Sketching A House On A Hill

Posted on July 29, 2015 by Larry Marshall

We’re finally getting some summer heat here, along with our typical high humidity. But that wasn’t how this day started. We started the day trying to figure out where we could go to sketch indoors because it was too cold to be outside and there was a threat of rain.

We took the ferry over to Levis with the idea of sketching in the new passenger facility that I described in an earlier post and so off we went, Yvan, myself and Claudette.

The trip was uneventful except that the sun came out so when we got to the other side we thought we should walk along the street while searching for sketching opportunities. There are many along the south shore of the St. Lawrence.

Being the sloth that I am, I was happy with the idea of lounging around in the grass of the park there. Claudette and Yvan thought it might be fun to climb the stairs up to old buildings that reside “up there.”

Let me explain a bit. These are not ordinary stairs. We’re talking serious stair-climbing here as the stairs worm their way, serpentine fashion up the cliff face to the neighborhoods of old Levis. These stairs have their own restaurant, the Restaurant de l’escalier for goodness sake. Up we went.

At the top Yvan and Claudette settled into sketching mode and I realized that I’d forgotten to bring my stool with me. I wandered around, looking for a place to sit that would afford a view of something. The best I could muster was sitting on a curb at the bottom of the street, looking up at a couple houses. This perch was right over a sewer grate that supplied free smells, direct from the neighborhood. What more could a guy ask for? Oh yeah…it was out in what had become a bright, direct, and very warm sun.

Undaunted, I started drawing a couple buildings. They ended up a bit wonky but hey, at least I didn’t lose my pen, which fell onto that sewer grate I mentioned, but didn’t slip through the slots to a stinky grave. It was a special day.

Stillman & Birn Gamma (10×7), Namiki Falcon, De Atramentis Document ink

Canadian Exclusive Ink

Posted on July 27, 2015 by Larry Marshall

It’s not often that a US company offers a product that’s a Canadian Exclusive but then Nathan Tardiff beats a different drum from most. Love ’em or hate ’em, Noodler’s inks and pens are everywhere in our sketching world and that’s in large part because of Nathan’s approach to business.

And it’s true that he’s produced a Canadian exclusive blue-black ink called Blue Upon the Plains of Abraham. It’s a reference to a famous battle (1759) between the French and British for control over Quebec City. I’ve talked about the Plains of Abraham here before as there is a lot to sketch there. We held our last sketchcrawl there.

I’ve only had the ink for a few days soI can’t do an exhaustive review. I bought mine from Wonder Pens, whose service was great and since they’re in Toronto, it didn’t take long for the ink to get to me. Currently I have it in my TWSBI Mini and a Sailor fude pen as I take my first steps towards using the ink.

It’s a very dark blue. So much so that you have to look closely to see that it’s not black. But the blue component is just enough to give the results a special look. The ink is one of Noodler’s “eternal inks”, meaning that it’s supposed to be “waterproof” but because these inks become waterproof by contact with cellulose, heavily-sized watercolor papers leave it susceptible to water. The Plains of Abraham ink is better than most in this regard, ranking up with Lexington Gray in terms of waterproofiness (is that a word?).

Otherwise the ink performs well, though it seems to write a bit drier than many Noodler’s inks, more like Bernanke Blue & Black. This can be a good or bad thing depending upon what you’re doing with it. I’ll talk more about it as time goes on but for now, I’ll leave you with a sketch I did with it yesterday.

Shivering and Sketching On Rue St. Jean

Posted on July 26, 2015 by Larry Marshall

It’s mid-July so when I went out the door on Wednesday I was wearing shorts, a t-shirt and a long sleeve shirt as a morning jacket of sorts. With climatic disruption going on around the world, I’m going to have to pay closer attention cuz I was cold…cold…cold while sketching on rue St. Jean.

Rue St. Jean is a street full of great sketching subjects. It’s also a tough place to sketch most of them because there’s lots of foot traffic and the sidewalks are fairly narrow. The end result of this is that one must find a combination of sketching subject and a place to put one’s butt while you draw it if one is to be successful.

I found this scene across the street from one of the few benches along the street’s length. In spite of being cold as I sketched, it was fun as several people stopped to chat. I packed up and left as soon as I finished the ink drawing, not adding color until I got home and warmed up. I really need to learn how to do watercolors as I swear this sketch looked better without it.

Stillman & Birn Gamma (10×7), Namiki Falcon, De Atramentis Document Black

How To Stop A Little Boy

Posted on July 24, 2015 by Larry Marshall

The other day I headed out on a quest for sketching subjects. Actually, I was going to the post office but I’m always looking for things to sketch – my prime directive.

As I came out of the post office it had started raining and I was ill-prepared for it, so I ran across the street to a bus stop and soon I was on my way to one of the larger malls in town with the thought of doing my daily walking there. I arrived to find some sort of carnival-like thing going on with kids and strollers, whose size has grown to that of a Buick in recent years, everywhere. Because of the crowds it was hard to navigate through the mall but I managed to cruise the bookstore, the tea store, and to get a look at the new food court – a result of ongoing remodeling.

And then I saw it, an idea sketching subject. No, it wasn’t the guy in the bright, lime green jacket twisting balloons into toys. It was an opportunity to draw a little boy who WASN’T MOVING. He was transfixed on the man who was making a Spiderman for him. Relative to most encounters with kids, I had all the time in the world to sketch him, and I took advantage of the anomaly.

When I finished I decided to start drawing Mr Greencoat but just as I started, he finished and handed the Spiderman to the little boy. The boy ran to his mom, excited by his new acquisition. Mr. Greencoat had an immediate kid replacement and went to work making what appeared to be a dog. Undaunted, I continued drawing him, trying to adjust his new position to the old one I’d started in my sketch and substituting Spiderman blobs for the dog blobs before me.

Fabriano “el cheapo” sketchbook, Namiki Falcon, De Atramentis Document Black

Then the fun began. The little boy came down a bit from his euphoria, saw me, and walked over to see what I was doing, probably as much because of the other kids who were watching me as anything. If you ever want to feel like the Pied Piper, sit down in a sea of kids and start sketching. Kids “get it.”

When he looked at the sketch he immediately recognized himself, Mr Greencoat and his Spiderman and cried out “C’est moi! c’est moi!” as he proudly looked at the other kids. While he had been completely immobile as I sketched him, he was now doing a good popcorn imitation and, jumping up and down, he went to his mom and dragged her over, saying “C’est moi!” I got banged a couple times by Spiderman as the bouncing continued and I was trying to complete Mr Greencoat. I got excited too and what started out as a simple little quick-sketch of a little boy became let’s add that little girl, what’s that thing behind them? It was, as they say, a hoot. My only regret is that I didn’t think at the time to give the sketch to that little boy. I think it would have competed well with Spiderman for a place in his room.

Two Sketchbooks For The Price Of One

Posted on July 22, 2015 by Larry Marshall

Since I’ve been in a ‘cheap sketchbook’ rut lately, I thought it only fitting if I were to let it run its course and describe another approach I’ve taken, for when being able to stuff the book in one’s pocket isn’t important.

Sometimes I want to do larger quick-sketches are possible in a 3 x 5 “scribbler.” I could do them in one of my Stillman & Birn books but my quick-sketches are REALLY quick-sketches and typically they’re not very good, so I want REALLY cheap paper upon which to do them. Also, as I’m not doing watercolor I don’t need the paper quality of Stillman & Birn.

You can buy inexpensive 5×8 and 6×9 sketchbooks that have 60lb paper and are fine for such things. I’ve used Strathmore’s “Sketch” books for this purpose. They’ve got paper covers and cost $6-7 here. They’re fine. They work. Lots of people use them. Canson has equivalent offerings.

But one day, while I was padding around the art store touching everything, I saw 8.5 x 11, spiral-bound, hardcover sketchbooks (60lb paper) on sale for $8.

This is Fabriano's version of an 8.5x11 sketchbook. I paid $9.99CDN for it. Sometimes they're on sale.

This is Fabriano’s version of an 8.5×11 sketchbook. I paid $9.99CDN for it. Sometimes they’re on sale.

And I wondered. I wondered enough to buy one. I wondered enough to take it home and go into my ~~dungeon~~, err, workshop. I even wondered if I was nuts for doing it but a few seconds later I’d run that sketchbook through my bandsaw, creating two 5.5 x 9 sketchbooks.

If you don’t own a bandsaw, I bet you know someone who does.

Cutting them does leave bare cardboard edges on one side of each book but that’s easily fixed with a fat Sharpie marker. When bought on sale these cost me $4 each and provide 160 sheets of sketching fun.

One caveat about the cutting. You can cut right through the spiral binding and it will generally work (depends on saw and blade I suppose but even my wood blades worked fine). The potential exists, though, that the spiral will get bent at the point of the cut. It’s really easy, though, to use some wire nippers to cut the spiral in the middle, removing a small section of it before cutting the book. Otherwise, this is one of those no-brainer thingies that one can do to produce nice quick-sketchbooks in a more typical size than the ones I’ve been talking about recently. Here’s some lines I made in such a book while watching Paul Heaston’s class on Craftsy.

Yvan and I use these all the time when we go to music recitals or quick-sketch in places where we’re carrying our art bags and don’t have to worry about being inconspicuous as we sketch. Give it a try.