Museum Sketching With Claudette

Posted on January 31, 2013 by Larry Marshall

What’s going on? Last week it was so cold that it was fashionable to run outside with a bucket of hot water, throw it up in the air and watch it turn instantly to snow. Those -30C temps are tough so mostly we just stay indoors. But this week, we’re 40-degrees warmer than that and it’s RAINING! This doesn’t happen in Quebec, in February. These temps, however, are much easier to take.

And so it was, yesterday, when I walked in the rain to the Musee de l’Amerique francais to meet up with a new sketching buddy, Claudette Gauvreau, a very talented sketcher. I met her at our last sketchcrawl and we agreed meet at the museum for a sketching session.

I got there about half an hour or so before our scheduled meet time and decided to sketch an organ that sits high above the floor of a chapel associated with the museum. I always struggle with perspective when I have to look up this much and this case was no exception. I started with pencil, drawing and redrawing the basic columns and the ceiling curves. I even drew a big cube where the organ sits before turning to pen to do the actual sketch.

When Claudette arrived she needed to do some work in the chapel as well so I continued working and finished up the pen work. I did it in a Stillman & Birn Alpha sketchbook using Pilot Prera and Metropolitan pens filled with Noodler’s Lexington Gray. Shading was done with a Derwent Graphitone 8B pencil. These pencils are great because once you hit them with a waterbrush they ‘set’ and you can put watercolor washes over it.

Claudette finished up this great sketch of part of the railing around the main seating area, which holds a bunch of round banquet tables these days. I can’t speak to materials used but isn’t it great? The small bit at the bottom is an example of the flooring.

We headed into the museum where we sat in comfy sofas and sketched mannequins dressed in costumes used in movies and created by French costume designers. She started sketching the cowboy character that Owen Wilson played in Night at the Museum, while I decided to do something I’d never done. I sketched a Victorian dress using only a pen. I’m fascinated by clothing folds and want to learn to draw them in ink.

Anyways, in the time it took me to do this sketch, Claudette finished drawing her cowboy, then drew a security guard and an indian from the same movie. Then she wandered off to look at the exhibits while I finished up my single figure. Have I mentioned that I’m slow at sketching (grin)? This sketch was done with a Pilot G-TEC-C3, hybrid ink pen on Strathmore Series 400 toned gray paper (5.5×8.5). I wish I could show you Claudette’s sketches but I didn’t think to take a photo.

Next Wednesday, we’re meeting at the Musee de la Civilisation. Want to join us?

Museum Time Again

Posted on January 26, 2013 by Larry Marshall

It’s been really cold here in Quebec. So cold, in fact that I couldn’t bring myself to go out at all, let alone walk the hour to the museums. I hadn’t sketched in several days because of this, so when the high temp hit -17C I jumped at this ‘warm’ day to head out.

I decided to go to the Musee de l’Amerique francais, the site of our recent sketchcrawl. As I was there on a Thursday morning, I think I was alone in the museum, except for the staff. It was quiet. It was comfortable. In fact, I sat in a nice, comfy sofa and sketched a mannikin who was dressed in a 16th Century gown worn in the movie The Fountain.

Still trying to figure out pencil sketching, that’s what I was using. I decided early on that the subject might be too ‘grand’ for my Stillman & Birn 5.5×8.5 Epsilon sketchbook as the dress has a very bold pattern that I simply couldn’t capture in a 6″ tall sketch but I persisted doing the best I could. Sadly, the sketch shows my biggest problem – I constantly smear the pencil work. I can’t seem to avoid it. It got worse, of course, when I sketched on the page opposite this one. So, the sketch is more than a little bit ‘muddy’ but I sure had fun doing it. The mannikin didn’t have much of a face and neither does my sketch. Don’t hold it against her 🙂 I’m going to have to carry a sheet of paper to cover these sketches while I work, or maybe just go back to using a pen.

I moved to another room and was taken by a pair of 19th Century snowshoes. These are the widest shoes I’ve seen and if horses made John Wayne bowlegged, these would surely do the same to their wearer. I also sketched a boot that was associated with this display. Here I used a Pilot Prera and some watercolor pencils.

Sketching On Toned Paper

Posted on January 21, 2013 by Larry Marshall

I’m no expert to artist materials. Most of the time when I talk about using them the discourse begins with me saying “This is the first time that…” This is almost true of my use of toned paper in my sketching activities. During last summer I made a small sketchbook from toned paper (Canson Mi-Teintes) and I did a few pen sketches in it. Unfortunately, the sketchbook itself wasn’t stiff enough (thin covers) to work well as a sketchbook to use on location while I held it in my hand.

Now that it’s winter and very cold here, I’ve been working a lot in museums. This shift in location and subject matter has been coupled by me doing some experimenting with different tools and materials and recently I’ve done a couple sketches on single sheets of gray, toned paper and I thought I’d share them here.

The first was done at the Musée de la Civilisation, in a large Nigeria exhibit that features lots of masks and headdresses used in ceremonies. This one was done in Canson Mi-Teintes paper. As I am also trying to learn how to use a pencil as a sketching medium, I used the smooth side of this paper and it worked well. Not being a pencil guru, I started layout with a 3H pencil and ultimately ended up with an HB mechanical pencil. Nothing special here and, I’m sure, most pencil experts will probably cringe that I didn’t use softer pencils. I added a bit of highlight using a Prismacolor white pencil but I was fairly tentative in this as I’ve never done that before at all. Still, the results ended up better than I expected.

The next sketch I did was done during our 38th Worldwide Sketchcrawl, which we did at the Musée de Francais and its associated chapel. The chapel has been ‘secularized’ and is rented out for meetings and banquets. Still, its walls are still adorned with statues of saints, the windows are stained glass, and a huge alter remains.

But I love to sketch buildings and being driven indoors by snow and cold is frustrating. I took advantage of the sketchcrawl to set my tripod stool in front of a huge window that looked out on a courtyard that was bordered by a very long, probably 150+ feet long building. Rather than capture the entire structure, I decided to concentrate on a slice of it and I came up with this sketch.

This sketch was done on Strathmore Series 400 “toned gray” paper. I bought a 9×12 spiral sketchbook of this stuff. The sheets are perforated and can be easily separated from the sketchbook. I did the linework with a Pilot Prera filled with Noodler’s Lexington Gray ink. The suggestion of snow was added using the same Prismacolor pencil I used in the first sketch. I like this paper a lot. It’s much cheaper than the Canson paper and it’s a great pencil paper. I felt that it was a bit too absorptive for ink, though. A heavy line tends to feather a bit.

I really like drawing on toned paper. I’m less wild about using single sheets of paper for my sketching and wish Stillman & Birn would create a gray version of its Epsilon sketchbooks. A sketcher has to have a dream (grin).

Do Nigerians Have Thick Necks?

Posted on January 17, 2013 by Larry Marshall

Goofy question, right? Well, I’m convinced there is evidence to support the notion that Nigerians have thick necks. It comes in the form of the Nigeria exhibit at our Musée de la Civilisation.

That evidence comes in the form of large, and I mean large ‘crests’ worn by Nigerian dancers. Some of these are huge and, supposedly, they wear them while doing ceremonial dances. I wouldn’t want to balance one on my head while watching TV, let alone while dancing.

Here’s just one example. This ‘little’ guy is roughly half a meter tall. The straw band at its base is where your head goes. I assume there’s a strap that goes through the lower hole and runs around under the chin. Thick necks… gotta be.

This next one isn’t quite as large and I’m not exactly sure how it’s even worn. It’s obviously an elephant who likes to play frisbee but other than that I know nothing about it other than that it too is labelled as a ‘crest’ and is part of a long line of them along one wall of the exhibit.

Both sketches were done in a Stillman & Birn Epsilon (5.5×8.5) sketchbook. The first was drawn with a Pilot Prera, Noodler’s Lexington Gray ink and Faber-Castell watercolor pencils. The elephant sketch was done with a mechanical pencil. Thank goodness for museums when it’s cold outside.

More Museum Sketching…Still…Again

Posted on January 15, 2013 by Larry Marshall

Yet another Samurai helmet. This is the eleventh one I’ve done and I think it’s time to move on, though there are still a bunch of cool ones to sketch. This one, like the others, was done in a Stillman & Birn Epsilon (5.5×8.5) sketchbook, using a Pilot Prera loaded with Noodler’s Lexington Gray ink. Faber-Castell watercolor pencils made it pretty. I couldn’t help but think about propeller beanies while doing this one.