while it’s mostly a bunch of boxes on which you can play video games, there are a number of possibilities for sketching as well, including a full-sized sculpture of the lead character for the Assassin’s Creed III video game.

There are also a lot of interior architecture possibilities as the building itself has a lobby area that is an architect’s dream. I still need to do some sketching there.

Of course the star of the show right now is the Paris: 1899-1914 exhibit. Here you’ll find a room filled with old camera and movie projector equipment and ongoing movies from the period.

There are a lot of sculptures, busts, and vases if that’s your preference. You’ll also find a number of early vehicles, including a steam-powered car.

The exhibit also holds a lot of very large posters as well as floor-to-ceiling projections of photos, taken in Paris in the 1900s. I did this sketch from one of those.

And, of course, a Paris exhibit wouldn’t be complete without pieces that represent the cabaret scene of the era. Lots of great stuff to sketch in that part of the exhibit.

In short, you won’t want to miss this sketchcrawl as we’re going to have a ball. I hope you’ll join us. And from the organizers, Yvan Breton and Celine Poulin:

———————EN FRANÇAIS———————

Bonjour chers croquistes,

La prochaine sortie de croquis du 42^e Sketchcrawl à Québec aura lieu au chaud du Musée de la Civilisation samedi le 25 janvierprochain.

Nous nous retrouverons à partir de 10h (accès gratuit).

Pour plus d’information, voir l’annonce à la page suivante :

http://www.sketchcrawl.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=68&t=11293

Au plaisir de faire du croquis en votre compagnie.

Yvan Breton et Céline Poulin

Sketching An Inuit Art Piece

Posted on January 12, 2014 by Larry Marshall

Quebec has a rich Native American community, from the Shawnee who helped Pre-Canadians fight Americans during the war of 1812 to the Inuit (Americans might still call them Eskimos) who manage to live in the very cold northern parts of Quebec.

Our Musée de la Civilisation has a large permanent exhibit dedicated to Native American history and art. This is a beautiful piece of wood and soapstone carving. It’s about two feet tall and the soapstone face has a long tail on it that allows it to sit in the hollow of the tree trunk. It’s quite stunning and I didn’t do it justice.

Done in a Stillman & Birn Zeta (6×9) with a Pilot 78G, followed with Albrecht-Durer watercolor pencils and a waterbrush.

Sketching Quebec’s Past

Posted on January 10, 2014 by Larry Marshall

Our Musée de la Civilisation has a permanent exhibit of Quebec artifacts. They are organized roughly along the lines of Quebec’s history, starting with the results of archeological digs and then progessing through 400 years of its history. Celine Dion is somewhere near the end of the exhibit.

I thought it might be fun to sketch a few of these antiquités and this is the result. Done in a Stillman & Birn Zeta (6×9) using a Pilot Prera (Platinum Carbon Black) and a Wahl-Eversharp flex nib pen (Noodler’s Lexington Gray).

Sketching Haiti Skull Art

Posted on January 6, 2014 by Larry Marshall

There is an exhibit at our Musée de la Civilisation right now called Haiti In Extremis, at least that’s what it says on the wall as you enter. I think it may be Latin for “weird stuff from Haiti” but I’m not very good with Latin. Anyways, this is an exhibit of art that has a heavy emphasis on scaring bad spirits away from the places that display it, so much of it is designed to be scary. Another component of the art is that the sculptures are composed of old car parts and other assorted junk. I’ll be honest. It doesn’t appeal to me.

But I was sketching at the Musée last Sunday with Yvan, Claudette, Pierre and Celine. We had a ball and several of us sketched what amounted to a human skull, perched on the base from some sort of rack. The skull was draped with a shawl and fake hair added to one side. This ‘unit’ was stuck on top of a television set. Don’t ask me why or what as I might not say the right thing.

But as with all sketching, it was an interesting challenge and lots of fun. Here’s my depiction of the piece, though I omitted the television set. Done in a Stillman & Birn Zeta sketchbook (6×9) using an Wahl-Eversharp gold nib pen (love the flex in this pen) and Noodler’s Black, which smeared a bit when I added color (watercolor pencils/waterbrush).

Canada Cold Is Different!

Posted on January 2, 2014 by Larry Marshall

Today it was miserable cold in Quebec City and the last few days have made getting my walking exercise done without turning to ice very difficult. My Arizona cowboy blood doesn’t help the matter.

Today I walked to the library to sketch people with Claudette. With the wind chill, the temperature was -40F and by the time I got there I was on the verge of turning to ice and what I found was Claudette, standing outside the library which was closed due to holiday schedule.

We went to a nearby cafe to sketch instead but, truthfully, I was too cold to sketch. I never did remove my coat and my fingers never did warm up sufficiently that my pen-driving turned to normal.

Lots of people say “it’s cold” and because the word is a relative term, everyone believes they understand what’s being said. In my experience, though, people who believe that ‘freezing’ (32F) is cold don’t understand Canada cold and what it means.

When I came home from my experience with ‘cold’ today, an email I received was timely. It came from Alan Norsworthy, a resident of Ontario and someone experienced with Canadian cold. Here’s his story about sketching in Canadian cold:

I had read about how you stopped sketching outdoors as the winter approached and on New Years morning a friend and I were standing in the freezing cold waiting for a sunrise that never came. It is part of my ‘First light’ challenge for photographers (but that’s another story)

As we waited and slowly froze I decided to sketch the scene I was about to photograph. I opened my bag pulled out my sketchbook and fumbled for a pencil.

As my fingers numbed I grabbed my TWSBI fountain pen and began sketching in the lines…. Six lines later my pen stopped, the ink frozen !

My friend laughed as I put it all away and my thoughts turned to you (editor’s note: he’s talking about me here) … “no wonder he heads to an indoor spot” I thought … And smiled

Later in the warmth of a local cafe we laughed about it and I opened my bag to let my pens thaw out. Then I finished the sketch witb a new toy, a Pentel Pen Brush that i had received from the same friend, he said I need to expand my vision.

There are some who sketch in the cold, but when ‘cold’ means your ink and watercolor water freezes, you don’t. So we go indoors but I cancelled a sketching session tomorrow simply because it’s so cold right now that I don’t even want to walk to that indoor venue. It’s supposed to ‘warm up’ on Saturday, with the highs predicted to be -20F so maybe….

Here’s Alan’s sketch, deftly drawn with his Pentel Brush Pen. I’m still trying to figure out how to control this great sketching tool. Thanks to Alan for sending me his story.