Sketchcrawl At Fete De La Nouvelle France

Posted on July 25, 2015 by Larry Marshall

Our fearless leader has scheduled our second sketchcrawl to coincide with the Nouvelle France festival, on Sunday, August 9th. The festival is always pretty special for sketchers as it’s a week of people wandering the old port area wearing period costumes, doing demonstrations of 18th Century crafts, and plenty of opportunity to eat traditional Quebec food.

We’re all going to rendevous in the square at Place Royale (prime subject-hunting territory) at 9:30 and after lunch we’ll move to Parc de l’Unesco which is just down the street. You can get more details about the festival and the sketchcrawl from the Croquistes de Quebec webpage. I hope you can make it. Bring yourself, your sketching gear, and be prepared for lots of fun. If you have any questions, you can contact me at larry@larrydmarshall.com or Yvan Breton from his web page.

How To Stop A Little Boy

Posted on July 24, 2015 by Larry Marshall

The other day I headed out on a quest for sketching subjects. Actually, I was going to the post office but I’m always looking for things to sketch – my prime directive.

As I came out of the post office it had started raining and I was ill-prepared for it, so I ran across the street to a bus stop and soon I was on my way to one of the larger malls in town with the thought of doing my daily walking there. I arrived to find some sort of carnival-like thing going on with kids and strollers, whose size has grown to that of a Buick in recent years, everywhere. Because of the crowds it was hard to navigate through the mall but I managed to cruise the bookstore, the tea store, and to get a look at the new food court – a result of ongoing remodeling.

And then I saw it, an idea sketching subject. No, it wasn’t the guy in the bright, lime green jacket twisting balloons into toys. It was an opportunity to draw a little boy who WASN’T MOVING. He was transfixed on the man who was making a Spiderman for him. Relative to most encounters with kids, I had all the time in the world to sketch him, and I took advantage of the anomaly.

When I finished I decided to start drawing Mr Greencoat but just as I started, he finished and handed the Spiderman to the little boy. The boy ran to his mom, excited by his new acquisition. Mr. Greencoat had an immediate kid replacement and went to work making what appeared to be a dog. Undaunted, I continued drawing him, trying to adjust his new position to the old one I’d started in my sketch and substituting Spiderman blobs for the dog blobs before me.

Fabriano “el cheapo” sketchbook, Namiki Falcon, De Atramentis Document Black

Then the fun began. The little boy came down a bit from his euphoria, saw me, and walked over to see what I was doing, probably as much because of the other kids who were watching me as anything. If you ever want to feel like the Pied Piper, sit down in a sea of kids and start sketching. Kids “get it.”

When he looked at the sketch he immediately recognized himself, Mr Greencoat and his Spiderman and cried out “C’est moi! c’est moi!” as he proudly looked at the other kids. While he had been completely immobile as I sketched him, he was now doing a good popcorn imitation and, jumping up and down, he went to his mom and dragged her over, saying “C’est moi!” I got banged a couple times by Spiderman as the bouncing continued and I was trying to complete Mr Greencoat. I got excited too and what started out as a simple little quick-sketch of a little boy became let’s add that little girl, what’s that thing behind them? It was, as they say, a hoot. My only regret is that I didn’t think at the time to give the sketch to that little boy. I think it would have competed well with Spiderman for a place in his room.

Two Sketchbooks For The Price Of One

Posted on July 22, 2015 by Larry Marshall

Since I’ve been in a ‘cheap sketchbook’ rut lately, I thought it only fitting if I were to let it run its course and describe another approach I’ve taken, for when being able to stuff the book in one’s pocket isn’t important.

Sometimes I want to do larger quick-sketches are possible in a 3 x 5 “scribbler.” I could do them in one of my Stillman & Birn books but my quick-sketches are REALLY quick-sketches and typically they’re not very good, so I want REALLY cheap paper upon which to do them. Also, as I’m not doing watercolor I don’t need the paper quality of Stillman & Birn.

You can buy inexpensive 5×8 and 6×9 sketchbooks that have 60lb paper and are fine for such things. I’ve used Strathmore’s “Sketch” books for this purpose. They’ve got paper covers and cost $6-7 here. They’re fine. They work. Lots of people use them. Canson has equivalent offerings.

But one day, while I was padding around the art store touching everything, I saw 8.5 x 11, spiral-bound, hardcover sketchbooks (60lb paper) on sale for $8.

This is Fabriano's version of an 8.5x11 sketchbook. I paid $9.99CDN for it. Sometimes they're on sale.

This is Fabriano’s version of an 8.5×11 sketchbook. I paid $9.99CDN for it. Sometimes they’re on sale.

And I wondered. I wondered enough to buy one. I wondered enough to take it home and go into my ~~dungeon~~, err, workshop. I even wondered if I was nuts for doing it but a few seconds later I’d run that sketchbook through my bandsaw, creating two 5.5 x 9 sketchbooks.

If you don’t own a bandsaw, I bet you know someone who does.

Cutting them does leave bare cardboard edges on one side of each book but that’s easily fixed with a fat Sharpie marker. When bought on sale these cost me $4 each and provide 160 sheets of sketching fun.

One caveat about the cutting. You can cut right through the spiral binding and it will generally work (depends on saw and blade I suppose but even my wood blades worked fine). The potential exists, though, that the spiral will get bent at the point of the cut. It’s really easy, though, to use some wire nippers to cut the spiral in the middle, removing a small section of it before cutting the book. Otherwise, this is one of those no-brainer thingies that one can do to produce nice quick-sketchbooks in a more typical size than the ones I’ve been talking about recently. Here’s some lines I made in such a book while watching Paul Heaston’s class on Craftsy.

Yvan and I use these all the time when we go to music recitals or quick-sketch in places where we’re carrying our art bags and don’t have to worry about being inconspicuous as we sketch. Give it a try.

Alfred Pellan: Quebec Artist

Posted on July 21, 2015 by Larry Marshall

Alfred Pellan is well-known to the Quebec art crowd as a guy who produced surreal imagery, kinda-sorta Picasso-like (I’ll probably be stoned for saying so). Born in Quebec City, he became closely associated with École des Beaux-Arts de Québec. Like many Quebec artists, he also studied at École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris. He died in 1988.

There’s a bust in honor of him in the Jardin de St. Roch and I drew it. I struggle with pencil shading. I’m sure this is in no small part because I do it so rarely but to make matters worse I decided to try to do it with red pencil. My buddy Yvan does it so smoothly so I know it’s not the tool, but the guy I see in the mirror every morning that is at fault.

Nevertheless, here is my attempt. It was drawn on 8 1/2 x 11 Strathmore Bristol (vellum) using a 2mm lead holder and Turquoise red lead. There was also a couple hours involved.

Quick-Sketching On The Bounding Main

Posted on July 20, 2015 by Larry Marshall

Sailing, sailing,
Over the bounding main,
For many a stormy wind shall blow
Before Jack comes home again!

I remember this bit of a song from when I was a kid. I’m not sure why. I’m less sure how. But it bounces between my ears every time I get a chance to get on a boat.

Platinum Carbon pen, Platinum Carbon Black ink

I was out walking and ended up near where the ferry docks on the Quebec side of the St. Lawrence River. I was looking across the river at the new ferry complex on the other side and decided to take a boat ride, but the two ferries had just started swapping places so I’d have to wait a bit. I sat down and got out my Field Notes book and did this quick sketch of the top of the old post office building. More a scribble than a sketch but, after all, it was done in my ‘scribbler’ so that was appropriate.

Sailor Profit fude pen, De Atramentis Document Black ink

I boarded the ferry and wandered around its decks, letting the fresh almost sea breeze blow across my face. I’m lucky to live in a place where I can be “on the bounding main” with nothing more than a swipe of my bus pass over a card reader.

I’d like to talk about taking a three-hour tour like Gilligan but the truth of the matter is that it takes only about 10-minutes to get to the other side. I did get a couple quick-sketches done.

Sailor Profit fude pen, De Atramentis Document Black ink

Once on the other side I wandered around, looking at the on-going construction, trying to figure out what the overall plan was for this new place. I decided that I wasn’t smart enough to understand and took a wait and see attitude. I went inside.

Once you get through the turnstile to get on the ferry heading north, you climb stairs to a large room with a wall of glass. What a great view of the Quebec City skyline there is from there. I’m going to have to go back when I’m in the mood to do larger sketches but on this day, I was in quick-sketch mode. I got out a larger, but cheap sketchbook (6×9) and did a 5-minute pencil scribble of the skyline. It’s not much but it will motivate me to get back there to do something better and provide a good excuse for another boat ride.

A bell went off and like a bunch of cows we were all herded through large doors and onto the ferry. I felt inclined to say ‘moo’, though I don’t think that translates well into French.

I watched a small tugboat chug by as the ferry was pulling away from the quay and once we started crossing I was amused by a couple sailboats trying to change course and/or stop so the ferry could proceed. Once that show was over, I got out my Field Notes book again and did a couple more people sketches, this time using my Platinum Carbon pen. It was a great day to be sailing on the bounding main. What is a bounding main anyways?