Speed Drawing With Colored Pencil

Posted on March 17, 2015 by Larry Marshall

Last Sunday I headed out to our museum. We were in the midst of a blizzard and the snow was going sideways. On a couple occasions wind gusts caused me to go sideways as well. But I was walking through this mess because I’d told some friends I would meet them. Later I found out that the only reason they didn’t cancel was because they’d promised me. We humans are funny that way.

Previously I’ve expressed my boredom with drawing the heads of Olympus but there I was again, faced with numerous white, and now very familiar heads. I decided to try something new. I’d bought a Pentel 8-color mechanical pencil and decided to give it a try, using it while seeing how quickly I could grab a likeness of the heads.

It was a good plan with a couple flaws. First, I have little ability to do this but on a more pragmatic level, my sketchbook has too much tooth for soft pencil and the points wear down very quickly and second, I couldn’t find my sharpener. So a new experiment arose. Could I draw with a dull pointy device. The results are these 3″ heads drawn on Stillman & Birn Alpha paper.

Better drawings of marble heads have been drawn but I found this exercise fun and very helpful. It was fun to work quickly and doing so with these subjects forced me to identify the big features, ignore the details, and to emphasize the dark/light relationships. The dull point furthered that goal as it was impossible to get lost in detail when the drawing was 2″ square and the lead was rounded over 2mm colored pencil. I will be repeating this experiment but hopefully on something other than Olympic gods.

Bobbing Around In The Sketching Doldrums

Posted on March 15, 2015 by Larry Marshall

When I was a kid I was infatuated by the notion of pirate ships, the HMS Bounty and other sailing ships portrayed in movies getting caught in ‘the doldrums’, the area along the equator where prevailing winds are often very low. Without wind power, these ships and their crews could flounder for days, waiting for some weather disruption that would give them enough wind to take them out of the area.

These days we talk about being ‘in the doldrums’ more figuratively but, for me and my sketching right now, my doldrums make me think of those movie scenes where the guys on the ship mournfully looked out at a dead calm sea, waiting for something to happen.

I know that spring is going to come ‘real soon’ and that while truly warm temperatures are still a couple months away, there will be some ‘tolerable’ days when I can get out on the streets and sketch. But as I’ve become completely bored doing pencil renderings of white heads of Olympic gods, I’m bobbing up and down in my imaginary sketching ocean, anticipating the upcoming exodus from my house and onto the streets.

So I’ve been filling little sketchbooks with doodles, quick gestures of people on the streets and an occasional coffee house session. They’re fun, they’re probably improving my hand-eye coordination, but they’re not much to look at so I won’t bore you with them.

But it’s been a while since I’ve posted so I’ll show you a sketch I did when I just HAD to go somewhere and sketch. I was at the museum and decided to try something different. If the subjects won’t change, change your approach to them, says me. And so, rather than spending time blocking in proper proportions, I set a time limit of around half an hour, and started scribbling with my Pilot Falcon in my Stillman & Birn Alpha (10×7) sketchbook. Direct with ink, pedal to the metal. Would it look anything like Zeus’ head? It actually took me a few minutes beyond my half-hour limit because I grabbed a waterbrush I had that’s filled with very dilute Lex Gray ink and, shazaam…a mediocre depiction of the head of Zeus, a head that’s had its nose broken off giving is a rather odd look.

Can we just have a bit of spring? Pretty please. With sugar on top? I’ll be good. Honest. The doldrums aren’t as much fun as I imagined when I was a kid.

Sketching at Le Renard Et La Chouette

Posted on March 7, 2015 by Larry Marshall

There’s a small, fun coffee/wine restaurant, Le Renard et La Chouette (the fox and the owl), on rue St. Vallier in Quebec City and I was there sketching on Thursday. I was immediately attracted to a set of water bottles and glasses sitting on a very thick countertop and decided to draw it. I was using my cheap tan paper sketchbook, which is not very happy to receive watercolors so I refrained from adding much color to these sketches.

tan paper sketchbook, Sailor calligraphy pen, De Atramentis Document Black

I drank my now cold coffee and looked around for my next target. I found it in a girl that was sort of twisted around so she could look at what her friend was showing her on her laptop.

Sailor calligraphy pen, De Atramentis Document Black.

I was nearly ready to leave but decided to do this really quick sketch of this watering can that was used to hold utensils. Only spent five minutes on this one, and it shows (grin).

It was a fun sketching session but I really need to figure out how to drink my coffee while it’s warm.

When Sketchers Go For A Walk

Posted on March 6, 2015 by Larry Marshall

We sketchers talk a lot about how sketching causes us to see and experience the world differently and we imply strongly that we do this better than non-sketchers. Here’s an example from my Tuesday:

I met three friends, one of whom had just returned from an extended vacation. Disappointed by a problem at the ferry we went and had coffee together. Then we went to McDonalds for a burger. It was a good day.

Exciting, right? Makes you wish you were there I bet. Maybe not. Maybe you’re saying “Geez Larry, get a life.” But what if I include the sketching aspect:

I met up with three friends at the ferry on Tuesday morning. We were all excited as one of us had just returned from an extended vacation and the anticipation of seeing her drove me to the ferry dock. We had to take the ferry to meet our friend on the other side but the plan was to go back and forth on the ferry, sketching both sides of the St. Lawrence from the warm confines of the boat. Only the rules had changed and stopped our plans in their tracks. So, when we met up with our friend on the other side, we decided to head to a cafe instead. All I managed to sketch from the ferry were some tiny few-second sketches in a Baron Fig (3×5) sketchbook.

Cheap tan paper & Namiki Falcon

We went to a cafe/restaurant called Paillard. We got coffee and started chatting up a storm as we broke out our sketchbooks and pen. Then the group went silent and our coffee cooled. It’s true that sketchers regularly ignore their friends when they get together, but we do it in unison so it’s ok. It was fun drawing something and then sneaking looks at everyone’s sketchbooks to see what everyone else was drawing. We had a great time.

I’m trying to finish up a cheap, tan paper sketchbook, which is perfect for this type of quick-sketching. The red people were done with a Pentel 8-color multi-pencil. The tooth of this paper was too much for colored pencil, however, so I struggled with it going dull on me the second I put it to paper.

same tan paper & Pentel Multi-pencil

Between the chatting, coffee drinking and sketching, I guess we spent 1 to 1 1/2 hours at the café and then decided that we were a bit hungry and that maybe we could get seats looking out from the second story windows at McDonalds, which was just down the street.

Have you noticed that when sketchers draw for a while the number of pens, pencils, paints, and other stuff accumulates all over the tables? And when the group decides to move, there’s a lot of activity as all that stuff gets put away. Only then could we start the Quebec City ritual of donning the three layers of clothing, hats and gloves that allow us to go outside. All that to move a hundred yards down the street.

As it turned out, we did get lucky and did get those seats at McDonalds. To be honest, I was more interested in the burger and fries than I was sketching. While there Yvan gave me a great lesson in using line width variation. I hope that this, and a bunch of practice will help me improve.

When the eating was done, though, I decided to see how much of the street scene I could draw in a few minutes. No planning, no angle measurement, no nothing. Just a Zebra 301 ballpoint pen scribbling as fast as I could move it. The result is certainly not as precise as my typical, molasses-paced drawing style but it was a lot of fun and was a great end to a great day.

See…it’s true that we sketchers do it better. Don’t you wish you’d been there?

Quick-sketch (about 10 minutes) in a Baron Fig (3x5) notebook with a Zebra 301 ballpoint.

Quick-sketch (about 10 minutes) in a Baron Fig (3×5) notebook with a Zebra 301 ballpoint.

The Surrey With The Fringe On Top

Posted on March 3, 2015 by Larry Marshall

In my last blog post I talked about how dark it is in the museum exhibit room where the new carriage exhibit is displayed. I bit the bullet and decided to try to draw one of them. I took a sketchbook light with me and I needed it. In fact, if I’d had three of them, I would have used them all. It was so dark where I was sitting that I couldn’t see what pens I was pulling from my bag without shining the light onto the bag.

Here’s the sketch I generated before I just gave up. I was sitting no more than 8-10 feet behind the rear wheel and yet I could not see the front of the carriage and had to walk up beside it to figure out what needed to be drawn. You know how they tell you to spend 80% of your time looking at the subject and 20% at your paper so you can get the proportions correct? Well, I’m sure I did that but I don’t think the advice assumes you have to walk around the room to see the subject. What I’m certain of is that this sketch is wonky from all the movement. In the light or in the dark, those big, thin, spoked wheels made me go cross-eyed.

And so, as I write this, I rely on the axiom, “Any day that includes sketching is better than a day without it.” But I think our museum is taking photon austerity just a bit too far.

Stillman & Birn Alpha, Sailor calligraphy pen , De Atramentis Document Black