Collectif Rendevous At The Museum Of Civilisation

Posted on January 28, 2016 by Larry Marshall

The Collectif group in Quebec City held its annual rendevous at Quebec’s Musée de la civilisation last Saturday. Unfortunately, a bunch of the regulars were playing snowbirds in one for or another and so turnout was down from previous years. Nevertheless, we had a great time.

I started sketching in the Egypt exhibit, where I drew this pharoah mask. I used Faber-Castell Albrecht-Durer watercolor pencils for color. It’s hard to deal with color in that exhibit because it’s so dark so it’s hard to know what you’ve got until you’re done and eating lunch (grin).

Fabriano Artistico CP, DeAtramentis Document Black, Pilot Falcon

I took a short break by wandering around a bit and when I saw this large Australian aboriginal totem I had to translate it to paper. Pretty simple drawing. Lots of fun. It’s good to be back out sketching.

Fabriano Artistico CP, DeAtramentis Document Black, Pilot Metropolitan

Cruising Down The Nile

Posted on January 26, 2016 by Larry Marshall

Egyptian culture was inseparable from the Nile River. It was a source of water, provided fertile soils for agriculture, fish were a ready protein supply, and the bullrushes that grew along its banks provided material for baskets, floor mats, and other Egyptian stuff.

But heck, you gotta suppose that Egyptians used it for fun too. Swimming might not have been a great idea because the Nile was home to crocodiles but how about hopping in the family yacht and going for a cruise. Egyptians must have done that. And one of the objects in our museum’s Egyptian exhibit is a large (4-feet long) wooden model of an Egyptian boat, complete with several people standing on deck. It seemed that sketching it was the right thing to do. Hope you like it.

Fabriano Artistico cold-press, DeAtramentis Document Black, Pilot Metropolitan F

Sketching A Bit Of Egypt

Posted on January 15, 2016 by Larry Marshall

Our gang was back at the museum cuz, “baby, it’s cold outside.” I decided to draw a stone guy who was making an offering at a funeral, or so sayeth the plaque associated with him. Hope you like him.

Fabriano Artistico CP (7.5×11), Platinum 3776, DeAtramentis Document Black

Carriage Lanterns In The Dark

Posted on January 10, 2016 by Larry Marshall

There is an exhibition of carriages and sleighs at our Musee de la Civilisation and it’s about to end. We’ve drawn of it in the past but the room is so poorly lit that it’s hard to see what you’re drawing.

But Yvan and I decided to brave the dark a bit more and to draw some of the carriage lanterns before they were pulled from their dark places and sent back to the well-lit storage barn where they are stored.

These are fun to draw because of their complex shapes but I can’t guarantee that my sketches are correct. Often I couldn’t tell whether something is square or round because the room was so dark, so these are more a guess than anything.

Sketching Over The Holidays

Posted on January 4, 2016 by Larry Marshall

I suspect I’m not the only one who feels that the holiday season is more a disruption than something to celebrate. I’m an old guy, set in my ways and those ways are for me to go sketching. But with all the hoopla my routine has gone bonkers and my sketching has become scattered. I thought I would just post a smattering of the many small, generally incomplete sketches I’ve done over the past week or so leading into New Years.

Here’s a sketch I did one day at our museum. Another Egyptian guy, standing stiff against a wall, or so it seems. I don’t really know who he is but he was fun to draw and that’s good enough for me.

He was done in a Stillman & Birn Gamma book with my Namiki Falcon and DeAtramentis Document ink. Color was mostly burnt sienna with a bit of ultramarine to produce the grays. I played with the notion of making him look like stone, which he was. I’m not sure how successful I was in this.

Otherwise sketching has been a bunch of doodles here and there, mostly on photocopy paper. On New Years Eve, however, I was watching TV with Chantal and I drew these three ornaments that were laying on a table. Color was done with watercolor pencils but the sketch was done on cheap paper and so I couldn’t use a lot of water or move the color very much.

I was still bored by the TV so I picked up my Sailor fude pen and decided to give it a whirl. I’ve never adapted to the fude pens because I typically want thin lines and there are better tools for that. But I’m determined to improve my ability to draw heavy-line, quick sketches for some reason. I started out by drawing the same three ornaments.

As I scanned this for the post I couldn’t help but think of a conversation I’ve been having with Tina Koyama about what or whether the degree of expressiveness in a sketch says about what the artist was feeling, either about the sketch or the subject. The two sketches above were done within minutes of one another and yet one was done with an “expressive” stroke while the other was done in a more controlled fashion. I’m pretty sure I was wishing the holidays would be over during both sketches (grin).

I turned my fude pen to my imagination and one thing I drew was a bunch of imaginary carriage lanterns. I’d talked to Yvan about meeting to draw some at the museum where there’s a carriage exhibition going on so they were probably on my mind. Anyways, prior to drawing these I looked at a couple sketches I’d done of some a few months ago but these were all done in a very few minutes. While I think they reflect bits and pieces of ‘the real thing’, they’re purely imaginary.

Now that the holidays are over, I should return to a more normal schedule. I’m still a couple sketches/days behind on the blog but I’ll get caught up “real soon.”