I’m not one to have heros or to worship celebrity. But I am one who appreciates people who are the best at what they do and Tom Petty was one of those. As I write this I’m listening to I Won’t Back Down, a tune that was meaningful to me at a time in my life when meaning was important and hard to come by. I’m not much of a portrait artist but I felt the need to draw this. Rest in peace Tom.
Some know Field Notes as a company that produces thin, 3.5×5.5 notepads in a series of ‘themes.’ Most of the time these notebooks come with lines, graph or dot-grid paper but once in a while they produce a series with blank pages and these are great for use as small quick-sketch notebooks. Most famous, thanks to Tina Koyama, is the Sweet Tooth series that had blank pages and came in red, yellow and blue paper books. Tina has done, by my count, a zillion or so sketches in the red ones.
A recent release by Field Notes may be the most useful notebook yet for sketchers. No, they won’t replace my Stillman & Birn books but for quick-sketches they’re just dandy. The release is called the Dime Novel Edition and reflects the format (4.25 x 6.5) of dime novels of the early 1900s. The paper is blank, except for a small page number in the upper right corner.
Instead of their typical staple-bound 48-page form, this book has three signatures (72pages) that are sewn together and then wrapped with a heavy cardboard cover. To sweeten the pot, Field Notes uses really nice 70# paper that has just enough tooth to make it nice for drawing pencils and great for fountain pen. I’ve only done a bit of testing but I saw no evidence of bleedthrough with this paper though there is a bit of ghosting.
I find the size ideal, mostly because it’s very thin – about 1/4″ thick, light and yet large enough that if you draw across the gutter you have a 6,5 x 8.5 page to work on. Oh…and if you go through it, pressing each page open (the book handles this quite easily), it will also lay flat.
The 70# paper does limit what you can do with water, but if you don’t slop on too much water, you can use watercolor as well. Watercolor pencils seem to work particularly well, but again, you need to keep the water applications light or you’ll get some buckling of the paper.
The books are sold as a 2-pack for $12.95. Page count here exceeds the total pages contained in the 3-packs of the 3×5 Moleskine books that many use for this purpose and the paper here is far superior so if you carry such a notebook with you, give these a look.
Clint Eastwood is famous for saying “A man’s gotta know his limitations” but any woman will tell you that men never do. I am one of those men and, sadly, sometimes I make a fool of myself because of it. What men are pretty good at doing, however, is hiding the results or so we think, but sometimes it’s cathartic to expose the underbelly and today’s the day. I’ll start with a story and end with really bad sketches. I hope you can get a chuckle or two from it.
Tuesday morning I went for a physio treatment. Right now, going anywhere is exhausting and physio visits even more so. When I left there all I wanted to do was lie down but instead I went home, grabbed a sandwich, and then headed off to the second meeting of our still life group. Arriving at the parking lot I realized that I had a “long walk” ahead of me. It must have been a couple hundred feet to the door and then up a flight of stairs. With my current hobbled gait, it only took me 10 minutes (grin).
When I got to the room I headed directly to a chair in the corner of the room and flopped into it as though I’d just completed the Boston Marathon. I sat, looking across the room as everyone else was busy getting out art supplies, organizing their workspaces, and preparing to draw a large flower arrangement. I just stared across the room.
Then it occurred to me that I was supposed to draw so I got out sketchbook and pen. I couldn’t really see the flowers from where I was sitting but the thought of moving was unappealing so I started drawing people. My sketch barely looks like people and my ability to “see like an artist” was lacking that day. The result I share in the name of humor, not art.
I don’t know how long this took me but I’d guess 10-15 minutes. It seemed like hours. When I finished I closed my book, closed my eyes, and started reflecting on what nonsense it was that I was there. Though we’re slow on the uptake, even we men ‘get it’ sometimes.
But I was there to draw and so I didn’t succumb to rational thought. Instead, I decided to draw a purse that was sitting on one of the tables. Again, the sketchbook came out, the pen started scribbling, and this was created. Another 10 minutes that felt like a couple hours.
At this point I knew the session was near its end so I closed my book and put my pen away. I looked at my watch. I’d been there 25 minutes and there was 1 1/2 hours to go. Not for me. A man’s gotta know his limitations. I went home.
When my knee problem started to limit my walking, I started thinking of alternative ways to feed my penchant for moving pointy devices across paper. One alternative was to sign up for one of several ateliers offered here by La Collectif, here in Quebec. These aren’t instructional and mostly about drawing nude models and portraits. I’m not much interested in that sort of thing but they did have one atelier called Nature Morte (Still Life).
I decided that drawing vegetables and wine bottles would be a lot more fun than sitting on my couch so I signed up. There are twelve of us in the atelier, which is organized by Celine and Robert Poiré, two of my favorite people in the Collectif so I know it will be fun. This first week I sort of had to grit my teeth to muddle along because the pain made it hard to concentrate but we had fun nevertheless. Heck, we were sketching, we couldn’t avoid having fun if we tried.
Here’s my sketch from the session. I’m not sure that my pen and ink, cartoon style is the best for drawing vegetables and maybe I’ll take some pencils with me next week.
After a short break there was still a few minutes left in the session and others were still finishing up their drawings so I decided to do a quick experiment. I got a piece of Bristol from my bag and gave myself 2-minutes to capture the same scene I’d just drawn. I’ll let you assess how I did, but I had a lot of fun doing it. With the remaining minutes I scribbled out some poor depictions of some of the participants. Can’t wait for next week.
Have you ever lost pens, paints, brushes, etc. while out urban sketching. I have. Several years ago I lost my entire paint kit somewhere between sketching site and home and that loss was traumatic. The palette was inexpensive, the case was a favorite, and that kit contained several Escoda sable travel brushes. I nearly cried. But all of it was replaceable and my sketching regime hardly skipped a beat.
I’m dealing with another loss, however, and I while I hope it’s temporary, it’s much harder to overcome. I’ve lost my ability to walk more than across the room. It started with my ankle and then my knee. Right now the leg between the two is the size of a telephone pole and I’m spending a lot of time with doctors.
If I were a “true” urban sketcher I suppose I’d be sharing lots of sketches of medical machinery but I’m not that kind of urban sketcher, I suppose. Besides, the pain and stress have been distracting. I won’t bore you with details but I’ve been diagnosed and I’ve just started some physiotherapy yesterday that sounds encouraging. The ramifications for this blog is that because I can’t wander the streets of Quebec City, I can’t draw the streets of Quebec City so the nature of my sketches will probably change, at least in the short term. Irony of ironies, I’ve waited all summer for decent weather and we’re finally getting a string of beautiful days. Such is my luck sometimes.
The upside is that this is a good opportunity to do some experimentation and maybe I can even convince myself that I can draw from a photograph and enjoy it. For now, I leave you with a sketch I did after hobbling along a beach on the south shore of the St. Lawrence River last week.
Stillman & Birn Alpha (9×6), Platinum 3776, Platinum Carbon Black