On The Dark Side

Posted on December 9, 2013 by Larry Marshall

I was at the Musée de la Civilisation with Yvan on Sunday. We were sketching. We had decided, at the last minute, to meet there and we had a great time. I suppose it’s somewhat redundant to say we were sketching and we having a good time as one thing means the other to me. Nevertheless, we were sketching and having fun.

I decided to do something very different, at least for me, but first a bit of back story. Albert Laliberté was a Québec sculptor who, like many Quebec artists at the time, headed to France to lead the Bohemian life and bask in the glow of the great French masters, and consume large quantities of wine. While he was there, Albert attended the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts where he developed his skills. One of the things I love about his work is that he sculpting people working with their hands, so he has created bronzes of blacksmiths, cobblers, and even painters.

What has this to do with Sunday sketching at the Musée de la Civilisation? Well, as it happens, the Paris on Stage exhibit has a room devoted to Québec artists who went to Paris and then returned to have significant art careers, like good old Albert Laliberté and several of his bronzes are on display in that room.

From the “I’d like to draw that” point of view, however, the museum’s multiple light sources and always from above, make it difficult to sketch the details of the pieces as they are often in very dark shadow. I thought this might be an opportunity to try something different, for me, and so I launched myself into high contrast mode, concentrating on the shadows as the major source for shape and relegating outline to a more minor role than most of my sketches.

As a first attempt, I was fairly satisfied with the result. I still have much to learn about drawing and I’m REALLY a rookie when it comes to this approach. But, here is Laliberté’s Paysagist (landscape artist). Apologies to Monsieur Laliberté.

Stillman & Birn Zeta (6x9), TWSBI Mini, Platinum Carbon Black, Tombow brush pens

Stillman & Birn Zeta (6×9), TWSBI Mini, Platinum Carbon Black, Tombow brush pens

Sketching the Past – episode 2

Posted on December 7, 2013 by Larry Marshall

Recently I posted a sketch I’d done of a caboose, done from a photograph taken when cabooses were part of our landscape. In that post I floated the idea that if I was going to be forced to sketch from photos by winter, that maybe I should sketch things that used to be part of our landscape but that have largely disappeared.

Well, never say stuff if you don’t mean it. My sketching buddies, Fernande and Claudette picked up on the idea and said, “You should sketch a bee-douze“, and I said, “Huh?”

They were surprised that I didn’t know what a “bee-douze” was even though they know my French isn’t very good. It wasn’t a French problem, however. “Bee-douze” is simply “B-twelve” in English but I still had no idea what they were talking about and I don’t think a lot of Francophones would know either. But Fernande and Claudette both grew up in a part of Quebec called “La Gaspesie”, a rural part of the province. They were taken to school in a “bee-douze” when winter snows prevented alternative transportation.

And you know what? The B-12 is an important part of our technological history as it was a big money-maker for a company called Bombardier who invented snowmobiles and who are now one of the world’s largest suppliers of modern passenger train cars and executive jets. Oh, and they still make snowmobiles via their recreational vehicle division called Ski-Doo. Maybe you’ve heard of it.

The B12 gets its name from the fact that it could zip along above the snow, carrying 12 people. Not the prettiest vehicle ever built, it gets high marks for its unique, almost Flash-Gordon-like round windows and teardrop shape. I had fun drawing this one.

Stillman & Birn Alpha (9x6), Pilot Prera, Platinum Carbon ink

Stillman & Birn Alpha (9×6), Pilot Prera, Platinum Carbon ink

From Oil Painting To Sketch

Posted on December 6, 2013 by Larry Marshall

I’ve discovered something new to do – to practice my eye. Being driven into museums by our cold weather, I’ve been staring at a bunch of oil paintings. I tried sketching from them, trying to grasp the artist’s intent. I’m not good at it and maybe it’s not even desirable to do so.

But I wondered what would happen if I didn’t try. Instead, what would happen if I tried to look at the painting and “convert” it to my sketching style. What would I learn? I wish I could tell you what the answer is but I don’t really know yet, but I felt something while doing the following sketch. I don’t know what it was but I think repeated treatments may change my sketching style, maybe even improve it.

Stillman & Birn (6x9) Zeta, TWSBI Mini, Platinum Carbon Black

Stillman & Birn (6×9) Zeta, TWSBI Mini, Platinum Carbon Black

What I Do When I’m Not Sketching

Posted on December 5, 2013 by Larry Marshall

I had coffee with a friend today. He asked me if I’d been sketching. I said, not since Monday morning when I went to a restaurant to sketch with friends. I said that I’d been too busy with life stuff, including a trip to the doctor. We moved on to other topics.

On my walk home, however, my two remaining neurons fired over this statement. I thought about it and smiled. We all have definitions of ‘sketching’ and, I guess, mine is that a sketch is something that I’ll post somewhere on the Internet and I hadn’t done any of those since Monday morning and I was talking to my friend on Thursday morning. As George Takei is fond of saying “Oh my….”

It occurred to me that people who follow sketching forums get a glimpse of what we sketchers do and that this glimpse is false. It’s false because we sketchers are picking and choosing what we post. What gets left out are, obviously, the really bad screw ups. BUT, at least for me, I rarely post any of the constant stream of quick sketches that I do every day, all the time, in a cheap notebook that I buy at the dollar store.

At the risk of embarrassment, I thought I’d give you a different ‘glimpse’ of what I do as a sketcher. What follows are the pages from that notebook that I’ve doodled on over the past three days where I was “too busy” to sketch. They were done while watching the news, watching a YouTube video, at the doctor’s office, and during the round trip to and from there. I apologize for the poor scans as I did these quickly and the paper is thin/cheap. There’s some ghosting and maybe some bleed through. Afterall, “it’s just a sketch” (oh how I hate that phrase).

I hope you didn’t laugh too loud and that my already lowly reputation as a sketcher hasn’t been impacted too much. Hand-eye coordination and the ability to ‘see’ come from continuous (incessant?) practice. I’m always surprised at how many seem to have a hard time finding “time” to sketch as these couple dozen sketches were done over three days when I was ‘too busy’ to sketch.

Muffin And Coffee At The Cafe Supreme

Posted on December 3, 2013 by Larry Marshall

We had a mild day (it wasn’t windy) and so I thought I should take advantage of that fact and headed off for a long, very long walk. It was 5F. I walked to a mall that was a considerable distance away, the plan being that I’d hop a bus to get back.

The walk was fun and with my big fur-lined hat with flaps (the proverbial anti-chic magnet) and a coat that is heavy enough to be used as an anchor, I was toasty warm. When I arrived at the mall, I decided to reward myself for my effort with a tasty muffin and a cup of coffee.

I thought about the Pat Ng and Liz Steel approach to restaurant drawing and decided that I would draw the sign for the Cafe Supreme before ordering. So I sat down and did just that. Then I got my muffin and coffee and, in spite of temptation, they remained intact while I drew them.

Stillman & Birn Alpha (4x6), TWSBI Mini, Platinum Carbon Black ink

Stillman & Birn Alpha (4×6), TWSBI Mini, Platinum Carbon Black ink

The coffee hadn’t even cooled; my approach was going well. So, with a mouth full of muffin and a swig of coffee, I started drawing a portion of Cafe Supreme itself. A bright red coat, wrapped around a woman walked up and started to order so I drew it, put a head and legs on it. There need to be more red coats in our world. I finished up by drawing the bits and pieces that make Cafe Supreme the place it is. Winter sketching is sure different, but it’s fun too.