The Bande Dessinee Truck Comes To Limoilu

Posted on August 16, 2015 by Larry Marshall

Every month, Cathy Johnson runs a virtual sketchcrawl where we all agree to go out, sketch, and then post the results on a Facebook page for that purpose. This Saturday was that day and I needed to do my part in the sketchcrawl, meet up with people at an event, get my daily walk in (2 hours) and them a few things at home.

I headed off to accomplish all those things, sketchbag at my side, feet pounding the pavement. And then it happened. I missed a golden opportunity to take a photo to show you. My only excuse was that I was caught up in the moment and also didn’t want to risk taking the photo. Why? What? Where? Ah, but this is a “who” story.

Those of us who are street sketchers are used to sketching in public. It’s what we do. We also try to convince others that it’s fun and that there is no risk of embarrassment or harassment. Nobody needed to tell a little girl I met any of that.

I came upon her, sitting next to the sidewalk, on 3rd Avenue. She was drawing the typical drawing of an 8-year old – parents, child, sun in the sky, and lots of sky – she was working on the sky with vigor. I stopped and told her how nice her drawing was and tried to engage her in some chit-chat. She was shy, as you might expect. She also had a small box sitting next to her that you might not expect. It was a box in which people who admired her work could drop a coin or three. How could I resist. I emptied my pocket into her box, repeated my praise for her sketch, and moved on. Oh how I wish I’d taken a picture.

Anyways, I continued my walk and realized that we’re in the middle of a heat wave, or rather a humidity wave. The temps are only 26-28C but the humidity his very high and I was melting as I plodded along. I mention this as my excuse for not sketching. I know it’s not a great excuse but it’s the best I’ve got.

I got to my event, which was a small block party in Limoilu and was thrilled to find that I could get a bottle of cold water from them for free. It was my lucky day. The reason I was there, though, was that the Bande Dessinee (comics/graphic novels for the French-challenged) Francophone de Quebec had their mobile library available and an outdoor reading room. It was being manned by a fellow sketcher, and superb artist, Andre Gagnon.

As we sat and talked I noticed a couple kids with big foam hats that looked like Pluto and Donald Duck. As they were reading you could only see the hat above the book and I couldn’t resist doing a quick-sketch of this young girl as she read. In some small way I hope it saves my honor in the sketchcrawl.

Nouvelle France 2015 – Day Two

Posted on August 15, 2015 by Larry Marshall

Sunday was the last day of the Nouvelle France festival in Quebec and the Croquites de Quebec held a sketchcrawl which was pretty much a repeat of the sketchcrawl of the day before.

I showed up at 9:30 to find several people waiting for the organizers (Yvan and myself). We all did howdy-dos just as Yvan arrived. Things were pretty calm in Place Royale at that time in the morning so architecture seemed the thing to draw.

It struck me as funny to see old stone structures, fake old kiosks and then a modern stage scaffold with some signs attached so I decided to draw this anachronistic scene.

Things got rolling along around 10AM but before that I drew this kiosk and the woman who was setting before the crowds showed up. I added a couple people to the page just to fill up it. You’ll notice a ghost head, with partiallly drawn 3-corner hat, rising through the roof of the building. Many ghosts were created as subjects walked away, often when I had just started to draw them.

This is just a page of random sketches, done of people within Place Royale. This kind of sketching is like shooting skeet. You’re happy when you get one and not too disappointed when you miss because there’ll be another to ~~shoot at~~ sketch real soon.

Here’s a couple of “our mothers”, or so they are called here in Quebec. Long ago, Quebec was settled mostly by adventurous men, sent by France to claim parts of the New World. But as settlements were established, and the notion of permanence set in, it was clear to the king (and probably those adventurous men) that having some women around might be a good idea.

So, Louis XIV paid women to immigrate from France to Nouvelle France. Some 700 women took part in the program. Called Les Filles du Roi it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out why these women are called by Quebecers “our mothers.” They have their own society.

A portion of the festival is the arrival of the filles du roi, by sailing ship, and they are greeted at the old port and ushered into the city. The society has a kiosk and the women wear traditional garb. They are absolutely beautiful. I spent a fair amount of time sketching them. I’ll end with a final sketch of a fille du roi that had a beautiful cape to go with her dress.

Nouvelle France 2015 In Quebec City

Posted on August 14, 2015 by Larry Marshall

Every August a very cool thing happens. The entire old port area of Quebec City is converted into a 1700s movie set, though the thousands of tourists wandering around is something of an anachronism.

Quebecers pay them no mind as they are dressed in costumes reflecting the era, from trappers to Louis XIV and everyone in between. They make traditional food and music. They dance. They sing. But mostly they just walk around, enjoying each other’s costumes. It’s a great big adult costume party with a huge dose of small-town fair added for good measure.

I love hanging out during the festival as the people are having so much fun in the midst of simplicity – a rare thing these days. As a sketcher, it’s an opportunity as the festival presents a target-rich environment. The only problem is that those targets are moving. You’ve got to choose wisely and have a little luck to find a subject that doesn’t walk out of sight during the very few minutes you have to sketch them.

This year the Collectif had a sketchcrawl and we all showed up in Place Royale, stuck our butts on the steps of the cathedral and began frantically drawing anything that moved, or rather, anything that stopped moving.

I haven’t taken the time to scan all the sketches I did in my little notebook but I scanned this one to show you my ‘warm up’ that morning. Nothing to speak of but it got my eyes focused on the crowd.

During this event I also did some sketches in the sketchbook I created by cutting a larger, cheap sketchbook in half.

I drew the banner and a bit of one of the buildings just to document some of the ambiance. It was a half-hearted attempt because my eyes wer on all the people. When my eye saw this hat, I had to draw the woman under it.

Occasionally some of the costumed people would stand still, even pose. The guy on the right was standing on the steps of the church talking about history and I took advantage of that. The guy on the left actually posed for the group but where I was sitting was too close to sketch all of him so I concentrated on his head.

This one is a reflection of the serendipity of street sketching. I was sitting in a really tiny park area and I had started drawing the woman on the right. I got as far as you see the sketch when she decided to run off with one of her friends. So, I started sketching the guy sitting at the edge of the park (behind the big flower pot), who was playing piano. As he was mostly not visible I added some of the facing restaurant as background.

This kind of sketchcrawl is intense. Unlike sketchcrawls in parks, museums or gardens where we lounge around, leisurely sketching, people sketching in a crowd is more like herding cats in terms of its frantic nature. But it sure is fun. And the best part of this day was that I was going to do it all over again “tomorrow.” I’ll talk about that – tomorrow.

Speed Dating – Sketcher Style

Posted on August 10, 2015 by Larry Marshall

I’ve mentioned that I’m in an experiment mood these days and with the Nouvelle France Festival event coming up (the equivalent of duck hunting for a sketcher, with lots of targets that are all moving too fast) I was walking along my river (riviere St. Charles in Quebec City) pondering how “extreme” the sketching is at that event. I was remembering how last year I had a great time but went home with lots and lots of bad and incomplete sketches, though I think I did post one or two.

Anyways, as I was thinking about this I arrived at the Palais du justice de Quebec, or rather Le parc de l’Amerique-Latine that sits between the court building and the river. This park is filled with statues and busts of some of the ‘greats’ of Latin America. I know almost none of them, but as a sketcher, I’d drawn several of them.

It occurred to my aging and weary brain that I could use this cluster of targets for rapid fire target practice, sketcher style. Sort of training for the Nouvelle France event. Yeah…I know…you’re right. But as Steve Martin used to say, “I’m a wild and crazy guy!”

I decided to give myself fifteen minutes to draw as many of the busts as I could, using only a pointy device and sketchbook. No arms tied behind my back to make it hard and no need for camouflage to sneak up on the targets. Nope, just me, my fountain pen and fifteen minutes. I set a timer on my phone and got to work…frantic work, at least for me as I’m very much a plod along sketcher. Precious seconds were wasted walking between targets and setting up my tripod stool. I need more training as a tripod setter-upper.

I finished a third bust at 14 minutes so used the last minute to draw an extra eye, at a more leisurely pace. It was an interesting and fun exercise. I hope it’ll help me be successful when Festivale de Nouvelle France rolls around. Do you do crazy stuff like this?

Sketching Alone In A Garden

Posted on August 6, 2015 by Larry Marshall

I went to a large garden the other day. It was overcast but warm and windless and the garden was nearly deserted. I wandered around and finally decided to draw a scene that included an arbor that bordered one side of a central area in the garden. I thought I’d show you the steps I took in drawing it. The sketch was done as a two-page spread in a Stillman & Birn Beta (6×9) sketchbook.

I laid out all of the objects in the scenes, most represented only by an irregular, but properly proportioned blob, but it’s during this stage that I get all my proportion thinking accomplished. This solves two problems for me. First, it’s too easy to start concentrating on details if I start with pen and then proportions take a back seat until it’s too late. Doing this in pencil mentally separates it from “drawing” for me. The second thing is that when I do pick up my pen, I no longer have to think about sizes of the objects relative to one another. I know they will fit into their blobs and so I can really have fun while drawing.

One could say that this is actually two steps. I drew everything with a Namiki Falcon and DeAtramentis Document Black ink and then I added some darks with a Kuretake #13 brush pen. If the darks are a second step, it’s a step I don’t do well with. If it’s not a separate step, I still don’t do well with it. I just don’t ‘get’ where I should put the darks and/or what marks work best to depict darks I see in the real world. But in the end, this is what the ink drawing looks like.

I’m really at a loss when it comes to watercolor techniques. I can mix colors but I really have no clue what to do with them once they’re mixed (grin). Nevertheless, this is what the sketch looked like when I was done.

I don’t always work this way. Sometimes I skip the pencil stage and try to do the proportion/perspective stuff while drawing with ink. I know the internet is fond of saying that ‘direct-to-ink’ is what real men do and that it’s faster. While I think that nonsense, in my experience, it takes me longer to do a drawing like this when I skip the pencil step than when I include it. Note, however, no erasers were abused in the creation of this drawing until the end of the ink stage when I run a kneaded eraser over the entire drawing to remove all the ‘blobs’ of the pencil sketch.