Frustrated January Sketcher And Other Stuff

Posted on January 17, 2015 by Larry Marshall

I apologize for not posting much since Christmas. I’m full of excuses if that will help. You see, while most folks get to return to normal after January 1st, my holiday season is in full swing. My daughter was home for the holidays. Both Chantal and Jodie have birthdays in the first half of January and we just returned from Ottawa. Oh…and it’s VERY cold, so for a street sketcher it’s a tough time of year.

I looked at my total sketching experiences from my Ottawa trip and two things happened. First, I sighed and did a mental ‘woe is me.’ Then it occurred to me that it might be worth mentioning a couple things about the result, so here it is.

Clearly this isn’t a post about my great art. Rather, I want to talk about some philosophical and pragmatic things that these two pages represent. You see, this is a brand-spanking new Moleskine sketchbook. Now I’m not a fan of these sketchbooks for ‘real’ drawing but I had the opportunity to get one cheap and so it’s going to serve as my daily ‘quick-sketchbook.’ I carry one of these with me at all times and not stuffed away in my man-bag (which holds my regular art stuff) but rather in my pocket, with some sort of quick-sketching pointy device tucked away with it. It can be brought out in seconds and is often returned a couple minutes later with a new sketch between its covers. I started doing this about two years ago when my buddy Yvan Breton convinced me of the power of such an approach.

Two things occurred when I started carrying such a sketchbook. The first, and most important was that I started doing a LOT more sketching. In the past couple years I’ve filled about 20 of these little 3×5 or 4×6 sketchbooks in addition to my regular sketchbooks. Most of the pages are filled with quick sketches, though sometimes I’ll do something more complete. No matter how you slice it, that means a lot more sketching fun and sketching practice and I can do it when no other kind of sketching is possible. The other thing that has happened is that my ability to see shapes quickly has improved immensely and it allows me to be more loose with my line work than is my typical style.

The sketch on the right is typical. I was sitting in a restaurant with my family and we were waiting for our food to arrive. This woman was standing at a bus stop across the street. I took out my sketchbook and pen, a Uniball Vision, and quickly sketched her. I doubt that it took two minutes, which included having to wait for a large truck that blocked my view as it waited for a light. Then the book went back in my pocket and I was ‘back’ with my family.

The left page is also interesting as it shows my lack of respect for the space so many treat as hallowed ground – the pages of a sketchbook. When you worry about whether every page is worthy of posting on Facebook, you will lose many opportunities. My small sketchbook is a place where ‘who cares’ rules.

In this case I’d started a sketch while leaning against the wall of my daughter’s apartment. I was looking out the back window and had started drawing a nearby building. I was using a Zebra 301A ballpoint. It was announced by my boss…err..wife, that it was time to go so the book went into my pocket. We were headed for Ikea.

We hadn’t been in an Ikea in a decade and acted like farmers in a big city for the first time. We ate meatballs and wanted to buy everything in sight. Realizing that we had to write numbers of stuff we might want to buy, I pulled out my Moleskine Sketchbook and started writing. Would you do that with your sketchbook? It’s to your advantage to be willing to do so as otherwise you won’t start a lot of sketches because you won’t feel you have time to ‘finish’ or ‘do the sketch justice.’ We did buy that kitchen island, by the way, and hauled it back to Quebec.

Now, do you need a Moleskine sketchbook for this? Heck no, and in fact I’d advise against it. The paper is ok for pen or pencil but it stinks for watercolor isn’t necessary for pen, and they’re ridiculously expensive. Most of my small sketchbooks are 3×5 or 4×6 sketchbooks that I’ve bought at our dollar store, though they typically cost me $2.

Colder Than Mars, They Said

Posted on January 10, 2015 by Larry Marshall

Have you noticed that the news exaggerates everything? They no longer report. Rather, they compete with Downton Abbey and football games for viewers and will do everything and anything to make their program entertaining. I expect that soon, Captain America or Thor will replace Wolf Blitzer as anchor of CNN.

It’s really sad. The week we were told about how Canada was “colder than Mars” a couple days ago. While it’s true that, for a period of a few hours, a part of Canada was colder than where NASA’s robot was on Mars, but Canada didn’t get to -200C when the sun went down like it does on Mars.

Heck, we only got down to -40C and it had warmed all the way up to -36C by the time I got the bright idea to walk to the museum to meet my buddies for a sketching session. For those who are Fahrenheit-challenged, -40C is -40F. Warmer than Mars on a summer’s eve for sure, but still sort of cold by freeze your skin standards.

So off I went, the intrepid sketcher, walking as fast as I could on a 40-minute walk to the museum. A smarter sketcher would have just hopped on a bus but no, I “needed the exercise.”

By the time I got there I realized that I’d been crazy. I could no longer feel my fingers in spite of the heavy gloves I was wearing. My face was on fire and the I was starting to think in terms of how much further I could walk before I’d fall over.

But I finally arrived…warmth. Next problem was how to sketch when I couldn’t feel the pen. I walked around for about 15 minutes before deciding to do a looser sketch than my typical approach, maybe as a result of Liz Steel’s course. I sat down in front of the largest head in the Olympus display. It’s at least two-feet tall and very impressive – more impressive than this sketch suggests. My fountain pens were really cold so I used a Uniball Vision Fine hybrid gel pen, adding a hint of color with Faber-Castell watercolor pencils. Of course, it was drawn in a Stillman & Birn Alpha series sketchbook (10×7).

We took a break, had some tea, and then did a bit more sketching before calling it a day. I took the bus home, a nice, warm bus.

Book Review: Sketch by France Belleville Van-Stone

Posted on January 8, 2015 by Larry Marshall

Sketch – France Belleville-Van Stone

I got into sketching at the right time as we’re clearly living in a golden age for those of us who like wandering around sketching our towns. The popularity of journal sketching has exploded as more and more people realize that the classic ‘you aren’t talented enough for art’ stuff is a myth and the number of artists willing to help those of us trying to learn is extraordinary. How did people learn anything before the internet?

What’s lagged behind is the art world. Frankly, most still don’t get it. They still believe that a sketch is something you do in preparation for a formal painting. While architects, illustrators and animation types fill sketchbook after sketchbook, fine artists don’t even own one. Even that is changing. With any luck at all, the local art supply stores will catch on as well but for now, I find that for most of my gear I have to go online. The choices of materials, however, are growing daily.

With all these things going on, it’s hard to imagine better evidence for a sketcher revolution but there is one. It comes in the form of a steady stream of books on sketching that are hitting the market like fresh corn in September. When I started sketching, the single “urban sketcher” book was Gabi Campanario’s Art of Urban Sketching. But in the past couple years I’ve bought at least a dozen books on quick-sketching and urban sketching and there are more on the way.

And so, when France Belleville-Van Stone’s book Sketch was released I very nearly passed on it, assuming it was another ‘here’s how to sketch’ book. I’ve followed her blog for a long time and enjoy her sketches a lot, and so in a moment of weakness I pressed the button on Amazon.

The book’s arrival made it clear that I would have made a big mistake by not buying her book. The reason is hidden, not so subtly, in the subheading of the book – Sketch: The Non-artist’s Guide to Inspiration, Technique, and Drawing Daily Life. This book is about how to think like a sketcher and she provides inspiration and ideas for how to approach sketching that are often sidestepped by those more concerned with telling you what paper and pen to use. Couple this with the high quality of the writing and you can’t help but enjoy it. While France’s sketches are fantastic, this is one art book where the words are an important part of the package.

France begins by addressing the nonsensical use of the word ‘talent’ by those who suggest they don’t have any. I won’t try to recap this section except to say that both prose and insights are fantastic and put a smile on my face.

This introduction leads to chapters on materials and techniques and I love both for what is not there. There’s no attempt to cover all the possibilities and, in fact, France says she isn’t doing that and that she’s talking only about the materials she uses. Similarly, while France is a seasoned artist, she opens here techniques section with “There is a bit of irony in me attempting to write a chapter on techniques, knowing my last drawing lesson dates back to elementary school….” In truth, France provides plenty of techniques in this book but not in the traditional form. There are no sections on perspective, color theory, or the rest of the stuff you can find in any intro book on drawing. The single exception is that she does spend some time on approaches to hatching and since that’s such an important facet of her own sketching style, this makes perfect sense.

What France gains by not filling the book with stuff you can find in any drawing book is a lot of space to talk about strategies and tactics of a sketcher. How do you deal with drawing environments that restrict the time you have to draw? How do you redefine “complete” when it comes to your sketches? How might different definitions affect your approach to different subjects?

She talks about completely relinquishing the need to complete anything at all? Here she discusses one of my favorite dichotomies – being motivated by the process of art rather than products of it. She eloquently discusses how liberating it is to shift away from emphasis on the products, placing all of it, instead, on the fun that comes while you’re doing art. Ever drawn something and left it on a table at a restaurant? I have and as France describes such a though is very liberating.

The book contains a chapter on digital art, an approach that for me, misses the whole point of drawing, but then I’m a guy who likes, more than anything, the feel of a pen moving over paper. But a good case is made for using tablets as drawing devices, though France admits that this isn’t a replacement for what are now called “traditional approaches.”

A big surprise to me were the last forty pages of the book. Titled simple “Prompts”, I assumed this was yet another attempt to feed a list of ‘motivators’ or whatever they’re called to people who can’t see the multitude of things to draw that exist in everyone’s daily life. Yawn…

But I was wrong…or right…no wrong. It is a list that walks you through the alphabet, providing subject matter for each letter so in that sense I was right. In the case of A, for instance, France uses Animals and Airports and talks about the value of sketching animals and the rich environment that is an airport. But for other letters (eg -E) she’ll talk about the potency of doing Excerpts, discussing how sketching pieces of things is fun. In each case she provides great examples from her own work and I thoroughly enjoyed this section, and now more ideas and more varied perspectives on how to choose my subjects.

In the end, this is a wonderful book for anyone interested in sketching what’s in front of them and/or simply likes France’s art as much as I do. Sketch: The non-artist’s guide to inspiration, technique, and drawing daily life is brilliantly written, making it more fun to read than many art books.

Pen Review: Zebra 301A

Posted on January 1, 2015 by Larry Marshall

This is the time of year where bloggers feel obligated to talk about New Year’s resolutions, emulate David Letterman’s Top 10 lists, and maybe reflect on 2014 in some other way. I don’t make New Year’s Resolutions because Jan 1 is just a day between Dec 31 and Jan 2 for me, but I’ll probably do a bit of reflecting in the next couple days just so I can be one of the cool kids. But to quote Aragorn (Lord of the Rings), “It is not this day.”

Today I want to confess to being a complete sloth for the past few days. Not only did I not do much, I believe I even started to move slowly. In reflection the only things I recall doing was watching TV and eating…and eating…and eating. But I did my annual obligatory penance and watched Miracle on 34th St, Elf and the Polar Express, though I confess to falling asleep during the Polar Express. The upside is that I won’t have to endure them for another 360 days or so.

Zebra 301A ballpoint pen

And, sadly, I didn’t do much on the sketching front. This is not to say that I didn’t have a pen in my hand; I did. It was a Zebra 301A, a pen I’ve been trying out as a potential quick-sketching tool that I can shove in a coat pocket. In my opinion, this pen is special for a few reasons. They are:

1) It’s cheap!!! I bought them in a 2-pack for $2.50 at the local dollar store. You can buy a fancy version of it (Zebra 701) which is shiny silver and a bit heavier (about $8) but the 301 comes in silver, gray or blue anodized aluminum and I really prefer the feel of it in my hand.

2) It lays down a very fine line, finer than most fine ballpoint pens.

3) The ‘black’ is a dark grey, similar to Noodler’s Lexington Gray.

4) It’s a click pen so you can hide the tip and there’s no cap to lose.

5) Replacement cartridges are available from Jet Pens for a whopping $1 each. Good for environment and wallet alike.

6) As it’s a ballpoint, the ink is oil-based and thus waterproof. You can wash over it to your heart’s content.

7) I suppose it’s due to the fine nature of the cartridge but this pen NEVER blobs, a problem that exists with most ballpoints.

8) Did I mention that it’s cheap? No worries over losing this one and you can ‘station’ them around your house, in purses, backpacks, or pockets so that there’s always one available.

My daughter, hiding herself under a blanket while watching movies.

Anyways, I’ve been playing with one over the past week, mostly just doodling while we watched movies and consumed the equivalent of a month’s food in a few days. As I said, I didn’t do much sketching. Here are a few smallish, quick sketches I did with this pen. Twas not the fault of the pen that the sketches were, well, so sketchy 🙂

Just feeding my penchant for drawing buildings

Ya gotta draw a tree during Christmas, right?

This is the house across the street as seen from my window

I was out walking and tried to draw skaters on the rink in Place d’Youville in the old city. Too cold for me. I’m a sissy. Not even the furious nature of quick-sketching could keep me warm.

That’s enough to give you an idea of how the Zebra pen looks in the hands of a sloth and maybe give you an indication of what I do when I’m not sketching. These doodles were done in a small, 3×5 sketchbook.

Happy New Year everyone. ****

Sketching an MGB

Posted on December 26, 2014 by Larry Marshall

A tradition in my wife’s family is a late night party on December 25th. This is relevant to today’s post because an inevitable result of this get together is that my wife and daughter sleep in the next day – which is today.

I got up this morning, sat around reading for a while and then decided to take advantage of the situation because the continual holiday scurry has been limiting my sketching time. The near constant rain and high winds haven’t helped much either.

I started looking through some of my photos and came across a photo I’d taken at the end of a sketching day in Berthier, Quebec. We were leaving the park and, in the parking lot, there was a gorgeous MGB (I think) so I took a photo of it with the thought that I’d like to sketch it. That’s what I did this morning and it sure felt good to do a more formal sketch, even if it was from a photo. I’ve probably done a dozen smallish quick-sketches over the past few days but while snacks are great, sometimes you need a meal.

This was done in a Stillman & Birn Delta sketchbook (6×8) and, for a change, I used a Uniball Vision Fine pen rather than my more typical fountain pen. It’s always fun to change it up once in a while. Watercolors are Daniel Smith and, once again, I’ve told myself that I need to learn something about wielding a brush. I’ll do that ‘real soon.’

Stillman & Birn Delta (6×8), Uniball Vision Fine pen.

**** Happy New Year everyone. ****

Happy New Year everyone. ****