Sketching The Heads Of Olympus

Posted on November 24, 2014 by Larry Marshall

I found myself chuckling at myself as I struggled to use pencil to draw this plaster head of what may or may not be one of the Greek gods of old. Besides an uncertainty about the subject, the placard said that it was created in 50AD and was once part of a full statue. I thought it nice and besides, there was a seat available.

I was chuckling because I couldn’t help but think of how people talk about moving from pencil to pen. It’s said to be “scary” or “really hard.” I’ve done almost all my sketching with fountain pens and I find sketching with pencil to be “really hard.” I’m unsure of the marks I make with pencil and certainly skills like graded tones elude me. But it sure is fun, as is every kind of sketching I’ve done. Maybe I’m kidding myself but I think the more lines I put on paper the better I will get so that’s my goal. As I make those marks, I just hope that some of them resemble what I’m trying to draw. Occasionally they do.

Anyways, this drawing was done on Strathmore Series 300 vellum bristol paper. I like it for this sort of drawing because it’s stiff enough to stand on its own and seems to like pencil. I used Mars Lumograph pencils this time.

Asclepius???
50AD

The Best Pencil Is The One In Your Hand

Posted on November 18, 2014 by Larry Marshall

A couple days ago someone on Facebook asked what the best pencil was. I responded by saying that the best pencil was “the one in your hand” and then went on to talk about the various brands I’d tried. I don’t know much about pencils so my advise was limited.

I was reminded of this advise when I went to the museum on Sunday. I’d set up my stool, and realized that I’d forgotten my pencil case. I grumbled a bit and dug through my bag. I had my Pentel Kerry (.5mm HB) and Pentel 207 (.7mm 2H) pencils and the stub of a Blackwing 602 wooden pencil (a bit softer than HB). Those were the pencils I had in my hand. Great tools for light layout lines for ink drawings but…well, that’s what I had and I wanted to draw a Greek plaster mask that dated from 200AD. So I started to draw.

What drew me to the subject was that it had a chip out of the nose and several from the chin area. I’m trying to learn to capture these features and I’m very clumsy with a pencil, but I hope that this sort of drawing will help me improve. Besides, it’s fun to draw in the museum. At one point there were half a dozen people standing behind me, watching me draw. I tried to chat with them, in both my bad French and passable English, but I really have a hard time drawing and talking at the same time. Anyways, this is what I ended up with, using the “one in my hand.”

Greek plaster mask (200AD) – Strathmore 300-series Bristol (8.5×11), mechanical pencils

It’s Museum Season In Quebec City

Posted on November 6, 2014 by Larry Marshall

Only the brave would venture outdoors to sketch in Quebec City these days, and I’m not one of them. So, it’s museum time for me. And because our Civilisation Museum is featuring a large exhibition of some remarkable white, plaster statues and busts from the Greeks and Romans, I’ve decided to set aside my fountain pens and try to learn how to push a pencil. Strange gizmos these are as they produce a substance that is magnetically attracted to the little finger of my drawing hand, allowing automagic smudging of everything I draw.

I did this guy’s head in a Stillman & Birn Alpha series sketchbook and I think pencil would work better on their Epsilon paper. I’m using Tombow Mono 100 pencils (2H and HB this time). The pencils are beautiful and seem to work well, though my inexperience doesn’t permit actual evaluation. Maybe a winter of museum sketching will change that.

Practice Makes Perfect… and Fun

Posted on September 8, 2014 by Larry Marshall

I’m not a sports guy. I don’t watch football, basketball or hockey. Heck, I don’t even know the rules of hockey. But baseball…ah…baseball. I’m a sucker for baseball. I do limit my watching to one team – the Toronto Blue Jays, but that’s 162 x 3 hours of TV watching from April thru September. Lots of potential sketching practice time.

While I watch these games I use my laptop to keep up with email, write blog posts, and read other people’s blogs. I also sketch, and sketch, and sketch. Often I’ll just practice cross-hatching, drawing long, straight parallel lines, or testing pens. I draw countless ellipses, draw odd shapes, shading them into 3-dimensional existence, and anything else I can think of. Not only is it fun, it’s how I’m learning to draw. I don’t think one can learn to draw by drawing final, formal sketches any more than a person learns to play piano by playing piano concertos. You’ve got to practice the various parts of art, the movements of the hand, the proportions of things.

I’ve always done this sort of practice on photocopy paper, ultimately throwing the results away. But I’ve bought a cheap Strathmore, 400 series “Drawing” book for this practice. The other night I put my laptop next to me on the sofa, did an image Google search on “people” and started quick-sketching people from the images. I thought I’d share the results. Certainly nothing special and evidence that I need the practice, but it might be something you want to try as it’s lots of fun and certainly good practice.

Done with a Tombow 2558 HB pencil

Get The Point

Posted on August 21, 2014 by Larry Marshall

I most of my sketching with fountain pens so talking about pencil sharpeners isn’t what you’d call my strong suit. At home I have an old, wall-mounted Apsco sharpener that still works well. Still, when I’m out sketching, I do use watercolor pencils, regular colored pencils and, when I’m sketching statues in the museum I often use wooden drawing pencils. So, while I don’t know much about sharpeners, I still have the need to generate sharp points on these pointy devices.

And for a street sketcher, who has to carry everything on his back, size and weight matters. I also need to be able to sharpen very soft colored pencils (need short tip) and my drawing pencils (like long tip). When I’m in a museum I need a sharpener that not only captures the shavings, but also keeps them inside. All this adds up to a tough set of criteria – until I wandered into a Quebec “dollar store.”

I found this little device. The blister pack says it is made in China and packaged by a company called Selectum in Montreal. I’ve always been disappointed by these inexpensive sharpeners because they always yield short points. KUM long-point sharpeners are an exception and I’ve been carrying one of those and a short-point sharpener but this single sharpener replaces both of them.

Each of the inlets, for the short and long sharpeners, has a slide cover so the shavings don’t fall out. The top is spring-loaded and pops open when you slide the main latch to the right. It’s small. It works. The long point isn’t as long as the KUM sharpener but it’s sufficient for my needs and best of all, this little guy only cost me $1.49. I wish I could provide a place to buy one but other than driving to Quebec City, I can’t really point you to a source. Anyone know of an online source?