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?

As part of the 400th anniversary of the founding of Quebec City, the Fontaine de Tourny was placed in front of Quebec’s parliament building.  I’d like to provide you a concise history of this fountain but, its history depends on who you ask.

The fountain gets its name from two identical fountains that sat at each end of the Tourny promenade in Bourdeaux.  Mathurin Moreau was its designer.  That much is certain.  But some reports suggest that the French government gifted the fountain to Quebec.  A more complete story is that a guy named Marc Maison acquired it when the fountains were removed from Bourdeaux and much later sold to Peter Simons, a Quebec entrepreneur.  It was restored given to Quebec for the 400th anniversary.  Most stories in Quebec suggest there were two of these.  A few admit to the existence of five scattered around the world.  The internet has a way of turning up info on such things and the total has climbed to 19 or 20 of them.  I suspect the foundry wanted to get their money’s worth from the molds (grin).

What I do know is that it’s a magnificent fountain, towering some 21-feet in the air.  I was with Claudette and Yvan while drawing this one and we had a great day.

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