Sketching The Good And The Ugly

Posted on September 17, 2013 by Larry Marshall

I’d arranged to meet sketching buddy Claudette downtown and so it wasn’t completely nuts when I started walking in that direction in spite of the fact that I was walking in a cloud. It wasn’t raining but a mist was collecting on my glasses and clothes. Walking fast beat the cold away, though.

When I met Claudette we sort of looked at each other and both of us were disappointed with the morning. We decided to walk through the old port area looking for something to draw but I think neither of us had our hearts in it. It was pretty miserable, depressing weather and we ended up ready to cancel completely.

Claudette spotted a cast lion that was part of the entrance to a building and as we looked at it we both decided it would be worthy of a sketch. What I saw was how we humans have lost site of esthetics in favor of convenience and modernity, or whatever word you want to use. Someone had destroyed much of the beauty of the lion casting by installing a large electrical plug below it and wrapping a wire up around it. A real artist would probably have drawn the lion, leaving the plug out and ‘improving’ their drawing. I’m more about documenting city life and thought this debauched piece of art could be the subject itself.

I did make the mistake of doing it in too small a format for a shaded pen drawing like this and both the lion and plug suffered from a lack of space for proper shading. Nevertheless, here’s the 3×4 sketch, done in a Moleskine watercolor book. I used my Pilot Prera and Platinum Carbon Black.

Thick Lines and Quick Hands

Posted on September 15, 2013 by Larry Marshall

One of the days that I was waiting for my hard drive to arrive it rained. I’m not one for sketching from photos but desperation will drive me to such extremes. My pointy device of choice is a very fine pen and I thought it might be an opportunity to play with pens that produce a heavier line and to use them in a more loose fashion than is my norm.

And so I did some quick sketches in a 3×5 sketchbook. Here are four of them.

Done with a Hero 578 ‘bent nib’ pen

Done with Sharpie ‘fine’ pen (not marker)

TWSBI Mini w/Platinum Carbon Black

Done with Hero 578 “bent nib” pen in about five minutes.

The next day I went out sketching and continued the experiment. I stopped to pick up a coffee and drew the car across the street.

Done with Hero 578 “bent nib” pen

I was walking along the St. Charles River and decided to stop and sketch these rudbeckia. I’m not much of a flower sketcher but this was fun.

There is a large water regulation reservoir along the banks of the river and I decided to draw it as quickly as I could. I spent less than 15 minutes on it, which is something of a world record for me when it comes to doing buildings. I found the format too small for a building with all those fiddly bits.

Done with TWSBI Mini w/Platinum Carbon Black

A Short Trip To Levis

Posted on September 13, 2013 by Larry Marshall

To both of you who follow this blog, I apologize for my absence. It’s embarrassing to admit but without my laptop I’m dead in the water, and I had a hard drive crash late last week. I got the problem diagnosed by Friday night and then began waiting for a hard drive to arrive in the mail. This is not something you want to be doing as the weekend is just beginning.

So, I scuttled around in my basement and, using ancient computer parts, cobbled together something that looked like a computer and ran almost as fast as an abacus. But it did get me email and limited web access. The drive arrived on Tuesday and I’m now back in business Thank goodness for backups as not much was lost except for a lot of time.

3×5 – Pilot Prera w/Lex Gray ink

During that time I went for a long sketching walk. First stop was to do a quick sketch of sailboats in the harbor. Me and sailboats don’t get along well, mostly because I don’t know much about the rigging and doo-dads that encrust the top surface of sailboats and, from my distant vantage point, these things are hard to make out. But I continue to try and this sketch consumed ten minutes of my time. The fact that I was standing up didn’t help much. I do wish I could get better at sketching while standing 🙁

I wandered around downtown for a while and then got the notion to head to Levis as the sun was out and I always look for an excuse to ride the ferry. On my way over I recalled a small, but rather ornate house I’d seen while I was in Levis sketching with fellow sketcher, Yvan. This is it. The people got sort of faked in using people who were walking by. I ran out of room while adding the woman and I’m not sure she has a left arm. If she does, it’s somewhere in the guy’s right side (grin).

Stillman & Birn Zeta (5x8), Pilot Prera w/ Platinum Carbon Black ink

Stillman & Birn Zeta (5×8), Pilot Prera w/ Platinum Carbon Black ink

The Thrill Of The Chase

Posted on August 7, 2013 by Larry Marshall

I’m a sketcher… a street sketcher. What excites me about sketching is the process, not the results. I love the feeling I have as I sit, studying a subject, drawing lines – oblivious to everything around me. I love people who stop and ask questions. Often they’re the same questions (eg – Do you sell these? Did you go to art school? How long have you been doing this?) but there’s always a smile attached and some simple chit-chat that connects me to my fellow humans.

And part of the process, for me, is finding something to sketch… the thrill of the hunt. It’s pretty rare that I plan to go some particular place to sketch some particular thing. That takes half the fun out of it for me. I like to just strike out, in any direction, looking for something that catches my attention.

The other day I did just that. I walked to a main intersection near my house. There were metro buses that head east/west/north/south and I decided to hop the first one that came along. I found myself heading east and, once I had passed areas I knew well, I got off the bus. I continued, walking east until I came across a small park.

I walked into it and sat on a bench. I looked around. There were ravens in one end of the park and I thought about sketching them. There were swings, slides, and what looked like a hamburger that kids could ride. It sat on a large spring. These would make a nice sketch, too.

Then I noticed a small mechanics shop stuffed between two larger buildings. I walked to that corner of the park, picked out a shady area, plunked myself down on my tripod stool, and started this sketch.

My hunt was a success. I spent a blissful hour while my pen entertained me as no television ever could. Life is good.

Stillman & Birn Zeta (5×8) sketchbook; Pilot Prera pen; Platinum Carbon Black ink; W&N artist watercolors

Big Building In A Little Town

Posted on August 5, 2013 by Larry Marshall

Quebec City is not an industrial town. We have no massive factories except for our paper mill. Rather, we have government…lots of government as we’re the capital of the province of Quebec. And we have the oldest walled city in North America and cruise ships visit us regularly. We do tourism. And so we have lots of politicians and tourists. We also have UbiSoft, the video game manufacturer so we have animators…story-tellers. In short, no big factories to sketch.

But we are also a port and the largest building around that port is a huge grain elevator and ship loading facility along the northern side of our marina. Lots of train cars and boats visit the place as grain is moved onto awaiting ships. In short, it’s a big, intimidating building to sketch 🙂

I took it as something of a challenge and so became my sketch of the Bunge grain elevators. Done in a Stillman & Birn Zeta (5×8 x 2) sketchbook with a Pilot Prera and Platinum Carbon Black ink. W&N watercolors give it a bit of color. Click for a larger image.