Category Archives: Art

Sketching At Saint Petronille

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The Artistes dans les parcs provided a unique opportunity to sketch at La Foyer de Charite Notre Dame (I think I have that right).  Anyways, it’s a huge estate, built on a hill overlooking the St. Lawrence River.  It was built by the guy who started the Bank of Montreal.

It’s a gorgeous place with lots to draw but the hilly terrain didn’t make my bad knee very happy.  I was so happy to be out sketching, though, that it didn’t really matter.

Here’s a sketch of my buddy Yvan sketching a fountain.  I’ve started using the Moleskine watercolor book I mentioned recently and I really don’t like the paper.  The colors just all look dull to me when compared to the same paint on my S&B sketchbooks.

After lunch we were up high on the hill.  My knee didn’t want to move, so I decided to draw the coastline I could see when I looked over the cliff.  The tide was out and I was faced with this scene.

I did a few other, tiny sketches but otherwise I just sat on the porch and enjoyed the view.  What a wonderful day.  Now, what do you do with an expensive sketchbook you REALLY don’t like?

Old Expo Exhibition Hall

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I go to our new Grande Marché almost every day.  Part of the reason is that I’m trying hard to walk as much as possible to rebuild strength in my bad leg.  But the other reason is that there’s just something soothing about seeing all the local farmer produce on display.  I can’t really explain why that is so and the hectic nature of lots of people running around buying stuff would argue against it, but it makes me happy for some reason.

The other day I drew the corner of a really large, classic building that used to be the Science & Technology building on the fairgrounds on which the Grande Marché sits (it used to be the Agriculture building).  Anyways, I just love the corners of this building.  This was a quick and small sketch.  Some day I’ll have to do a larger one.

Sketching Ocimum basilicum

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Today I drew our Ocimum basilicum plant.  Sweet Basil is a one of my favorite herbs.  Did you know that it’s related to mint?  And while it tastes just dandy, it’s those big, puffy leaves that cause sketchers to be drawn to it.

There’s not much to say about this sketch.  I sat on our deck and drew it.  Not a big drawing (about 4″x4″) but I did switch pens.  Instead of my fine nib fountain pens, I chose an old Hero fude pen just for a change.

 

The Year Of The Plant

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Since my mobility is been limited by my bad knee, it seems I’ve traded in drawing architecture for drawing plants.  I can’t say that’s a bad thing exactly but it sure is different, putting me in unfamiliar territory.

I was at another Artistes dans les parcs event, this time at the Domain Maizeret Arboretum.  Lots of trees, lots of grass, and a wonderful pond and creek, though this time of year the later is mostly hidden by tall foliage that surrounds it.

Having no imagination at all, I found it difficult to find something to draw.  But where there’s a coneflower, there’s something to draw.  Better yet, two coneflowers.  A botanical artist I am not, but I really had a good time drawing these. For some reason it was very relaxing.

It had become quite hot and I wasn’t in the mood for a complex subject.  I got the idea to try to do a very quick sketch attempt of a ‘landscape’ to see if I could manage a minimal ink, mostly color sketch.  I drew some steps and then picked up a big brush and started placing blobs of color around them.  Near the end I went back to the pen to add some structure.

Mostly I think I failed at this because all my foliage lacks texture and depth.  It was an interesting experiment, though, throwing detail to the wind and just capturing the structure of the scene.  I post it here because I’m not easily embarrassed (grin).

 

The Lonely Sentry And Cheating On An Old Friend

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I was wandering around a place called Domain Maizeret, a large park not far from my house.  There is a huge building in the middle of the park where most of the activity is centered and around it is forested land with walk paths so we can go in and feed the mosquitoes.

When I saw this scene I didn’t see a garbage can.  I saw a sentry, bravely holding up its “no bicycles” sign as it protected the forest entry from marauding bicyclists.  I decided to do another paint first experiment.  Some day I’ll do one that doesn’t fail, or that fails to a lesser degree.  I don’t expect progress overnight (grin).

I had fun with this one, mostly because I just couldn’t get the sentry idea out of my head.  While I was sketching, not a single bicyclist got past the sentry.  I do hope walkers appreciate its effort.

Moleskine watercolor portrait format (5×8), DeAtramentis Document brn/blk, Wing Sung 8009

A confession and apology to Stillman & Birn

I’ve been using Stillman & Birn sketchbooks almost exclusively for about eight years.  When I started with them they didn’t have all the products they have today, but I bought a pile of Alpha-series 10×7 spiral-bound landscape books and I filled them.  As they came out with other options I tried those too, though Alpha and Beta series are my favorites.  I’ve filled a bunch of their newer softcover books as well.  When they released their 3×5 books I started using those, replacing the cheap small books I’d used for quick-sketching people.

But there was a time that I used the small Moleskine (landscape) watercolor books.  I loved their covers but always felt that the larger landscape books became unwieldy when balanced on my knee.  So I joined the throngs of people asking begging Moleskine to produce portrait versions of these sketchbooks.  In spite of repeated letter-writing campaigns, they never did and since S&B was serving my needs I didn’t much care.

But Moleskine finally answered the call, with both A5 and A4 versions in portrait format.  I didn’t buy one… at first, but eventually I started feeling guilty that I’d whined so loudly ‘back then’ and yet hadn’t bought one now that they were producing them.  And so I did buy one.

The sketch above was the first sketch in my new A5 Moleskine book.  I feel like I’m cheating on S&B by using the darn thing (grin).  S&B have been there, thick and thin, relieving me of the burden of finding the right sketchbook.

I tell myself that I haven’t stopped using S&B sketchbooks and its true.  Right now I carry two of them next to this new Moleskine.  Still I feel guilty.  I also feel bad that now I have a sketchbook to fill that has paper that’s not as good as my other sketchbooks.  Serves me right for being a cheater (grin).