Sketchcrawling Through The Garden

Posted on July 14, 2014 by Larry Marshall

Yesterday I reported on our 44th Worldwide Sketchcrawl participation. What I didn’t do was show you my sketches and talk a bit about them as that post became quite large because of all the photos. Here be the follow up post on my sketchcrawl sketches.

The sketchcrawl was supposed to start at 10AM but I ended up getting there around 9:30. As you enter the botanical gardens there is a large water feature amounting to several lily-pad-filled ponds with small water features between them. I located shade, my first prerequisite for sketching on a sunny day, and started sketching next to the second of these ponds. It was a great place to be as I could meet people as they arrived while sketching. It breaks my meditative sketching state to have to get up ever few minutes to say hi but gosh… isn’t that what sketchcrawls are all about? I think so.

Stillman & Birn Delta (6x8), Pilot Prera, Lexington Gray ink

Stillman & Birn Delta (6×8), Pilot Prera, Lexington Gray ink

By the time I’d finished this sketch, I was sitting in the sun as at this time of year the sun swings across its southerly track across our sky fairly quickly. So, I was once again hunting for a shady spot.

I found it on the other side of the entrance, with several sketching options. I decided to draw the main kiosk that faces the entrance. Lots of brightly-colored flowers, a nice shape and the girl who manned (womaned?) the kiosk obliged by wearing a red shirt. I switched weapons for this sketch as I wanted to get some more experience with my Hero pens. I’ve got several of them and I don’t use them enough.

Stillman & Birn Delta (6x8), Hero 578, Platinum Carbon Black

Stillman & Birn Delta (6×8), Hero 578, Platinum Carbon Black

It was lunch time so we all met together to swap sketchbooks and wish we were as good as everyone else. For me, this is the best part of sketchcrawls. I do a lot of solo sketching and it’s really fun to get together with other sketchers, though my French is sufficiently bad that I’m more than a little bit limited in my ability to talk like an adult. Quebecers are quite patient, however.

After lunch I decided I should draw flowers. I don’t know flowers beyond red flowers, purple flowers, orange flowers, etc. I can tell you the names of all their parts, discuss at length the mating ‘habits’ of plants, and all the rest, as in another life I was a research scientist but when it comes to naming flowers… I got nada, or as we say around here, rien.

Stillman & Birn Delta (6×8), Pilot Penmanship XF, Lexington Gray

But flowers are cool. Depending upon how accurate you want to be while drawing them, they can be quite challenging as the more you drill down into their details the more difficult they become to properly depict. I’ve drawn very few, and it shows (grin). Here’s a couple. At least they look like flowers.

Stillman & Birn Delta (6x8), TWSBI Mini, Platinum Carbon Black

Stillman & Birn Delta (6×8), TWSBI Mini, Platinum Carbon Black

Quebec City: 44th Worldwide Sketchcrawl

Posted on July 13, 2014 by Larry Marshall

Twas that time again and to participate in the 44th Worldwide Sketchcrawl we all gathered at the Jardin Botanique Roger-Van Den Ende de l’Université Laval. French names are often more than a mouthful. This is a large garden run by and adjacent to Laval University. The university gave us the run of the place, a very large place with tons of flowers and other things to sketch. We couldn’t have asked for better weather than we got. Sunny, warm but not stifling hot and the garden provided considerable amounts of shade, though not always in the required spot.

It was difficult to count the participants as we spread out across the landscape. Maybe we should have had a “sketcher hunt” the way kids hunt for Easter eggs as you could walk the trails and find sketchers scrunched down over plants, drawing away, or hiding in the shade while trying to draw an arbor. By my count, however, we set a new sketchcrawl record with 27 participants. Everyone seemed to have a good time.

The name of the game was to find some shade, identify something to draw, and then “just do it” as the saying goes. Much sketching was done on this day but we broke for lunch a little after noon and met in a large tent that exists for this purpose. It was fun to see most of the sketchers all in one place and to kibbitz and share sketches. Unfortunately, I took photos of this before everyone arrived but by the time they did I was embroiled in conversation and sketchbook swapping.

Here is evidence of sketching being committed and the perpetrators (click on a photo to see a larger view):

And here is a small sampling of the sketches that were done this Saturday:

This post is getting long enough that I think I’ll wait until tomorrow to post the sketches I did when I wasn’t taking photos of sketchers (grin). By the end of the day I think we’d all learned and/or remembered a few important things. These are:

1) Sketching is fun.

2) Sketching with other people is funner.

3) The shade moves quickly in Quebec City this time of year.

4) Anticipation – we’re all looking forward to the next sketchcrawl.

Catching Up On My Walking

Posted on July 12, 2014 by Larry Marshall

Having lost a couple days to rain, I was running a walking deficit for the week. I walk a lot and do so as my old man way of keeping my body from taking on the shape of an eggplant. That translates to walking a couple hours every day. With two days lost and the worldwide sketchcrawl coming up on Saturday, I’ve been living on the streets, hoofing everywhere and anywhere, trying to put in the miles.

Stillman & Birn Alpha (9x6), Pilot Prera, Lex Gray

Stillman & Birn Alpha (9×6), Pilot Prera, Lex Gray

This has gotten in the way of my sketching time. I just didn’t feel I could stop to sketch if I was going to get caught up. But I did stop to do this quick sketch. It’s one of the many gables on our train station.

I can skip a day or two without sketching, but when I do I start to feel like something is missing. My solution this time was to sit in the backyard and draw some flowers.

I rarely draw flowers but every time I do I think that I should do it more often. The shapes are endless.

I started this sketch with a rudimentary pencil sketch but most of the shapes were formed directly with watercolors, something I’ve only done once before and, back then, things didn’t go so well. Once done, I added some ink using a refillable Sharpie pen. I did this in a Stillman & Birn Delta series sketchbook. This is my first “ivory” sketchbook. It was fun and provided me with some much needed sketching/meditation time.

Stillman & Birn Delta (6×8)

Sketching On The Montmorency River

Posted on July 6, 2014 by Larry Marshall

One of the tourist spectacles around Quebec City is Montmorency Falls. The falls themselves are nice but the tourist areas around it are equally nice so it’s fun to go sketching there. To make it even better, I can hop a bus that will take me there, which is what I did this morning.

Yvan and I met very early and headed for the Montmorency Falls area. The falls weren’t our target though. Our quary was rocks. I’m tempted to make a quary/quarry joke here but I won’t.

Suffice it to say that when we got to the falls we crossed the bridge above them and headed north, up the river. It was much cooler than I’d expected and my shorts and t-shirt left me shaking in my boots, almost literally. Yvan was smarter, wore long pants and even brought a windbreaker. Even so, he said he was cold. I was colder. I win…errr…lose.

Stillman & Birn Delta (6x8), Pilot Prera, Lex Gray

Stillman & Birn Delta (6×8), Pilot Prera, Lex Gray

But we’re tough sketchers and had fun anyways. I got to break in a new Stillman & Birn sketchbook. This one is a 6×8 spiral-bound Delta series book. It’s the first time I’ve used their ivory paper but I thought I should try it. I think I like the ivory color. It’s probably better for some things than for others but this morning’s subjects seemed to like it just fine. The paper itself goes without saying as it’s one of the best watercolor sketchbook papers in existence. For those who may wonder, the Delta is the equivalent of S&B’s Beta series which is very popular with the watercolor crowd.

Stillman & Birn Delta (6×8), Pilot Prera, Lex Gray

We’re Having A Heat Wave

Posted on July 3, 2014 by Larry Marshall

We’re having a heat wave. In French it’s called a canicule. Regardless of what language you use, it means hot and humid and we’ve certainly got that. I blame myself. I spent so much time whining that I couldn’t go sketching because winter wouldn’t end that, it seems, someone from down south sent us a dose of hot.

Stillman & Birn Alpha, Pilot Prera, Lex Gray ink

In spite of the heat, though, this sketcher marches onward. I was to meet sketching buddy Claudette at Place d’Youville, a busy area just outside the St. Jean Gate into the old city. While I waited for her I did this sketch of the entrance toan Italian restaurant.

When Claudette arrived we headed into the old city to find something to sketch. Our goals were a bit atypical because what to sketch took a back seat to finding a shady, cool place to sit. It wasn’t easy.

Eventually, though, we found ourselves in Carmel Park, a tiny little park (you can easily throw a stone across it) that’s up on a hill within the walled city. Trees gave us shade and our altitude gave us access to a nice breeze that kept us comfortable. Claudette sketched church steeples while I fixated on the back porch of an apartment building that was probably 30-40 feet below me. Mostly I got caught up in the gorgeous flowers, flowers I didn’t do justice to I’m afraid. Nevertheless, we had fun and stayed cool.

Stillman & Birn Alpha (9×6), Pilot Prera, Lex Gray