The days are becoming cool and raining and between that and days when my hands won’t let me draw that coincide with the good days, I’m not getting a lot of opportunity to sketch on location. But Yvan and I did get out and into the alleyways of old Quebec to do a bit of sketching. This, and the smile on my face, was the result.
People say that getting “out of your comfort zone” is a good idea. So, I drive twice the speed limit, drink excessively and pick fights with NFL players. Just kidding…maybe that isn’t what they mean, though in the art world these catch-all phrases are ill-defined and hold little real meaning.
But this week seems to be a week where I’m doing things different from my norm and a couple days ago Yvan suggested that we do a ‘real’ sketchcrawl, where we go to a spot, sketch something quickly and then move on to the next spot, repeating until the day got too hot to continue, or until Larry got completely frustrated (grin).
And that’s exactly what we did. We hopped a bus and headed to a neighborhood where we’d never sketched and decided that we’d walk until one of us (took turns at that) decided it was time to stop. There, we would choose a subject and spend only a few minutes capturing the scene. Easy peasy, right?
For Yvan it was. He’s a superb sketcher and with decades of experience, he’s also really quick when he needs to be. Me, not so much. I’m still vying for the “slowest sketcher on the planet” award and I think I’m still in the lead.
When I start sketching quickly all sorts of things go wrong as I lose control of linear perspective, proportions, and relationships. These things cause my sketches to be barely recognizable as the scene before me. But heck, I was out of my comfort zone. That has to be good, right? These are three sketches I came up with during our quick-sketchcrawl session.
You know those puzzles we had when we were kids? They were cut from wood and had no more than half a dozen pieces, which matched with our little hands and puzzle-making abilities when were three. Well, it seems, I drew one.
Not really. In reality I was standing at the end of St. Denis street in Quebec City, looking up the hill at the depicted scene. What was different was that I decided to paint it as a bunch of interlocking shapes. As a basis for this I drew, in pencil, a very light box around the building and then drew boxes where the windows rested.
Then I grabbed a paint brush, a scary instrument in my hands. You see, I’m trying to figure out a few things with watercolors. I’m trying to figure out how to mix paints thicker than the pastel-like colors we beginners often use. Mostly this has resulted in over-kill in my sketches but I’m making progress. The other thing I’m investigating is whether I can sketch directly with a brush. This is definitely putting the cart before the horse but it’s become a nothing ventured, nothing gained sort of thing for me.
Anyhow, I became overwhelmed with painting thoughts as I tried to ‘draw’ this with a brush. I drew each shape, trying to “build the wash” (Holmes-style), avoid any outline effect, and also trying to keep the shape correct. I was so consumed with those tasks that the thought of actually trying to draw the scene got lost in the shuffle. After I’d created my kid’s puzzle, I used a pen to draw window frames and such but nothing was going to help this sketch much. Interesting exercise. It’s said that we learn from our mistakes. I must have learned a lot with this one.
The heatwave has driven us into the parks because we can sit in the shade. But before that happened, I’d drawn a little store on the corner of rue Cremazie and rue Cartier in Quebec City and I’d forgotten about it. I added some color to it this weekend and thought I’d share it as a change of pace from all the trees I’ve been drawing lately (grin).
Jinhao ‘el cheapo’ pen, R&K SketchInk (Lily) and DS watercolors
I’ve mentioned the heat wave that’s occurring on planet Quebec City and it still rages on. Yvan and I thought that maybe we should sketch in my backyard, which is shady and close to a fridge full of ice cold water. This turned out to be a good idea and we had some fun in spite of the heat. Here’s a sketch I did of part of the perimeter of our yard. Too many leaves.
Fabriano Artistico, Pilot Falcon, DeAtramentis diluted brown/black