Category Archives: Sketching

Trying To Get Out With My Friends

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Several weeks ago I got to meet a new sketcher.  She and her husband had moved to Quebec City and she wanted to hook up with local sketchers.  We met for a sketching session and had a great time.

Then I started having mobility problems and time after time, we couldn’t manage to get together for another session.  I was both frustrated and embarrassed by this and so when she asked if we could go sketching last week I said yes and we agreed to meet near the large fountain in front of the Quebec Parliament.  Yvan came along as well.

I limped my way to the site and sat on a bench.  It was really great to be out in the fresh air and to get to talk with friends but I was hurting so much that sketching didn’t seem important.  Still, there I was and so I started by drawing three young children who are part of the fountain.

I spent more time just sitting than I did drawing but I just kept adding small sketches of things I could see from my position.  No rhyme or reason to it; I was just sketching, or trying.  It wasn’t urban sketching at its best but it was urban sketching I suppose (grin).  For what it’s worth, the guy in front of the lamp post wasn’t actually leaning against it; he was part of the fountain too.  The lamp post was actually across the street from the fountain.  While he is shirtless, we were wearing jackets.

Tom Petty: 1950 – 2017

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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.

 

New Field Notes Format – Dime Novel Edition

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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.

 

Men Never Know Their Limitations

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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.

The Loss Behind The Loss Is The Problem

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Ha…sometimes my misplaced optimism goes on display and it’s embarrassing.  In the last couple posts I talked about “my loss” as in an inability to walk to sketching sites like I normally do.  I rambled about how this would be an opportunity to try new things, do experiments, etc.  Ha!

In the past week or so I’ve learned that my real loss has been any interest in doing anything, and to some degree a lack of ability to do anything.  When you’re in constant pain, constantly worried about your health, and losing sleep because of both, it’s hard to muster either ability or interest in doing things, even things you love.  Such has been my situation recently.

So…I haven’t done any grand sketching experiments.  I haven’t experimented with gouache as I said I might.  I haven’t done much of anything in fact except talk to doctors.  Things are improving, however.  Now I can walk all the way to the kitchen (grin).

So, all I have to show you are some small doodles that I’ve done while watching TV ad nauseam.  I apologize for the lack of blog posts.  One thing, though, is that these doodles are more loose than my typical street sketch and while I’m sure they’re inspired from somewhere, the subjects just fell out of my head when I took pen in hand.  Maybe I can call these “experiments.”