Cancelled Concert – McDonalds Fun

Posted on March 4, 2016 by Larry Marshall

This little guy was munching on a hamburger and fries. Stillman & Birn soft- Alpha (4x6), Platinum 3776, Platinum Carbon ink

This little guy was munching on a hamburger and fries. Stillman & Birn soft-
Alpha (4×6), Platinum 3776, Platinum Carbon ink

Yvan and I were going to sketch at a musical event in downtown Quebec City on Saturday morning but a blizzard was in progress and it was hard to get around town. Schools and offices were closed and even the buses were having a hard time.

As I trudged through snow on rue St. Jean I couldn’t help but think about how silly it was for someone, someone I resembled, to be expending this much effort to get somewhere to sketch. It was ‘free coffee’ week at McDonalds and I met Yvan there. We got coffee and looked out the window at the storm as we drank it.

Rather than be completely defeated, we both got out our small sketchbooks and did some quick sketches.

This plow was sitting down the street from McDonalds. The view from our second-story window was a bit odd but it made for a fun quick sketch. Stillman & Birn soft- Alpha (4×6), Platinum 3776, Platinum Carbon ink

Yvan's last name is Breton and this sign was hanging about half a block up the street. Stillman & Birn soft- Alpha (4x6), Platinum 3776, Platinum Carbon ink

Yvan’s last name is Breton and this sign was hanging about half a block up the street. Stillman & Birn soft- Alpha (4×6), Platinum 3776, Platinum Carbon ink

In many ways the storm and cancelled event could have soured the day. But we had some great conversations about art, did a bit of sketching and, like most sketching days, it was a good day. I’ll stop here as otherwise I’d have to start talking about the hours I spent the rest of the day clearing snow.

Kids, Kids, Kids…Kids And Me In Egypt

Posted on March 2, 2016 by Larry Marshall

Yvan and I agreed to go to the museum Tuesday morning. Both of us knew that it was spring break for the kids of Quebec but neither of us knew that this particular Tuesday was also “free” day. When I arrived there were hundreds of people in the lobby. So many, in fact, that I didn’t even wait to check my coat because the line was too long. I just headed upstairs to the Egypt exhibit.

Realizing that the place would be crowded, I found a place where I had the side of a glass case at my back and a clear view of a statue and set up to sketch. I spent the next hour or so in that one place, sketching one statue.

But the sketching was the least important activity; I talked to kids. I love kids when I’m sketching. It’s hard to concentrate on drawing and my sketches sometimes suffer, but I still love them. They’re so inquisitive and I never have to listen to them tell me that they wish they had the talent to draw or that they’d love to draw but they just don’t have the time. Kids are the opposite of adults. For them, drawing is KOOL. They do it too. They’ll tell you what they like to draw. They’ll tell you that they like your drawing. They ask about my pen. A couple asked how long I’d been working on the sketch. But mostly they just stood around watching, at least until their parents came land hauled them away. Many of them dragged their parents over to see my drawing.

And on this day there were kids everywhere. I’ve never seen so many people at the museum. There were at least half a dozen kids around me at all times and I spent more time chatting than drawing. It was a lot of fun. As I packed up to leave I got to see what was really going on behind me. The exhibit room looked like a rock concert. People everywhere and as Yvan and I left we found there were lines of people waiting to enter the exhibit. It was extraordinary, but I had to wonder if I could have found a place to sit if I’d wanted to draw something else. I’ll never know as we left with smiles on our faces. Here’s the sketch I did during “free” day.

Stillman & Birn Beta (9x12), Platinum Carbon Black, Platinum 3776

Stillman & Birn Beta (9×12), Platinum Carbon Black, Platinum 3776, watercolor pencils

Winter Food Court Sketching

Posted on February 25, 2016 by Larry Marshall

My daughter’s was home from university for a week and we’ve had some snow storms. These two things combined to keep me from going out sketching. I was longing to do some so I headed out one morning to one of the big malls, and their food court.

Food courts are great places to sketch people, either while they’re eating or when they’re standing in line to order. All food courts are not created equal, however. There’s a mall really close to my house that has two food courts and they’re both horrible sketching locations. Why? Because it’s hard to sit so you can draw people ordering and their tables are crammed together, making it hard to sketch without someone slopping their Big Mac sauce on your sketch (grin).

But the one I went to is the newest in our city and it’s big, very roomy and there’s just the right distance between tables and vendors to allow lines to form in a couple directions (providing different angles) and the view open.

There’s not much to tell about the session. I got a cup of coffee and started drawing. I was using my Platinum 3776 with Platinum Carbon Black ink and I was sketching in a Stillman & Birn 4×6 softcover Alpha series book. Great combination for this sort of thing as I like to add a bit of color when I finish up and the S&B paper accommodates that nicely. I did time the session as I wanted to see how long I could keep doing it without getting tired. I’m a lazy sketcher and have to push myself to sketch for long periods of time. Come to think of it, long periods of time is a very relative term and, for me, “long periods of time” means relatively short. Quick sketching is rather intense as people are moving a lot, but I managed to draw for 45 minutes, punctuated by coffee drinking. I ended up with 14 sketches. Here’s some of them. I got tired of scanning. I told you I am a lazy sketcher (grin).

Sketching Polar Bears On A Glacier

Posted on February 23, 2016 by Larry Marshall

Shari Blaukopf is a master at painting snow. I am not. Whenever I try I feel like I’m sketching a polar bear on a glacier. Everything is white. Yesterday I tried again, working from a photo I took from the window of the Maison Dorion-Coulombe, the site of our recent sketchcrawl. I always feel that my sketching from photos reflects too much my disinterest in sketching from photos but still, I should be able to do better. I thought I’d share the results with you anyways. Maybe I’ll get better at snow…some day.

Stillman & Birn Beta, Platinum 3776, Platinum Carbon Black

Stillman & Birn Softcovers: An Exciting Announcement

Posted on February 20, 2016 by Larry Marshall

Via Giphy.com

I am so excited to be writing this post. As many know, Stillman & Birn, my favorite sketchbook company, released a line of softcover sketchbooks not very long ago. Sadly, what most also know is that there were manufacturing problems with those books and they had to recall all of them, at great expense, from around the world. I applauded them for this as it hit their bottom line hard, but they didn’t want we artists to bear the pain of the problem.

Excepting the manufacturing problem, these softcover books looked like a dream come true. Available in all of Stillman & Birn’s great papers, in a variety of sizes, and with cover colors that reflected the paper type. The covers had an almost suede-feel to them. They weighed only 55-65% of the weight of the equivalent hardcover and they were much thinner. A dream come true for someone like me who carries several sketchbooks and walks a couple hours a day to sketching locations.

Stillman & Birn sofcover prototypes

Well, they’re BACK!!! Or at least almost back. Stillman & Birn says they should be available ‘real soon’ and they sent me a couple of their prototype books to get my opinion about whether the problems are fixed.

To that I can say, they are fixed and then some. I’ve gone through both of my prototype books, one page at a time, and the problems we saw with the initial release are gone. But it’s better than that. These books lay flatter than their early softcovers and certainly better than the hardcovers. I didn’t have to bend them backwards as you do with the hardcovers to get them to lay flat. They just do, though I still recommend going through each page, folding it out flat before using the book. I do that with any sketchbook, regardless of brand.

As I said, the books they sent me are prototypes. They came with Delta and Gamma paper so I could check both the 150gsm and 270gsm binding. The covers are the same material as the production versions but these aren’t color-coded; they’re prototypes. Still, they are amazing books and I’m downright giddy that I have them to use. I was planning to get somewhere to do a sketch for this blog post but a snowstorm prevented that. Truth is, everyone knows how great Stillman & Birn paper is so I decided it was more important to get this announcement into the ether. So here it is, without a sketch. Here’s the money shot of the books laying flat. Ain’t they gorgeous? Coming soon to an art store near you.

Stillman & Birn softcovers, laying flat.