Category Archives: Art

Confused Weather Makes For Confused Sketchers

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“April showers bring May flowers.” – Thomas Tusser (1557)

I have a question.  If you get showers in April, and they continue through May, will there be LOTS of flowers in June?  I sure hope so because Quebecers’ moods, will need a boost.

By date and temperature, we have finally gotten to spring and we sketchers are chomping at the bit to get out sketching.  In fact I witnessed a bunch of them, including myself, wandering around in the rain, looking for stuff to draw.  It was quite a sight.

We were attending the first of a series of plein air painting gatherings organized by the great Denise Bujold – great because she’s done this and because she’s so darn good at it.  There are 16 events scheduled, one a week, throughout the summer and fall.  But for this first one, surprise, surprise, it rained.

It was held at an apple/vegetable farm on Ile d’Orleans, a large island near Quebec City.  When Yvan and I arrived we found a gaggle of sketchers huddled in a large space that houses an art gallery during summer tourist season.  Eventually this group spilled out into the garden adjacent to the building and we literally wandered in the rain, pointing at things we could sketch if the rain would stop.

Eventually we made our way to a place where there was an overhang and a few picnic benches and everyone set up shop to sketch.  Across a field there was this scene and I confess that I didn’t have my heart in it and it shows.  But I did get to sketch, outdoors, and with other people.  That has to count for something.  There was supposed to be another event today but it’s pouring rain so it was cancelled.  I’m in desperate need of some flowers.

Stillman & Birn Beta (8×10), DeAtramentis Document diluted black

 

Is It Spring Or Is It Summer?

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Yesterday was Memorial Day in the US and all day I heard the US press saying that this day, unofficially, marks the beginning of summer.  Here in Quebec City we had a frost advisory and the trees are just now deciding that they might as well put out their leaves.  It’s sunny today and feels very much like spring.  So, is it summer or spring?  Weather this year has been hard to take for many parts of North America.  I’m hoping we have a really long summer, or is it still spring?

In any case, the squirrels are out and about and I even saw a bumble bee this morning.  In honor of this change of weather, I drew a squirrel with a smile on his face. Like me, he’s happy that things are warming up.

Stillman & Birn Alpha (4×6), DeAtramentis Document Brn/blk

Memories From Old Toys

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We’re still waiting for spring to come to Quebec City.  It’s quite unbelievable that it’s mid-May and the best we can hope for is a rainy, dreary day.  But until things warm up a bit (we had a frost warning last week) we’re sort of stuck going to indoor venues to draw.

We were provided with a new one, though, as the Quebec Historial Society opened a small exhibit of old, mostly tin toys from the 40s to the 60s.  As a kid, I was playing with those produced in the 50s so some were quite familiar to me and brought back memories.  I love tin toys, mostly for this nostalgia I suppose, but they were always so brightly painted to mask their simplistic nature.

I spent much of our session viewing the exhibit and reading all the description cards.  It’s not every day that you get to see and Easy-Bake Oven after all.  But eventually I sat down to draw and I did a poor job of sketching an old wind-up race car from the 40s.  I really need to slow down as the quality of my sketches is directly correlated with the speed in which I do them.

Stillman & Birn Beta (8×10 softcover), DeAtramentis Document Brn/Blk ink, Daniel Smith watercolors

Hopping Down The Bunny Trail

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I’ve been experimenting with using paint before I do any ink, using a brush and paint to do the actual drawing.  This is mostly as a way of getting my brain to realize that there’s value in color.  That’s probably an odd statement to most artists, but I’ve always been more enamoured with using a fountain pens/inks than I have been with “art.”

Anyways, I’ve decided to do more of this paint-first approach and as I also got a dose of drawing my daughter’s collection of stuffed animals with my recent sketch of Dudley the Dragon I grabbed a large rabbit with oversized feet and ears as my subject for the day.

To provide some guidance with respect to proportions and relationships I penciled in the locations/sizes of all the major masses and then started with paint.  Any self-respecting artist would chuckle to watch me sneaking up on the shapes and color patterns.  I started very light, improving the shapes as I went.  In this process I also started identifying tonal variations, trying to figure out how to create them in color.  I’m woefully ill-equipped to do this but I plowed ahead as if I were.  Eventually I added some ink lines just cuz my drawings need ink lines.  Hope you like the result.

Stillman & Birn Beta (8×10 softcover), Daniel Smith watercolors

Sketching Session At My House

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We’re on the verge of actual spring and I can’t wait for it to happen.  My excitement is tempered only by the fact that my bad knee is getting really bad, as in I can’t walk at all some days.  Anyways, my buddy Yvan felt sorry for me and agreed to come over so we could sketch together.  He’s got the best studio a guy could want but I’ve got some stuff to sketch that he doesn’t.  Even the king can get bored in his castle.

On the morning of his arrival I realized I didn’t have a cookie or cake in the house.  One must have sketching snacks.  A few days earlier we’d discussed me making biscuits and we realized that we didn’t know what you call them in French.  You see, ‘biscuits’ in French are cookies.  A day later, Yvan came up with biscuits à la poudre à pâte.   The word galette could also be used but this is a very broad term that includes a lot of sweet biscuits/scones/cakes.

All that is the lead up to me quickly whipping together some biscuits as a snack and so he could actually see what I was talking about.  While the idea was to eat them (we did), we took advantage of them as sketching material too.

Yvan got the bright idea to start with paint rather than my typical ink first approach.  Talk about walking out on a thin limb.  I admit that I struggled with this, a lot, but I also had a lot of fun and think it may be the way to get my brain to believe that watercolor is as important as line work.  Here’s my result:

We took a break and he showed me a copy of the classic book Nature Drawing by Claire Leslie Walker that he picked up for only $5.  What a gorgeous, but out of print book [face turning green with envy] this is.  So, I showed him my copy of Living History by Cathy Johnson, one of the gems of the book world.  And we ate another biscuit and admired the great drawings in both books.

Conversation led to me cutting up some sheets of paper for Yvan while he grabbed a stuffed animal (Dudley the Dragon) and started drawing it.  When I finished I decided to quickly sketch the same animal but he had the good view so I drew the side view.  Apologies to Dudley as I didn’t spend enough time organizing and blocking in the drawing.  This was done ink first with watercolor as an afterthought, my typical way of working.

At the end of this fun day, I’d experienced a new way of sketching and I plan to do a lot more of this paint-first approach.  It’s confusing as can be to think of outline, tone, form and color simultaneously but I like a challenge.  Thanks to Yvan for a great day.