Larry D. Marshall's Blog, page 64

October Croquistes de Quebec Sketchcrawl

I’ve talked about walking along my river, sketching on my river, and seeing ducks and flowers on my river.  It’s not really my river but the St. Charles River passes within a few minute walk of my house and the paths along its banks are a handy way for me to walk downtown, so I spend a lot of time on it.

Where Riviere Lairet exits into Parc Brebeuf

The Croquistes de Québec will hold their October sketchcrawl on my river, or rather, at Parc Cartier-Brébeuf, on Sunday, October 11.  Parc Brebeuf is the confluence of the St. Charles and Lariat rivers; the Lariat runs mostly underground these days but is exposed to daylight just before it dumps into the St. Charles.  The park is a famous place as Cartier, explorer extraordinaire for the French government, overwintered (1535) in his ship, back when the St. Charles River was more open to ship traffic.  Now only kayaks and canoes ply its waters.

1st Avenue Bridge, just downstream from Parc Brebeuf

The sketchcrawl should be lots of fun so don’t be discouraged by our cooler weather.  Forecasts are for decent sketching weather and Yvan has arranged for us to use the Maison Dorion-Coulombe, which is a beautiful and large house along the banks of the river if you decide it is too cold.

We’ll meet at the usual time (9:30AM) and sketch all day so bring a lunch, a sketchbook, and your favorite pointy device.  Expect to be greeted with smiles.  For more details, head over to the Croquistes de Québec web page.   See you there.

Monument in Parc Brebeuf

Visiting The Visiting Geese At Cap Tourmente

Geese are travelers.  In summer they’re in the arctic, making babies and making happy sounds.  In winter, they’re in the south, hanging out and working on their tans.  But to get from one place to the other, they need a place to stop, get something to eat, rest up, and maybe check the weather.  My understanding that they don’t much like fast-food joints and prefer vegetarian fare, particularly that provided by the extensive salt marshes along the St. Lawrence River.

One such salt marsh is part of the Cap Tourmente nature reserve and that’s where Chantal and I headed last weekend.  We love wandering around the area, looking at the geese and just enjoying being out on a nice, sunny day.  This was a walking day, not a sketching day but at one point we found a bench and sat down to rest.  Having fun is hard work.

Near our bench was the remains of a stone building that is too far gone to know what it was when it had four walls and there weren’t trees growing out of it.  I got out a 6×9 piece of watercolor paper and started drawing, using my Namiki Falcon.  This was the result.

Apple Picking Time In Quebec

Because we have a large grocery store only a minute away, I can buy 10 lbs of apples in less than 10 minutes.  It will cost me 99-cents a pound.  Or, I can drive for half an hour, pick my own apples, pay 99-cents a pound, and drive home.  It’ll only take me 90 minutes.

So, of course, once a year, we head out to pick apples.  It’s fun.  I don’t know what it is about apple picking, but clean air and greenery is always appealing to me.

The place we go is on the south shore of the St. Lawrence River and at the back of the orchard, just above the St. Lawrence, is the top of a church that was built in 1667.  It existed on the site until 1720 so one assumes that this ‘steeple’ came off the church at that time.  It’s been repaired with modern nails and bolts to hold it together and architecture in early Quebec wasn’t very fancy but I like it.

A Bad Sketching Day

Does it ever happen to you?  You agree to meet people for a sketching session and when you arrive you’re just not inspired to sketch?  It doesn’t happen to me very often but when it does, the results aren’t pretty (grin).

Stillman & Birn Beta (9×12), Namiki Falcon, DeAtramentis Document Black

And so it was when I agreed to meet five of my sketching buddies at the Latin Park, or whatever they call the place where there are a bunch of statues of famous South American folks.  The smiling faces and upbeat attitudes that always come with sketchers were there and the day was gorgeous, as it’s still considerably warmer than it should be this time of year.  But, for some reason, I just wasn’t in the mood to sketch.

I sat down to draw this guy, or this hunk of stone that looks like a guy.  I worked faster than normal, mostly because of my disinterest, I think.  The drawing result wasn’t horrible but I decided to try something different with the watercolor and made a mess of it.

From there I started sketching one of the most boring buildings in Quebec, the bus station, which is also an expansion to the train station, one of the most beautiful buildings in Quebec.   I’d only just begun when everyone finished their first sketches, so we headed into the Dept. of Justice, the back of which looks out on the park, and we found toilets, coffee, and then returned to the park to eat lunch.  That was fun and we talked about film festivals, the weather and sketching.

Everyone decided to do some more sketching so I went back to my bus station sketch.  Why do we build such bland, soulless structures?  As I look around Quebec it’s easy to see that there was a time when people cared about the esthetics of the world around them.  Now it’s all just glass boxes full of cubicles.  So sad.

Stillman & Birn Beta (9×12), Namiki Falcon, DeAtramentis Document Black

After I finished that sketch I did a couple quick sketches of statue pieces but it just wasn’t an inspiring day for me.  Still, any sketching day beats a non-sketching day.

Relaxing At Mt Herman Cemetery

Stillman & Birn Beta (6×9), Namiki Falcon, DeAtramentis Document Black

One of my favorite places in Quebec City is the Mt Herman Cemetery.  It’s an old English cemetery that dates back at least to 1800 and is situated on a heavily forested, rolling hill landscape.  People go to Mt Herman to read, meditate, walk around, have picnics, let their kids see a bit of nature.  Of course, some come for a longer stay, which is the raison d’etre of a cemetery.

Me, I go there to sketch and to enjoy the quiet of the place, and that’s what I was doing about a week ago.  During my time there I did a couple sketches.  Nothing special, and not much to say about them except that both subjects were crafted during the 1860s.  We do live our history here in Quebec.

Stillman & BIrn Beta (6×9), Namiki Falcon, DeAtramentis Document Black

I’m Four Years Old

When you are as old as I am, birthdays aren’t a big deal beyond preferring them to the alternative.  But when I can say “I’m Four Years Old,” well that’s better, and I’m now a four-year-old sketcher.

I can’t really say what day it was that I read Danny Gregory’s Everyday Matters and bought into his notion that the value of art comes from the doing of it rather than the end product, but it was sometime in September of 2011.  At the time, I couldn’t draw anything.  I’d been told when I was a kid that I had no talent for art and I’d spent almost 60 years believing it.  Times change and now I don’t believe that “talent” has anything to do with it, though if persistence is a talent maybe there is truth in “you’re so talented” as I’ve been persistent if nothing else.

Anyways, back then I started drawing cubes… lots of cubes.  I figured that lots of things fit into cubes and so if I could draw cubes in any orientation, I’d have a good start on drawing pretty much anything.  And you know what, I think I was right.  Books told me I should also add spheres, cones and cylinders to the mix but otherwise, I started to build a foundation for drawing.  I got pretty myopic about it too, worrying only about the drawing, using paint like crayons and not giving it much thought.

Sadly, I don’t have any of those pages of cubes.  I was using photocopy paper and throwing everything away.  It wasn’t until I posted a couple simple sketches in a sketching group and mentioned my circular file approach to storage that someone said, “Hey, hang onto that stuff.  You’ll want to look back on it some day.”  And so I started my first sketchbook.

By this time I’d heard about urban sketching and that looked like a good idea to me – all except for that going out in public to sketch stuff.  That sounded really scary!

But I was determined.  I took a small 4×6 sketchbook, with horrible paper, and headed to a shopping center.  I’m an analytical type and I reasoned that if I sketched a manikin she wouldn’t get mad at me and I wouldn’t have to worry about her leaving.  I was right on both counts.

It was still scary, though and I held my sketchbook close to my chest, drawing as quickly as I could in the hope that nobody would see me.  Once again, the strategy worked and I finished the sketch, got up immediately, and walked away.  It was only in hindsight that I saw the reality.  Nobody cared what the heck I was doing.  Everyone just walked by, too busy in their own affairs to care about me and my manikin sketch.  My second ‘urban sketch’ was a post box and it didn’t get angry either.   But I got “bold” and soon I was sketching my coffee cup in the middle of McDonalds (grin).

By this time I was 1) having a great time sketching, or trying, anywhere I wanted.  It doesn’t take long before you figure out that nobody cares what you’re doing and the fears are unfounded.  My only limitations were, and still are, my ability to draw and paint.  But I wanted to draw buildings and so one day I bit the bullet and drew this one, my first location sketch of a building.  Since then I’ve done, literally, thousands of sketches, almost all of them done on location.  I’ve filled more than 40 sketchbooks.  I think I’m a little better at sketching than I was when I started but that doesn’t really matter.  I’m having fun and it’s become a part of my life.

 

Citroen 2-CV

The Citroen 2-CV (deux chevaux-vapeur), is something of a blast from the past.  While not made in production numbers until after WWII, it was designed in the 30s to move a couple adults at a whopping 37 mph along French dirt roads.  I don’t know if they ever made it to the US but I never saw one until I came to Quebec and even here, the only ones I’ve seen are display items at a large restaurant.  But they smack of a pre-Volkswagon where inexpensive cars were kept light, low-powered and without power everything.

I went with Claudette to the north side of the city because she wanted to draw a large bear statue.  When we got there I found the 2-CV and knew what I had to do.  The subject I was looking at was painted bright red with white polka dots.  Why they had insulted this vehicle in this way is beyond me but I colored the sketch in more traditional colors.

Stillman & Birn Alpha (10×7), Namiki Falcon, DeAtramentis Document Black

Even So, The Sketchcrawl Was A Success

Steps in the garden at Bois du Coulonge; Stillman & Birn Beta (6×9), Namiki Falcon, DeAtramentis Document Black

Sometimes luck is on your side; sometimes it’s not.  I’m still not sure which of these occurred yesterday, when we held our second Croquistes de Quebec sketchcrawl.  The day before the event the weather reports were suggesting 20-30mm of rain for the day – not exactly what you want to hear as an organizer of an outdoor event.  But when Sunday morning arrived, the report had been downgraded to 1mm of rain.  It was windy and it had cooled significantly from the nice temps we’d had all week.  Things, shall we say, were not looking good.

But, intrepid sketchers that we are, Yvan and I arrived at Parc Parc du Bois de Coulonge bright and early with smiles on our faces, though our collars were turned up and hats pulled down tight onto our heads.  We started sketching, hoping beyond hope that someone else would show up.  I’d be lying if I didn’t acknowledge that we were doubtful.

Agathe drawing a Hosta plant.

But alas, there are other crazy  dedicated sketchers in Quebec City and soon, Agathe showed up.  She’s a passionate sketcher that did a great sketch of me sketching.  I wish I had it to share with you.  Later she became interested in drawing some of the plants in the park.

Guylaine, trying to keep warm

A bit later Guylaine arrived and began drawing a building that’s right out of one of Disney’s animation movies, with more gables and turrets resting on its small footprint than any building deserves.  I think she was the really smart one among us as the building houses a coffee shop and she got to sit at a table while she drew.

Yvan, my mentor, doing what he’s always doing – drawing

It was cold, however, and very windy.  Rain seemed just around the corner, though it didn’t actually rain until Yvan and I were heading home late in the afternoon.  The two women had had enough by lunch time and left but since we had established both a morning and an afternoon meeting time, for those who couldn’t make it in the morning, Yvan and I felt compelled to stay.  We headed to the afternoon meeting place, and while our spirits were cold, they had yet to be dampened, at least not literally.

Yvan decided he was going to draw the grand building at the head of the large garden/fountain/open area that is the heart of the park.  Being of more modest abilities and energy, I decided to draw what is now the information center.  It used to be the hub building for three greenhouses that splayed out in three directions but had been removed.  I found the building fascinating, particularly from my perch on a hill above it.  I still need to draw some of the garden behind it.

Stillman & Birn Beta (6×9), Namiki Falcon, DeAtramentis Document Black

One thing Yvan did during the day was accumulate drawings of the lamps and fixtures within the park.  I thought I’d share it with you to give you some indication of this guy’s talent.  These are his “quick sketches,” each taking him only 2-3 minutes.

In the end, the bad weather reports and the cold reality diminished our numbers and was unlucky.  On other hand, four of us had a great time getting together to sketch.  Overall I think we were lucky because we all went home happy and dry.  Besides, it’s supposed to warm up tomorrow and I’ll be out sketching.

Sketching Marais Du Nord, Quebec

Marais du nord is one of my favorite places in the Quebec City area.  It’s only a few kilometers out of town but when you go there, you leave the hectic, noisy city behind and enter the world of chittering squirrels, bird noises and, most of all, the silence and peace that comes from being close to nature.

Marais du nord (north marsh) is situated within and around a large expanse of marshland between Lac Delage and Lac St. Charles and is maintained by a consortium of concerned citizens who decided that too much of the land around the lakes was being bought up and developed.  They took on the Herculean effort of convincing the government to give them money and developed the “park” (I’m not sure whether park or reserve is the better word) to maintain the marshland and to provide hiking trails, bridges, overlooks and benches for people wanting to get away from the city for a while.  A lot of Quebec kids are getting to see nature up close because of Marais du nord.

Chantal and I headed there for the day, mostly to clear our heads with a bit of hiking, lunch in the woods, and maybe, just maybe, to find some mushrooms to sketch.  She has a “mushroom book” in which she sketches mushrooms and the mushroom diversity at Marais du nord is extraordinary.

It was a glorious day, though it was cut a bit short by threatening clouds that dumped a few tons of water on us as we sat in the car.  Sometimes things do work out and we guessed right this time.  Nevertheless, we got some hiking done and found some of those mushrooms.

Stillman & Birn Alpha (10×7), Namiki Falcon, DeAtramentis Document Black

Because this was a hiking trip, the notion that I would spend a couple hours doing a landscape was out of the question.  Chantal is patient but there are limits.  There were mushrooms to find, afterall.  I saw this lack of time as an opportunity to force myself to put into practice some of the stuff that Marc Taro Holmes is trying to teach those of us taking his Craftsy Travel Sketching in Mixed Media course.

I’ve been doing a bunch of quick, single-line sketches, trying to capture a scene quickly and simplifying by elimination of details.  My typical sketching style makes it hard for me to capture a chunk of nature quickly; nature is just too darn complex.  So I decided to see if I could grab a scene quickly.  I didn’t use the single-line approach but worked VERY loose and quick, for me, and in 10-12 minutes I’d done this drawing.  This was nothing short of a miracle for me as I can burn an hour drawing a single tree.  The bridge would have taken another hour.  I did several of these quick sketches during the day and I was generally pleased with the results.  Maybe Marc’s right and that by the time I’ve finished up a few dozen of those single-line sketches I’ll have figured it out.

10-12 minute sketch in Stillman & Birn Beta (9×12), Namiki Falcon & Kuretake #13 brush pen.

 

Marc Taro Holmes Comes To Visit

I’m fortunate to have some sketchers that I can sketch with regularly but I confess that sometimes I feel isolated from things like urban sketchers, as we have no regional group here.  So when Marc Taro Holmes said he’d like to come to Quebec City to sketch, I was pretty excited.   I’m a big fan of his and have learned a lot from his book and from his Craftsy courses.

He and his wife Laurel were to arrive Sunday morning and so I was sitting outside their hotel, waiting for them to arrive.  It seemed natural that I should sketch the hotel while I waited.

With that done, I did this quick sketch of a bronze bust of a famous Vietnamese guy, whose name eludes me.

I was getting a bit worried because they were very late in arriving.  As it turned out, most of their hold up was due to problems finding a place to park.  By the time they did show up, I’d done this sketch of a lamp post.  It’s amazing how much you can find to draw without moving.

As Marc and Laurel had driven from Montreal, they needed a break before we headed out sketching and so we headed for a coffee shop.  Anyone who has met Laurel and Marc know they are very laid back, and absolutely wonderful people.  We talked about sketching, did the typical kibbitz about some of our sketching kit and then I made my confession.

“Marc, I’ve got a problem.  We’re going to sketch in places where I can sketch any day of the week.  I can’t look over Marc Taro Holmes’ shoulder any day of the week.  It’s going to be hard for me to sketch today.”

I’m pretty sure Marc thought I was kidding but…well, I wasn’t.  As it turned out, my statement was prophetic.  While I was embarrassed that all my pen could produce was babble, and precious little of that, I learned so much from watching Marc draw and from our conversations.   This is the only sketch I managed to produce while Marc produced four 16×20 sketches during the day.  It was a bit embarrassing.

Marc, doing his thing on the terrace near Chateau Frontenac

The conversation stuff was another “problem.”  Marc can talk while he draws; I cannot, and our conversations were near nonstop.  In spite of me dropping the sketching ball, the day was very special to me and I hope Marc and Laurel enjoyed themselves in Quebec City.  Thanks, Marc, for a great day.  I promise to sketch more next time.

Here’s the ‘thing’ Marc was doing. He spent the day working with dip pens and doing magic