Next to my winter sketching grounds, the Musée de la Civilisation, is one of the finest hotels in Quebec City. I doubt I could afford to rent a broom closet for the night. But one very cold day, when we’d arrived at the museum too early and were standing around, waiting for it to open, Claudette suggested we visit the Hotel St-Antoine, a ploy to get inside some place…any place.
Once we were there, however, we saw great potential as a sketching opportunity. Not only is the hotel gorgeous, throughout its corridors and lobby area are shadow boxes built into the wall that are filled with artifacts from the 1600-1800s, mostly dug up from what is now called Place Royal, where the hotel is situated. We vowed to return.
And we did and found the staff very accommodating. They gave us permission to sketch and I concentrated on an area near the entrance, which is something of a posh sitting/lunch/reading room. We had so much fun there. It was also fun that the staff were telling their buddies about our activities and one after the other they came by to see our sketches. It was great fun and their kind comments good for our egos (grin). They even offered us a cup of coffee.
Here are two sketches done in that lobby area. Both were done in a Stillman & Birn Alpha (10×7) using a Pilot Prera and diluted Lexington Gray. I’ll be returning to sketch some of the items in their shadowboxes ‘real soon.’
