Sketchers Are Never Bored…Mostly

Posted on February 16, 2014 by Larry Marshall

I’ve made the comment several times, here and elsewhere, that sketchers are never bored. When I’m sitting in a doctor’s office there are people to sketch. When I’m waiting for the car to be serviced there’s all sorts of stuff to sketch. I drew a billboard the other night while waiting to pick up my daughter. And when there’s nothing on TV I can always sketch scenes in the commercials. I’ve been known to draw pages full of lines, ellipses, and circles, too.

But I’ve been bored…REALLY bored. The flu has a way of eliminating all notion of sketching, thinking, looking, seeing, and about the best I could do over the past few days has been to sit and become over-dosed on Olympics coverage.

Today the residual ‘tuckered out’ feeling was all that remained of my bout with a gaggle of viruses and I wasn’t going to let that stop me. I headed to the museum to meet up with Yvan for a sketching session. I’m afraid I’m still a bit less than optimal but I managed this sketch. There is an 1898 Renault Mini-Car on display and while I have to get around to the front of it for a sketch, I just love this view from the rear as it shows off its red running gear.

Stillman & Birn Zeta (6x9), Pilot Prera, Lexington Gray

Stillman & Birn Zeta (6×9), Pilot Prera, Lexington Gray

Never Ask A Sketcher What Is It?

Posted on February 12, 2014 by Larry Marshall

Anyone who is a parent has faced the uncertainty of responding to a young child’s beaming face as she looks up, waving a paper in the air and says, “Mommy, look what I made.” The parent looks at the blob of color on the paper. They note a roundish form, drawn in gray, four projections and some scribbles on top where a head might be. Is it an elephant? A cat? Or is it me? Only parents can properly negotiate that mine field.

And so it goes with sketchers, but with less delicacy I’m afraid. When I brought my latest sketch home my Quebecois wife said, as she always does, “C’est beau,” but this time with puzzlement on her face. Then, something she would never do when our daughter was growing up she blurted, “What the heck is it?”

My daughter came into the room, looked at the sketch and said, without any fanfare, “What is that thing?” Obviously she has learned nothing from the finesse with which we greeted vague forms made from little hands with the best that Crayola had to offer.

In this case, however, maybe I can forgive them. It’s not something you see every day – or ever for that matter. We don’t make stuff this elegant anymore. But back at the turn of the 19th Century, those promoting the idea of subways felt the need to make them look spectacular because, for most people, the thought of going underground was, well, creepy. This cast iron beauty is an entry gate from the 1900 Paris subway.

The sketch was done at the Musée de la Civilisation museum, in the Paris exhibit. Eighty-six of these gates were made. I’d hate to have to draw all of them. One was enough to generate smoke from my ears.

Stillman & Birn Zeta (6x9), Pilot Prera, Noodler's Lexington Gray

Stillman & Birn Zeta (6×9), Pilot Prera, Noodler’s Lexington Gray

Sketching The Art of Fernand Pelez

Posted on January 29, 2014 by Larry Marshall

I rarely sketch from art unless I’m trying to learn how DaVinci did it, or how my buddy Yvan Breton does his people sketches. But the Paris exhibit at our Musée de la Civilisation has a couple of large that just say “sketch me.” I think it’s because of their size and content. One is a 21-foot long mural of the Parisian open-air market in 1900. The other is an equally large circus mural titled Grimaces et misére by Fernand Pelez (1888).

Grimaces et misére depicts circus performers, including dancers, musicians, clowns and others, but unlike most circus art, these figures are depicted in what was probably a more realistic state. The faces and body language of these characters are sad, tired, and suggestive of their overworked, day-by-day lives.

I, along with my buddy Yvan decided to meet Tuesday morning to sketch the musicians who represent about 25% of the mural. He drew in pencil; I used my Wahl-Eversharp pen and Noodler’s Lexington Gray.

The paper was Canson Ingres (6×9). I like the lightly toned versions of this paper for pen drawings, though it would be quite useless for watercolor. The bit of added tone came from dilute Lex Gray in a waterbrush, while the white was done with a Stabilo “paper-glass-plastic-metal” pencil. I think Prismacolor pencil does a better job but it was worth a try (grin)

For those asking “What the heck is that instrument on the right,” I was equally curious and so I did some digging. Turns out it is an ophicleide, a precursor to the tuba. It’s actually a U-shaped tube but the downward part of the tube is behind the upward portion so you don’t see it in the painting. But you can see the mouthpiece which is very tuba-like.

A Grand Day Out: Sketching With Others

Posted on January 26, 2014 by Larry Marshall

My favorite Wallace and Gromit film is A Grand Day Out. In it, Wallace finds that while he has crackers, he has run out of cheese. Of course, that means he and his dog Gromit need to go to the moon to get some more, as everyone knows the moon is made of cheese. Gromit builds a rocket and they head off to find some cheese.

Yesterday I was reminded of A Grand Day Out because I had one in the form of Quebec City’s version of the 42nd Worldwide Sketchcrawl. We’ve held several of these and while it’s hard to do when it’s -25C, we do what we can to bring people together.

This sketchcrawl was held at the Musée de la Civilisation. This museum is a very welcoming and accommodating place and it’s ideal for such an event. As with all of our sketchcrawls, this one was organized by Yvan Breton and Celine Poulin. One of my sketching buddies, Claudette Gauvreau, deserves some credit as well as she used her infectious laugh and sociability to convince several of her friends to join us.

Just beginning to gather in the lunch area. Hard choice between talking and eating being made by many

And what an event it was. We had a couple DOZEN people at this event. I emphasize the word dozen as when you can start counting participants in ‘dozens’ it’s sort of like being old enough to talk about how many decades you’ve been alive. And dozens we had, at least 24 people and while it was hard to get an accurate count, I think it was more. What I do know is that I found it impossible to remember the names of all the people I met for the first time. But I’ll always remember the smiles on their faces.

And did we have fun. The one downside of a museum sketchcrawl is documentation as they frown on photography in the exhibit areas (click on image to get a larger image). What I can tell you is that from 10AM until 12:30 there were sketchers everywhere you looked and it was quite exciting. Some people were surprised by how relaxed the atmosphere was and how “non-competitive” we were. You can tell ‘serious’ artists about this difference between sketching and fine art but until they experience group sketching on location, it’s hard to understand it.

Looking at sketchbooks, laughing and enjoying one another’s company

A group admiring Jacques Paquet’s sketch box

At 12:30 we gathered in a basement area to eat lunch and kibbitz about sketching, pens, watercolors, and to share our sketchbooks. I’m not sure we ever had everyone in one place so I can’t show you the typical ‘the gang’ photo but here are a few clusters of people and even a few sketches I managed to snap a photo of as they were laid out by some of the participants.

I found it hard to get photos of other people’s sketches because everyone was having so much fun flipping through everyone else’s sketchbooks. Pictures come second to fun in my book but I did manage to get these few snapshots.

Guylaine Côté’s bicycle. Love this view.

Celine (top) and Pierre’s (bottom) sketches

Group of sketches

After lunch, and after we couldn’t talk any more, most of us headed back out to sketch. We lost a few of our participants as they had afternoon appointments elsewhere. Once again we invaded the exhibits like ants on a sugar cube and while we were having fun, we were also becoming part of the exhibits, as folks were looking over our shoulders and saying nice things. Location sketching is good for the ego.

We wrapped up around 3PM, most of us quite tired but also exhilarated by the day’s activities. I’m still walking a foot or so above the ground. Did I mention we had a COUPLE DOZEN participants?

Oh…I did a bit of sketching myself, though not as much as some. And I did have the ability to scan them. Here are my sketches from the day. It was definitely a Grand Day Out.

I saw this drum display as an opportunity to practice orienting ellipses as each drum was positioned differently. Stillman & Birn Zeta (6x9), Wahl-Eversharp pen, Lexington Gray ink

I saw this drum display as an opportunity to practice orienting ellipses as each drum was positioned differently. Stillman & Birn Zeta (6×9), Wahl-Eversharp pen, Lexington Gray ink

These were part of a large poster of clown caricatures and I thought it might be fun to draw a few of them. It was. Stillman & Birn Zeta (6x9), Wahl-Eversharp pen, Lexington Gray

These were part of a large poster of clown caricatures and I thought it might be fun to draw a few of them. It was. Stillman & Birn Zeta (6×9), Wahl-Eversharp pen, Lexington Gray

You can find many more photos and sketches on the Worldwide Sketchcrawl site.

Sketching At The Library

Posted on January 21, 2014 by Larry Marshall

It’s turned bitter cold again, killing hopes of a mild winter. And at -33F I headed off this morning to meet Claudette at the library. Somehow the walk was longer than normal. I wonder why.

Done in Stillman & Birn Alpha (4×6) sketchbook, Pilot 78G and Noodler’s Lexington Gray ink

But we had a lot of fun sketching people at the library. Library people tend to stay put a bit longer than museum people so there’s a better chance of finishing a sketch before they wander off. I’m not much of a people sketcher but I thought I’d share a couple of the sketches I did this morning. It’s ok to laugh… honest. I wonder if the sleeping kid would have been embarrassed to know that he was snoring and that people were looking at him.