Sketching In A Target-Rich Environment

Posted on August 16, 2013 by Larry Marshall

Every year Quebec City holds the Festivale de Nouvelle France. It is a celebration of the French landing here and setting up shop. It’s a celebration of French culture. It’s a celebration of traditional foods. And it’s a heck of a good excuse for adults to dress up in costumes and roam the streets of old Quebec.

It’s also a great opportunity for sketchers who want to sketch people dressed as peasants, royalty, pirates, military, indians, and vendors. I was a peasant myself – a peasant with a pen and a sketchbook.

I’m not very good at this kind of sketching. Generally your subject is in a crowd of people and you have only a very short time to capture their geometry. Once done, you’ve got a variable, though always short period of time, to fill in the details from a subject that’s moving constantly, often away from, blending back into the crowd. Here are a few of my attempts; it sure was fun.

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.

Do You Sketch The Boring Stuff?

Posted on August 1, 2013 by Larry Marshall

I like to sketch boring stuff. I guess I should be more precise and say that I like to sketch things that other people find boring, or worse, don’t even notice them at all. Things like garbage cans, fire hydrants, telephone poles… and plain, ‘boring’ buildings.

So when I saw this view of the end of a 3-store complex, it called to me. I set up my stool, sat down, and got out my Stillman & Birn Zeta (5×8) sketchbook. I used a Pilot Prera loaded with Platinum Carbon Ink to do the sketch. I was happy with the results.

What do you think? Do you sketch boring stuff?

More Small Sketches… More Fun

Posted on July 29, 2013 by Larry Marshall

I’m continuing to have fun with small 3×5 (or smaller) sketches. Thought I’d share a few more with you.

This is a small, adorable building that is the home to a dress designer. It looks like something from a fairy tale and seemed like a great small sketch subject. As with my previous small sketches, this one (and the others here) were done in a Moleskine watercolor sketchbook. This particular one was done with a Pilot Prera and Platinum Carbon Black ink.

We took a day trip down (up?) the southern coast of the St. Lawrence River to Kamouraska. I’d hoped to sketch some of the great buildings there but instead I did this sketch of my daughter looking out at the ocean (the Atlantic is out there somewhere if you look far enough). I like this one a lot, probably because of the subject matter.

I was walking across the bridges that crosses the St. Charles River just as it flows into the St. Lawrence and decided, without much thought, to sketch this scene. I think the scene would have been better served by a larger format but the little sketchbook came out and the pen started jittering around the paper. I’m not a fan of sketching while standing and this is further evidence that I’m not very good at it. But they can’t all be great. It was still fun, which is why I do this.

Lastly, and certainly least, I was taking a break on Terrace Dufferin, a large boardwalk associated with the Chateau Frontenac. Across from me was this guy, looking out at the St. Lawrence. I took out my cheap sketchbook thinking I’d just do a one-minute sketch of him and, big mistake, I started the sketch in portrait format, thinking I was only going to draw him and couple boards to represent the bench. Then I sort of got carried away making squiggles to represent the railing and before I knew it I was having to draw him smaller than I planned, the bench became more integral to the sketch, and in the end I had a tiny, 2×2 vignette of a guy on a bench. It’s sort of scratch and way too small but again, quite fun and I thought I would share it as an example of improper planning… or maybe just the right amount 🙂 This one was done with a Uniball Signo UM151 (brown-black) pen. I really like these pens and I’m now armed with several of them.

Do You Sketch Small?

Posted on July 23, 2013 by Larry Marshall

I’ve always carried a small sketchbook with me for doing quick-sketches of things. But more and more I’ve been sketching in 5×8 or 10×7 sketchbooks. Working larger is fun and lets me ‘stretch’ my gaze a bit more. The result is that my small sketchbook became a cheap dollar store sketchbook that wouldn’t tolerate watercolors while my larger sketchbooks are all Stillman & Birn, first-class sketchbooks. The ‘gap’ between small and large had become greater in my sketching.

So I tried one of Stillman & Birn’s 4×6 sketchbooks. In fact, I’ve nearly filled two of them. The paper is fantastic, as always, but a 4×6, thick sketchbook is too ‘big’ to be called a ‘small’ sketchbook, at least for this street sketcher. I need something I can stuff in a pocket.

And so I bought a Moleskine watercolor book. I don’t much like its landscape layout but it’s tolerable in this small size. The larger one is almost painful to manage if you try to balance it on your knee while sitting on a stool, which is my typical approach. I do wish they’d produce a portrait format sketchbook with their watercolor paper. Heck, what I really wish is that Stillman & Birn would produce a thin (30pages?) 3×5 sketchbook with their Epsilon paper. Then I’d be a very happy sketcher.

This is a Celtic Cross in Artillery Park. 3x5 and done with a Pilot Prera.

This is a Celtic Cross in Artillery Park. Done with a Pilot Prera.

Anyways, I’ve started doing small pen & ink watercolors again and I’m really enjoying it. I thought I’d share some with you. All of these were done in the tiny Moleskine. I’ll mention the pen used in captions.