We get a lot of large ships either docking in Quebec City or passing through the most narrow portion of the St. Lawrence.  In either case, tugboats are often required to shove them this way or that.  So, within the confines of Bassin Louise, our protected harbor there are always half a dozen tugboats awaiting assignment.  Just before I left for Ottawa (the reason this blog went silent for a few days) I did this sketch of one of the big ‘ocean’ tugs.  A segment of a huge grain elevator is depicted (I hope) in the background.

Stillman & Birn Alpha (10×7), Pilot Falcon, Platinum Carbon Black

If you only view Quebec City through my sketches you’d think we only had old buildings, all built before the 20th Century.  Part of “artistic license” is the ability to choose my subjects and I do prefer the older buildings.  Quebec City does have modern buildings, however.  They’re just boring, like they are in most cities.

But stick a bunch of flags in the scene, as exist along Boulevard Rene-Levesque near our Grand Theatre and even tall block boxes like the Delta Hotel start to look ok.  The Delta Hotel is still boring, but the flags are cool (grin).

Stillman & Birn Alpha (10×7), Pilot Falcon, Platinum Carbon Black

This is a scene I’ve been thinking about ever since Yvan pointed it out to me.  You have to climb to the top of the St. Louis Gate into the old city, and then walk to its south side.  This is the view looking back on the gate tower.

The best part was that early in the morning the gate was in sun, but I could sit in the shade – sketcher ecstasy.  I sketched as a steady stream of tourists wandered the path in front of me.  A couple came to see what I was doing and we had a nice chat about sketching.  People are so nice.

I’m really enjoying the use of my Pilot Falcon fountain pen.  Some suggested, before I bought it, that this pen isn’t fine enough.  Maybe I just got lucky but with a light touch I get a finer line from it than I do from any of my other fine pens, and it handled Platinum Carbon Black wonderfully.  Admittedly it’s a bit pricey but it has become an everyday tool for me which makes the price easier to tolerate.

Stillman & Birn Alpha (10×7), Pilot Falcon, Platinum Carbon Black

My goodness.  It’s the middle of August and we didn’t make it to 60F yesterday.  Seems the arctic is warming faster than the equator, as predicted by scientists, and causing some ‘interesting’ trends around our old planet.  While those around 30-degrees north are experiencing extreme droughts and high temps, those of us closer to 45-degrees north are losing our summers and getting an excess of rainfall as jet stream oscillations are increasing…as predicted.

And so it was yesterday when Fernande, Claudette and I needed a place to sketch.   The Quebec aquarium is an ideal spot for sketchers because it is full of both indoor and outdoor subjects.  And stupid me, in spite of the weather, I still wore shorts.  For the most part, on this day, we remained indoors.

I want to master sketching sea anemones.  I find them quite beautiful.  Members of the Coelenterata, these guys feed themselves with tentacles full of tiny little spears that capture plankton in the water.  They’re a paradox of an animal as they don’t move and yet are in constant motion.  Their foot is forever attached to the substrate and they wave their tentacles constantly, giving this sketcher fits trying to draw the tentacles.  Here’s my meager attempt.

Stillman & Birn Alpha (10×7), Pilot Falcon, Platinum Carbon Black

One of the amazing creatures of the sea is the Nautilus.  No, not the submarine, the animal.  They are Cephalopods, related to octopuses (octupii?) and squids.  And while the octopuses and squids have mostly lost their ‘shells’, the Nautilus seems to want us to know that they went to math school by sporting a shell that follows a beautiful Fibornacci spiral.  It’s truly an animal designed to be drawn.  Here’s mine.  I was cold when I finished.  Darn shorts.

Stillman & Birn Alpha (10×7), Pilot Falcon, Platinum Carbon Black

As we ate lunch we noticed the skies clearing a bit.  Maybe it was just wishful thinking, but Claudette wanted to sketch outdoors so we did.  Claudette and Fernande were dressed properly.  Did I mention that I was wearing shorts?

I don’t function well when I’m cold so I knew I couldn’t sketch anything too complex but there are a bunch of really fun playground toys and most look like great subjects for sketches so I tried this one, a little submarine that kids get in and ‘drive’.  It was fun.  I was cold.

Stillman & Birn Alpha (10×7), Pilot Falcon, Platinum Carbon Black

In all, we had a great day.  We’ve got annual passes to the aquarium and we’ll be using them a lot over the next few months.  It’s a great place to draw.  Why don’t you come along?