I live not far from Quebec City’s exposition center, which is convenient because there’s a farmer’s market, park area, and a large activity area associated with it.  There’s also a very large statue.  It stands 30-40 feet high and represents, I think, a deer, walking across ice.  The deer is looking down and its reflection is depicted by a white version of itself.  It’s pretty impressive.

I decided to draw it and I found it more difficult than it looks.  The reason is that it’s an animal with four spindly legs balanced upon a second, upside down set of spindly legs.  Clearly, if I got the angles of those thin legs wrong, my sketch would look like it was falling over.  Not having the mass of the top animal balanced on those legs would, of course, have the same result.

So, I spent probably half an hour just triangulating all the points, getting the proportions figured out, and the result was a whole bunch of lines and dots that didn’t look like much.  Drawing it was easier and while painting always reveals my poor brush work, that wasn’t too bad either.  The one thing I regret was that I didn’t do it larger (sketch is only 6″ high).

Stillman & BIrn Nova Gray, pencil, Daniel Smith Watercolors