A Visit to Bugel – The Bagel Maker

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In my continuing quest to eat my way through Quebec City, sketching as I go, Claudette and I visited Bugel – Fabrique de Bagels, a small place that makes some of the best best bagels I’ve ever tasted.  Situated at 164 rue Cremazie, it is hidden from the main traffic corridors but the locals know it well.  Besides, there are a great used bookstore across the street that has a lot of art books I can’t afford, but looking is free.

It was a nice way to spend the morning, though we had to cut it a bit shorter than our normal sessions as had things to do before Christmas eve.  Claudette managed to sketch a bunch of the patrons, many of whom were running in to pick up orders and each time someone came through the door, we’d get a blast of Quebec air, which kept us quite alert.  This is the time of year where I conclude that I will be permanently ‘cold’ until sometime in June.

Here’s my sketch.  The funny thing on the side is the stained glass address that rests above the door.  You might be able to make out the 164 (backwards) but it was really a failed attempt on my part.  Too much of an afterthrought.  Hope you all had a Merry Christmas.

Stillman & Birn Alpha (4x6), Pilot Prera, Kuretake brush pen

Stillman & Birn Alpha (4×6), Pilot Prera, Kuretake brush pen

 

A Merry “Sketcher” Christmas To All

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I thought about sketching the proverbial Santa Claus for this post but geez…that red suit and white beard are everywhere.  The world doesn’t need another.  But you can hardly imagine a case where there would be too many fire hydrant sketches in the world and this acts as a great stand-in for Mr. Claus, don’t you think?

2013-12-22Xmas

Merry Christmas Everyone!

 

dd

Sketching At Paillard In Quebec City

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2013-10-10Gallerie_colorThe first restaurant I sketched was the new Paillard in one of the Quebec City Malls.  You can read about it in a post about the brown-paper sketchbook, if you like.  This one has few walls and I sketched it while standing outside the restaurant.

But there’s another Paillard that is more famous, if restaurant fame is measured by being part of tourist’s agenda items when they visit Quebec City.  logo-paillardThis one, the original Paillard, is in downtown Quebec City, the “old” city, on rue St. Jean.  This is not a really old cafe where poetry was read and music played in the 60s like Chez Temporel.  In fact, when I came to Quebec City long ago to do a post-doctoral fellowship, the location of Paillard was a grocery store ‘down the street’ from my apartment and I shopped there regularly.

But in the intervening years I moved away and Paillard took the place of the grocery store. It has become a ‘hot spot’ for tourists.  It’s a large, brightly-lit and roomy melange of a bakery and a café.  Their pastries are wonderful but the real star is their frothy coffee drinks, including one of my favorites, the bol de café au lait.  I’m mostly ignorant of differences between latte, cappuccino, and the other frothy drinks are but in the case of café au lait  I think it’s heaven.  While I normally drink my coffee black, I’ll break with tradition for a bol de café au lait.  It’s strong coffee with lots of frothy milk added to it and I add a bit of brown sugar to the mix.  But it’s the bol part of the equation that’s important…it comes in a soup bowl so you get a lot of it.

I’m rambling.  Sorry.  Claudette and I went to sketch Paillard the other day and we had a great time.  I got my bol de café au lait and a muffin.  She was less of a cochon (pig) and got a regular café au lait.  We were there early and pretty much had the place to ourselves.  There were a couple people sitting behind me and Claudette started sketching them.  With no people in my sight line I drew food and chairs and tables.  Ultimately I did quickly sketch a woman who was ordering something, maybe her own bol de café au lait .  Here is my tribute to Paillard.

Stillman & Birn Alpha (4x6), TWSBI MIni, Platinum Carbon Black

Stillman & Birn Alpha (4×6), TWSBI MIni, Platinum Carbon Black

A Little Bit Of Paris

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If you’ve been following this blog you know that I’m spending some of my winter sketching time at our museum and its Paris 1900 exhibit.  This week I decided, without giving it sufficient thought, that I should sketch a huge black and white photo that’s projected on a wall.  It must be 12-14 feet tall and shows an indoor shopping area that, I understand, still exists today.

So I opened my Stillman & Birn 6×9 Zeta sketchbook, grabbed my TWSBI Mini, and started drawing.  Somewhere in the early stages I realized that I’d either chosen too large a subject, a sketchbook that was too small, or the TWSBI nib wasn’t fine enough.  Maybe the problem was a combination of all three of these things with a dash of my penchant for drawing everything.  Leaving stuff out is hard for me.  Whatever the reasons, the result was like the proverbial 10-pounds of potatoes in a 5-pound bag.

But I persevered because the process itself was fun – it’s always fun.  Lots of stuff to organize, proportion, and to draw.  I’m not sure what the woman in the middle was doing or carrying but you can see that several men were looking at her.  While the photo was a bit vague in its over-sized presentation, there was a large ‘something’ flowing out from her hands.  Maybe it was a shawl, a scarf or maybe a smoke bomb (grin).  It was impossible to say.  But I thought a bit of color would help center their gaze, and maybe yours.

Stillman & Birn Zeta (6x9), TWSBI Mini, Platinum Carbon Black

Stillman & Birn Zeta (6×9), TWSBI Mini, Platinum Carbon Black

 

Sketching The Past – Episode 3

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I have a soft spot in my heart for trolleys.  Most often they were red, with bells that clanged to warn people of their arrival.  What’s not to like.  Unfortunately, by the time I was deposited on this Earth, they were disappearing from the landscape and I never got to see any of them in their native environment.  Maybe I should have gotten to San Francisco.

There used to be a lot of trolleys in Quebec City but the only evidence of them these days are long, low viaduct streets that allowed them climb the steep hill upon which sits “vieux Quebec”, the tourist money-maker and my favorite place.

So, this episode of Sketch the Past is a Quebec City trolley as it ran down rue St. Joseph back in 1947.  Hope you like it.

Stillman & Birn Alpha (9x6), TWSBI MIni, Platinum Carbon Black

Stillman & Birn Alpha (9×6), TWSBI MIni, Platinum Carbon Black