The Trials Of Creating An Urban Sketch

Posted on July 17, 2016 by Larry Marshall

Many artists never do their art on location. They’re happy sitting in a studio, laying out drawings, tracing the layout onto their watercolor paper, and then painting from a photo, or some such approach. For me, sketching is all about the chase. I have to go somewhere. It might be just down the street or even into my backyard but I’ve got to actually ‘discover’ my subject.

There are compromises in this approach. Anyone who does it knows them. Time, weather, interruptions and sitting on a tripod stool balancing your sketchbook are among them. Some times are better than others, however, and I’d like to share a couple “oops” sketches with you.

The first is a train engine. I’ve wanted to sketch this small switch engine for a long time. It’s tied to our large grainery and is responsible for moving the grain cars around. I saw an opportunity to draw it and sat down to draw. It was going pretty well until…well…it drove away. I could follow its tracks (pun intended) and did, which allowed me to complete, sort of, the engine but the mood was broken. I became disinterested in completing the sketch by including some entourage behind and in front of it. So here it is, as is.

Stillman & Birn Alpha, Platinum 3776, Platinum Carbon Black

Last week we were supposed to meet on the Plains of Abraham for a group session. Only three of us showed up because it was raining. We ended up huddled under the overhang of a building with only a single subject, the realty business across the street. So we drew it. It was cold and I had a hard time keeping my mind on drawing and I worked fast – too fast. Sometimes urban sketching isn’t what it’s cracked up to be 🙂

Stillman & Birn Alpha, Platinum 3776

With urban sketching you sometimes win and sometimes lose when it comes to the end product. When it comes to the fun, however, it’s always more fun than sitting in a studio.

Editor’s note: I’m getting behind in my posting. I apologize for that and hope to get a bunch of sketches posted in the upcoming week.

Tugboats Are Cool

Posted on July 12, 2016 by Larry Marshall

When I was a kid, one of the characters, in books and later in a Disney series, was a tugboat named Little Toot. I don’t remember anything about the stories and don’t have a clue whether it was as good as the modern maritime character, Sponge Bob, but in some strange way I was touched by that character as I have an undying affinity for tugboats.

This is really odd because I’ve spent most of my life living in places like Phoenix, Arizona and there aren’t any tugboats in the Sonoran Desert. But there are tugboats in Quebec City and I love to draw them. They all live in a basin with an opening to the St. Lawrence where they push and pull large ships in and out of port. Here’s my latest effort.

Stillman & Birn Alpha (5.5x8.5), Platinum 3776, Platinum Carbon Black

Stillman & Birn Alpha (5.5×8.5), Platinum 3776, Platinum Carbon Black

Ottawa’s Agriculture Museum

Posted on July 9, 2016 by Larry Marshall

I forgot about this sketch yesterday when I was posting building sketches from my Ottawa trip. My daughter and I spent part of a day at the Agriculture Museum in Ottawa and I drew this beautiful old barn. It should have been included in the last blog post.

Sketching Ottawa’s Buildings

Posted on July 8, 2016 by Larry Marshall

As I was riding the train to Ottawa I was planning where to point my feet for my upcoming sketching adventure. First stop was to be Parliament, where I wanted to sit directly in front of Parliament’s Peace Tower and draw the entire building in one-point perspective. It’s classic Ottawa.

There were two problems with that idea. The first is that every government building in the city seems to be under construction, or if it isn’t, you can’t go there because of some other construction. The entire Parliament area is full of cranes, fencing and the buildings are shrouded in scaffolding. All of this, I’m told is being done in anticipation of July 1, 2017, which will be the 150th anniversary of Canadian confederation.

Ok…but what’s that huge, can’t see the building stage that’s sprawled out in front of Parliament. Well, that is for Canada Day 2016. Sometimes timing is everything and mine wasn’t great this time.

Undaunted, I decided to draw a portion of the Langevin building, which is a very long government building. I have no idea what they do within it but the south side steps of the East Block building served as a great perch to draw it. And so, with lots of tourists walking by, I drank coffee and drew a building.

Stillman & Birn Delta (8x10), Platinum 3776, Platinum carbon black

Stillman & Birn Delta (8×10), Platinum 3776, Platinum carbon black

If you walk south on Elgin from Parliament you’ll find an old house (mansion?) that seems to have been converted into a small hotel or B&B. What’s striking about it is that all around it are modern high-rise buildings. It was a must-draw but I was unsure what to do with it. On the one hand I wanted to draw it small with the huge skyscrapers surrounding it. But this would shrink the building so much that I wouldn’t be able to give it any of the ‘from a different time’ feel that it exuded. In the end I decided to just draw the building, without any of the large buildings. Someday I’ll do it the other way I’m sure.

Stillman & Birn Alpha (5.5×8.5), Platinum 3776, Platinum Carbon Black

Sketching Ottawa Statues

Posted on July 6, 2016 by Larry Marshall

There are a lot of “old dead guy” statues in Ottawa and while interesting, I was looking for something different when I wandered around evaluating statues for sketching. I found two that I liked a lot. Hope you approve of my choices.

This statue sits in a small triangle of dirt/grass with cars whizzing by on all three sides of it. It’s near the National Art Gallery and while I’ve been there several times, I’ve never even noticed it because of its location. But heck, there it was and there was a large tree under which I could sit while I sketched it. Like the streets surrounding it, the statue is a 3-sided affair, though you can only see two sides of it in my sketch. It’s Haida, I think and quite beautiful.

Stillman & Birn Alpha (5.5×8.5), Platinum 3776, Platinum Carbon Black

I was walking from Parliament towards Confederation Park and as I passed the post office on Spark Street I noticed a couple of large lions protecting the doors. In truth, they themselves were caged by large fencing put up to protect people like me from construction going on around the facade of the building. This made it hard to find a place where I could sit to draw. I walked around the building and found there are actually half a dozen of these guys standing around in the sun. They’re enlarged heads make them all the more majestic and I had to draw one. I found a place where I can climb up on some large concrete blocks, set up my stool and draw. I only fell off once.

Stillman & Birn Delta (8×10), Platinum 3776, Platinum Carbon Black