Sketching Marais Du Nord, Quebec

Posted on September 14, 2015 by Larry Marshall

Marais du nord is one of my favorite places in the Quebec City area. It’s only a few kilometers out of town but when you go there, you leave the hectic, noisy city behind and enter the world of chittering squirrels, bird noises and, most of all, the silence and peace that comes from being close to nature.

Marais du nord (north marsh) is situated within and around a large expanse of marshland between Lac Delage and Lac St. Charles and is maintained by a consortium of concerned citizens who decided that too much of the land around the lakes was being bought up and developed. They took on the Herculean effort of convincing the government to give them money and developed the “park” (I’m not sure whether park or reserve is the better word) to maintain the marshland and to provide hiking trails, bridges, overlooks and benches for people wanting to get away from the city for a while. A lot of Quebec kids are getting to see nature up close because of Marais du nord.

Chantal and I headed there for the day, mostly to clear our heads with a bit of hiking, lunch in the woods, and maybe, just maybe, to find some mushrooms to sketch. She has a “mushroom book” in which she sketches mushrooms and the mushroom diversity at Marais du nord is extraordinary.

It was a glorious day, though it was cut a bit short by threatening clouds that dumped a few tons of water on us as we sat in the car. Sometimes things do work out and we guessed right this time. Nevertheless, we got some hiking done and found some of those mushrooms.

Stillman & Birn Alpha (10×7), Namiki Falcon, DeAtramentis Document Black

Because this was a hiking trip, the notion that I would spend a couple hours doing a landscape was out of the question. Chantal is patient but there are limits. There were mushrooms to find, afterall. I saw this lack of time as an opportunity to force myself to put into practice some of the stuff that Marc Taro Holmes is trying to teach those of us taking his Craftsy Travel Sketching in Mixed Media course.

I’ve been doing a bunch of quick, single-line sketches, trying to capture a scene quickly and simplifying by elimination of details. My typical sketching style makes it hard for me to capture a chunk of nature quickly; nature is just too darn complex. So I decided to see if I could grab a scene quickly. I didn’t use the single-line approach but worked VERY loose and quick, for me, and in 10-12 minutes I’d done this drawing. This was nothing short of a miracle for me as I can burn an hour drawing a single tree. The bridge would have taken another hour. I did several of these quick sketches during the day and I was generally pleased with the results. Maybe Marc’s right and that by the time I’ve finished up a few dozen of those single-line sketches I’ll have figured it out.

10-12 minute sketch in Stillman & Birn Beta (9×12), Namiki Falcon & Kuretake #13 brush pen.

Sketching In St. Vallier

Posted on September 1, 2015 by Larry Marshall

Last Wednesday several of us drove to St. Vallier at the invitation of Louise Denault, one of our sketching buddies. This was very exciting because St. Vallier is a beautiful place, with a wide variety of sketching locations.

4x6 toned paper, Platinum Carbon pen, Platinum Carbon Black ink

4×6 toned paper, Platinum Carbon pen, Platinum Carbon Black ink

I took advantage of the fact that, for once, I wasn’t driving and so I did some quick sketches along the way. The bumps in the road added to the scribbly nature of the sketches but it was fun anyway.

We picked up Louise at her house and headed to a side road overlooking the valley and its agricultural fields. Everyone set up next to a wheat field with the expanse of the valley behind it, but I walked down the road to sketch an outbuilding I’d seen as we arrived.

Stillman & Birn Beta (6×9), Namiki Falcon, De Atramentis Document Black

Claudette and Louise came to where I was sketching just as I was finishing and we walked back to the group together. It had been determined that it was time for lunch and that we would head back to Louise’s house for lunch.

As everyone else was packing up I looked out at the valley and decided it would be an opportunity to do another one of those one-line sketch drawings and so I did one. I did ‘cheat’ a bit and lifted my pen a couple times to keep the drawing a bit cleaner, but by the time everyone was packed I’d done the sketch, added some darks, and was slopping paint on the piece of cheap Bristol on which I did it. I mention this last thing because it was a mistake. I thought I’d grabbed a piece of watercolor paper but instead I was trying to herd water on a piece of slippery, coated paper and I was using a waterbrush to do it. That was exciting. But this was a few minutes of fun and the result isn’t horrible (grin).

6x9 Bristol paper, Namiki Falcon, De Atramentis Document Black

6×9 Bristol paper, Namiki Falcon, De Atramentis Document Black

Lunch was to die for, and if I’d eaten one more bite that might have happened. Louise provided quite a spread, with a beautiful salad, lots of cheeses, smoked sturgeon, quiche, baguettes, and wine… lots of wine. I was stuffed. And then Louise mentioned the pies…two pies. And, of course, we had to try both of them 🙂

Louise’s house is amazing but it’s the backyard, with its gardens, gazebo and view of the St. Lawrence that is the real jewel and we were eating in said gazebo. I’m used to a protein bar and a coffee when I go sketching. This was different, a really good kind of different 🙂

And now that we were done with lunch, it was time to get out sketching again. So, barely able to move, I left the gazebo completely delier, my new French word for the day. It means to be loosened up, and boy, was I loose. Any looser and I would’ve fallen down. I needed a nap.

Off we went, to a small nature park not far from St. Vallier. It was a parking lot, picnic tables, some trails and a gazebo set up for bird watching along the coast. Most of us decided to draw the gazebo. Here’s mine.

Stillman & Birn Beta (6×9), Namiki Falcon, De Atramentis Document Black

It was a great day but by then we were all pretty worn out and called it a day. Thanks to Louise for all her hospitality, her zucchinis, and that fantastic lunch.

Field Notes Workman’s Companion Edition

Posted on July 9, 2015 by Larry Marshall

I do a lot of sketching in tiny, inexpensive sketchbooks and ever since Marc Taro Holmes suggested using a Moleskine staple-bound notebook, I’ve been trying different notebooks in this 3×5 format. I was very displeased by the Moleskines as ink bleeds through their thin paper. So far, every book I’ve tried has that problem. I’m not talking about ghosting, where you can see the sketch on the backside but ink that actually shows up on the back of the page. While ghosting is also a problem in most of the notebooks, I’m more tolerant of that as my goal with these books isn’t high-quality sketches.

But FINALLY, I’ve found what I’ve been looking for and it comes in the form of the new Field Notes Workshop Companion issue. Field Notes are fun because they’re sold in a variety of cover formats. The problem with them is that they typically use 50lb, inexpensive paper and they’re just not fountain pen friendly. If you draw with ballpoint pens, they’re fine and very convenient. But I’m a fountain pen addict and it’s a no go as a sketching substrate.

The Workshop Companion books are different. They come with a new, 70lb paper that’s a higher quality than even the couple issues they’ve produced with 70lb paper in the past. I find I can force ghosting to the point of being annoying but it requires that I really dump a lot of ink on the page. So far I’ve yet to get any bleedthrough, even with brush pens. I’ve even applied bits of watercolor to the paper and even that works pretty well.

My first test was a simple outline image, done with a Platinum Carbon Pen and Platinum Carbon ink. This was a ‘soft’ test as most of these kinds of notebooks will handle this combination, though in this case there was no ghosting whatever, which was an improvement.

I went out sketching and did these quick sketches. My goal was to try adding some dark shading to see what happens. This is where most books in this format fail, with both bleedthrough and ghosting. Here there still wasn’t any bleedthrough and you had to look hard to see ghosting. Scanning didn’t pick up any of the ghosting.

No special tests here but I was drawing with my Namiki Falcon and De Atramentis Document Black and again, there was no bleedthrough and ghosting was hard to see.

I was doodling while watching a baseball game and dragged this image up from my imagination. It’s got enough darks in it to really test for bleedthrough and ghosting. Ghosting can be seen but again, it’s minimal.

I thought I’d do the acid test. I was watching some guys playing soccer and started drawing this building that was at one end of the soccer pitch. I added some darks with a Kuretake #33 brush pen and then added some color. Still no bleed through. Ghosting is a bit worse but everything’s relative as the ghosting doesn’t get picked up when scanning the backside of this sketch.

In conclusion, I’m a happy camper and I’ll be ordered some more of these Workshop Companion books. They’re wonderful. I can shove them in a shirt pocket if I want but more often I have it in a front pouch in my sketching bag so it’s immediately available.

While I can sketch in these books fine, when sketching a 2-page spread it’s nice to have something to hold the book open and flat without having to fiddle around. I solved that by cutting a small piece of Fomecore, which weighs nothing and I clip the book to this backing board. It works surprisingly well and really makes holding the book a lot easier.

This is what it looks like when clipped to the board. It becomes a single unit where you don’t have to worry about keeping the paper flat.

Sketching At The Stewart Gallery

Posted on July 7, 2015 by Larry Marshall

What do you get when you combine a fantastic urban sketcher group with a great city cultural center, who happens to exist in a beautiful mansion and grounds along the shore of Lake Louise? The stuff that dreams are made of, at least for this sketcher.

I was determined to get to Montreal for at least one of the USK-Montreal group’s sketchcrawls this year and it was only by “guess and by golly,” as my dad used to say, that I chose the one scheduled for July 5th. It was to be held on the grounds of Stewart Gallery on the opening of a exhibition of art by Jane Hannah, Shari Blaukopf, and Marc Taro Holmes.

Sunday morning I headed off with my buddy Yvan. There’s nothing better than traveling with another sketcher as time flies as art discussions, discussions of the cool house with the red roof that we just passed, how the distant barns and tree line would make a nice sketch, and all the rest of the stuff that sketchers talk about took place. In no time we were there…and my jaw dropped.

The Stewart Galleries is an amazing place but what was more amazing were all the sketchers dotting the landscape. There were dozens of them. No, there were more. One count suggested there were 80 of them…all in one place, all of them sketching, chatting and having a great time.

My eyes were in information overload. This was a wonderful place to sketch but whose got time to sketch when there are so many sketchers to meet, so much art to see. All I could do was walk around talking to people. I finally got to meet Shari Blaukopf and Jane Hannah. Both are as wonderful as I supposed them to be from internet interactions. I found Jane by walking up to every red-headed woman, asking if they knew Jane Hannah. It was the one time I wished there were fewer people there, but I finally found her and met all the red-heads. That’s gotta be good, isn’t it?

The Stewart Gallery was amazing. The event coordinator, Amanda Johnston did an incredible job, as did her staff. I’ve never been treated so well as a sketcher. They provided coffee, snacks and free ice cream. If you wanted, they even had pencils, paper, and clip boards available for those who came without their sketchbooks. What was particularly great was that these offerings were used quite a lot by those attracted to the event by the USK-Montreal group.

Finally, guilt got the better of me and I decided that I really needed to draw something so I sat down at the edge of the lake and drew this view, looking away from Stewart Gallery towards the Pointe Claire marina. It’s not my best work as it was rushed and my head was spinning with excitement. Nevertheless, it is evidence that I sketched at the event. Then it was back to talking, viewing the new gallery exhibit and enjoying the day. Thanks to all who made the day so fantastic.

Stillman & Birn Beta (9x12), Namiki Falcon, DeAtramentis Document Black

Stillman & Birn Beta (9×12), Namiki Falcon, DeAtramentis Document Black

The View From The Car

Posted on July 6, 2015 by Larry Marshall

I rarely sketch from a vehicle as others do. Truth is, I rarely have a vehicle available to me. But a few days ago, with rain stifling my ability to walk and sketch outdoors, I went to Ile d’Orleans with my daughter. We parked in front of the Boulange and after consuming one of their great pastries we got in the car and started to sketch.

The cadence of our activity was interesting. Scribble, scribble, turn-the-windshield-wiper-on/off, scribble, scribble. We had a great time, though I suspect most would think us nuts. This is what I drew.

Stillman & Birn Beta (6x9), Namiki Falcon, De Atramentis Document Black

Stillman & Birn Beta (6×9), Namiki Falcon, De Atramentis Document Black

I was asked several times this weekend what watercolors I use and I have to admit that I rarely mention them on this blog. I’m more of a line guy than a color guy and so it never crosses my mind to mention it. But, it is the case that I use Daniel Smith watercolors almost exclusively. I switched from Winsor & Newton about six months ago.