Sometimes Sketching Isn’t About The Sketching

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My daughter is home from school for a week and I got a late start as I headed to the museum to do some sketching.  By the time I got there it was nearly 11AM and I found that three of my friends had been there since opening time.  Two of them I hadn’t seen in quite a while so we spent some time ‘catching up.’  Ultimately we decided to meet in the cafeteria for some of their divine cremed turnip soup.  And so it was when I headed off to find something to draw.

Then I realized that soup time was only 25 minutes away.  Hmmm…  Rather than starting a long pencil drawing of one of the statues I decided to whip out the Namiki Falcon and use it to do a simple sketch of one of the glass cabinets and their contents.  These things are two huge sheets of glass set parallel to one another with a table inside.  The area above the table is encased in a big glass box.  Easy peasy, says I.  By the end my eyes had crossed trying to follow transparent sheets of glass inside of sheets of glass.  It was fun though.  The soup and company were better.  Sometimes sketching isn’t about the sketching.

Stillman & BIrn Alpha (10x7), Namiki Falcon, De Atramentis Document Black, Pentel brush pen with Platinum Carbon ink

Stillman & BIrn Alpha (10×7), Namiki Falcon, De Atramentis Document Black, Pentel brush pen with Platinum Carbon ink

Hibernation’s Hidden Costs

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It’s currently -13F outside.  This, they say, is a ‘warming trend’ and in reality it is warmer than it was just a few days ago.  But from the perspective of a street sketcher, it matters little whether it’s -13 or -30 outside, I stay inside.

Mid-winter depression is a real phenomenon in places like Quebec, where I live, but for me, it’s more like cabin fever.  I spend too much time looking out the windows, wishing for a place to sketch.  In previous years our Museum of Civilisation has been that place and the displays there have kept me busy throughout our long winters.

But this year, half of the museum is closed due to a fire that occurred just as winter was starting and what’s left are displays of early animation where you can watch endless series of cartoons and the Olympus exhibit which is filled with lots and lots and lots of plaster statues of Zeus, Aphrodite and their kin.
Sketching them was fun at the outset but I truly am a street sketcher that likes drawing buildings.  Yet another plaster head is just not cutting it anymore and so my sketching is floundering somewhat these days.  I doodle a lot but it’s just not the same.  So, I decided to draw a window.  It was just one lowly window, drawn in a 3×5 sketchbook, but it sure felt good (grin).

2015-02-06window

Moleskine watercolor notebook, Namiki Falcon, De Atramentis Document Black ink

 

Back To The Winter Sketching Sanctuary

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I was back at the museum, trying to stay warm and looking for something to sketch.  I decided that I should try to sketch a plaster statue of a headless goddess, or more precisely, her heavily pleated dress.

For me, pencil sketching requires a smooth paper, like a Bristol paper, or maybe Stillman & Birn Epsilon series paper.  But what I had with me was my ‘standard’ Stillman & Birn Alpha series sketchbook (10×7).  I almost decided to switch to pen but I started blocking in the drawing with pencil and just kept going.  This sketch was done with a 0.7mm mechanical pencil.  I think it was HB.  Regardless, it was fun and relaxing.

2015-02-08Headless

RSS Maintenance Issue

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I made a shift in my RSS feed and may have left some of you behind.  The new feed address is: http://feeds.feedburner.com/LarryDMarshall

Please update your Feedly or whatever tool you use to aggregate RSS feeds.

Sorry for the inconvenience — Larry D. Marshall

My Sketching Brakes Are Ineffective

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Recently I’ve been on a quick-sketching binge.  Everything I look at got scribbled onto paper in a minute or two.  That’s a lot of fun and, I feel, it helps me “see” shapes and their relationships more quickly.  But it’s sort of like eating a steady diet of Twinkies.  You might even like Twinkies but at some point you’re going to want an apple.  I needed an apple.

I stopped to pick up a pound of coffee at a local coffee roastery.  I decided to sit and draw so I also bought a coffee as an excuse to inhabit one of their chairs.  I sat on a high chair near a window and two guys sat down near me, below my eye level, and I saw an opportunity to ‘know’ that my subject would be there for a while.  I started sketching with the idea that I would have ample opportunity to truly capture their essence.

Have you ever gotten off the freeway and had a hard time driving as slowly at the side street speed limits require?  That’s how I felt.  I started blocking out the sketch with some well-placed dots and then found myself scribbling details.  I tried to slow down but my quick-sketching brain just wouldn’t let go.  This was a constant struggle throughout the process.  The result was a sketch that wasn’t quite a quick-sketch but not what I was really trying to accomplish.  I think I have to get my sketching brakes checked.  Oh…and how do you draw shaved heads?

Stillman & Birn Alpha (10x7), Pilot Falcon, DeAtramentis Document Black, Pentel brush pen

Stillman & Birn Alpha (10×7), Pilot Falcon, DeAtramentis Document Black, Pentel brush pen