Tag Archives: Location Sketching

Sketching On The Island

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I got the chance to hitch a ride with Claudette and Yvan, who were headed to the Ile d’Orleans for a day of sketching.  It happened to be on a “good” day for my leg and hand so I was optimistic.  The day was ideal.  We’re still experiencing high temps and humidities but I’m learning that Quebec City’s “colder than everywhere else” translates into “cooler than everywhere else” when the world is facing heat waves.

We ended up in the town of St. Jean, which is on the northern end of the island and we parked near a large church and strategically positioned to walk across the street for coffee when our session was over.  We headed off in the other direction, though, down onto the intertidal zone near the St. Lawrence.

This rock-encrusted area is gorgeous and affords great views across the river as well as back towards the church and other houses along the river front.  For me it was slow-going as I walked like a drunken sailor over the uneven surfaces, trying not to upset my new overlord – my knee.  It was so nice to be out sketching that I hardly noticed, but people watching must have wondered what was wrong with me.

I decided on a scene and to work in a little 5×7 spiral bound book from Winsor & Newton.  The paper is 100% cotton and the size is really convenient.  I was only half content with the results but since I’m trying lots of different watercolor techniques I’ve never used before, I expect very little from the results.  It was fun, though, to play around with some dry-brushing and wet-n-wet (complete fail on that one).

Then it was time for coffee and we had a great time looking sketchbooks that Claudette had filled while on a recent trip.  When we finished we drove to Miriam’s cottage, though she wasn’t on the island this day.  It was threatening rain so Claudette and I set up inside a large barn and drew outward from it.  I wanted to emphasize the framing of the scene by the barn door but I feel that I let the depth of the scene escape me so I was pretty disappointed with the end result.  The doing, as always, was a lot of fun.  Funny how it works that way sometimes.  I sometimes wonder if I shouldn’t stick with pen and ink and leave the watercolor to others.

 

A Bit Of Quick Sketchcrawling

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People say that getting “out of your comfort zone” is a good idea.  So, I drive twice the speed limit, drink excessively and pick fights with NFL players.  Just kidding…maybe that isn’t what they mean, though in the art world these catch-all phrases are ill-defined and hold little real meaning.

But this week seems to be a week where I’m doing things different from my norm and a couple days ago Yvan suggested that we do a ‘real’ sketchcrawl, where we go to a spot, sketch something quickly and then move on to the next spot, repeating until the day got too hot to continue, or until Larry got completely frustrated (grin).

And that’s exactly what we did.  We hopped a bus and headed to a neighborhood where we’d never sketched and decided that we’d walk until one of us (took turns at that) decided it was time to stop.  There, we would choose a subject and spend only a few minutes capturing the scene.  Easy peasy, right?

For Yvan it was.  He’s a superb sketcher and with decades of experience, he’s also really quick when he needs to be.  Me, not so much.  I’m still vying for the “slowest sketcher on the planet” award and I think I’m still in the lead.

When I start sketching quickly all sorts of things go wrong as I lose control of linear perspective, proportions, and relationships.  These things cause my sketches to be barely recognizable as the scene before me.  But heck, I was out of my comfort zone.  That has to be good, right?  These are three sketches I came up with during our quick-sketchcrawl session.

A Sketching Adventure To Miriam’s Cottage

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One of the nicest people in the world has a cottage and a large tract of land on the south side of Ile d’Orleans, which itself resides in the middle of the Ste Lawrence River.  Her name is Miriam and she invited Yvan and I to sketch with her and we jumped at the chance.

We started the day with tea on the deck, watching for boats going by.  Miriam has decided to draw the large ships as they go by, not a small feat since the view of the river is little more than an opening in the tree canopy and these ships, big as they are in reality, are pretty small when seen from her cottage.  But binoculars and a sketcher’s will surmounts these minor problems.

After tea we hiked up the hill to sketch a small barn sitting at the top of a hill.  It’s a beautiful scene but I confess that I got overwhelmed by the sea of green which, we concluded, was a field of bok choy.  Throw in a forest on the other side of the road and I didn’t know what to do with all that green.  I didn’t really need to tell you that; it is evident in the sketch.  Still, the weather was wonderful and the shade plentiful so I was a happy camper.

Jinhao ‘el cheapo’ pen, R&K SketchInk (Lily), DS watercolors.

As we were walking back to the house we were blessed by a conga line of four young racoons as they made their way up a creek bed.  That was quite fun.  Eventually they entered a culvert under the road and we never saw them again.

Lunch required a return to the deck, more ship watching and a session of “let’s get our palettes out and start making blotches of color  and mixing them together.”  Everyone plays that game… don’t they?  Well we did and had a ball for at least an hour.

When it was time to return to sketching, Yvan and Miriam wanted to draw the large rocks in the forest next to her cottage.  We walked in to the forest and all I could see was green, green, and more green.  This wasn’t reality but my PTSD from the morning’s greenery wouldn’t let me see anything else.  So I started wandering until I found this lonely shovel leaning against the barn wall.  It needed to be sketched.

We gathered for another cup of tea and discussed future plans.  Miriam agreed that if we’d leave, she’d let us return ‘real soon’ so we did.  I can’t wait to get back there.

Sketching A Kid’s Puzzle

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You know those puzzles we had when we were kids?  They were cut from wood and had no more than half a dozen pieces, which matched with our little hands and puzzle-making abilities when were three.  Well, it seems, I drew one.

Not really.  In reality I was standing at the end of St. Denis street in Quebec City, looking up the hill at the depicted scene.  What was different was that I decided to paint it as a bunch of interlocking shapes.  As a basis for this I drew, in pencil, a very light box around the building and then drew boxes where the windows rested.

Then I grabbed a paint brush, a scary instrument in my hands.  You see, I’m trying to figure out a few things with watercolors.  I’m trying to figure out how to mix paints thicker than the pastel-like colors we beginners often use.  Mostly this has resulted in over-kill in my sketches but I’m making progress.  The other thing I’m investigating is whether I can sketch directly with a brush.  This is definitely putting the cart before the horse but it’s become a nothing ventured, nothing gained sort of thing for me.

Anyhow, I became overwhelmed with painting thoughts as I tried to ‘draw’ this with a brush.  I drew each shape, trying to “build the wash” (Holmes-style), avoid any outline effect, and also trying to keep the shape correct.  I was so consumed with those tasks that the thought of actually trying to draw the scene got lost in the shuffle.  After I’d created my kid’s puzzle, I used a pen to draw window frames and such but nothing was going to help this sketch much.  Interesting exercise.  It’s said that we learn from our mistakes.  I must have learned a lot with this one.

A Little Store Called “Ketto”

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The heatwave has driven us into the parks because we can sit in the shade.  But before that happened, I’d drawn a little store on the corner of rue Cremazie and rue Cartier in Quebec City and I’d forgotten about it.  I added some color to it this weekend and thought I’d share it as a change of pace from all the trees I’ve been drawing lately (grin).

Jinhao ‘el cheapo’ pen, R&K SketchInk (Lily) and DS watercolors