The Value Of Warming Up As A Sketcher

Posted on March 19, 2016 by Larry Marshall

I’ve heard many times that sketchers should warm up. I suppose there’s a number of ways to do it. You could draw circles, do a bunch of hatching, maybe draw some thumbnails, or do a few quicksketches. I’ll be honest, I don’t do it. Too lazy I guess.

As part of my March “biding my time til spring” regime, I went to one of the malls with the idea of drawing people. These were quick sketches, of course, as people in malls are on the move. They might stop for a minute but that’s a “long pose” in mall time. What I noticed was that as I quick sketched people, my sketches got better (subjective assessment). Maybe it was the McDonalds coffee but I have to think that it may have been due to becoming warmed up. I’ll let you decide:

Page one:

This page definitely suffers from proportion problems, lots of errant lines, etc. I don’t judge them too harshly as each figure took no more than 20-30 seconds, but…

Page 2:

These seem a bit better but that guy in the middle really looks weird. He was very tall so maybe I just got carried away.

Page 3:

This is the third page I did and, in my opinion, they’re not bad at all. Maybe I was warmed up. Maybe I was just lucky. I still find that drawing people so quickly is really tough. There’s no time for assessing much of anything. I just keep the pen moving. What do you think? Do you warm up?

Chapel Sketching Again

Posted on March 17, 2016 by Larry Marshall

Winter persists and so does this sketcher. I met Yvan at the chapel associated with the Musée d’Amerique Francophone. It’s warm and there are lots of woodcarvings and fixtures to challenge a sketcher.

I drew this large light fixture and found it quite fun. As it turned out, there was to be a concert that afternoon and people were starting to arrive. Yvan and I decided to sit in the back of the room and sketch people as they arrived. That was fun and added to the enjoyment of the day.

I then got the wild idea to sketch a set of statues that were part of the immense alter at the front of the room. It was too far away to really see so I thought I might have some success by drawing the dark shadows and that maybe this would give me some guidance. This was the result. I might have learned something today. In any case, I was one day closer to spring.

Universite Laval Collections Sketchcrawl

Posted on March 14, 2016 by Larry Marshall

The Université Laval Collections reopened recently, having been moved and renovated. This is an extraordinary place that houses the remnants of the natural history museum that used to be in Quebec City as well as an impressive plaster cast collection that the art department abandoned long ago in favor of paint rollers.

We held our March sketchcrawl there, thanks to Madame Wagner, the curator, and Yvan Breton who arranged access for us. Imagine having a large room, complete with tables, chairs and some spot lights and the ability to place one of the museum objects on that table to draw it. It was fantastic!

Me, I sat in the hallway. I wasn’t being anti-social, though. I wanted to draw that mountain goat that sits in one of the collection display windows. Hubert joined me, however, and we had a great time sketching together.

Stillman & Birn softcover Delta series (8×10), Platinum 3776, Platinum Carbon Black

Those Egyptians Really Liked Bes

Posted on March 13, 2016 by Larry Marshall

Here’s a couple small vessels (shot glasses?), each different depictions of Bes, the dwarf god. They’re part of the Egypt exhibition at our Museé de la Civilisation. Maybe these were intended to ward off evil spirits from their spirits. I don’t think the top squares on the green one were intended to look like a hat but they sure do, making it quite funny.

These were drawn in an 8×10 Stillman & Birn softcover Alphas series book. I’m just starting to use this size book but I think I’m really going to like it. Bigger than the typical 6×9 but much easier to scan than a 9×12. The softcovers are also so much lighter than hardcovers that it actually weighs the same as a 6×9 hardcover.

Sketching A Dwarf Egyptian God

Posted on March 11, 2016 by Larry Marshall

Bes, the dwarf Egyptian god was represented, in both 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional form, everywhere in Egyptian society. Seems he had a way of scaring evil spirits away and the Egyptians were very worried about evil spirits.

This is the second or third Bes statue I’ve sketched at our museum, all showing similarities but each unique in its own way. I did this one in the 8×10 Stillman & Birn Delta softcover I reviewed not long ago.