Larry D. Marshall's Blog, page 65

Not Quick Sketching, But Quicker Sketching

I’ve been following Marc Taro Holmes’ new Craftsy course and as a result of that I’ve been doing a lot of his ‘single-line drawing’ sketches.  This is an exercise with two purposes – to get your hand to loosen up and to simplify what you are drawing.  It’s like doing push ups so you can hit a baseball.  It’s not the way to do most drawings.  It’s also not the equivalent of a blind contour drawing as you’re looking at what you’re drawing.

Canson watercolor paper (6×9), Namiki Falcon, DeAtramentis Document Black

It’s taking me a while to get so I could do it, and I’m far from doing it well, but this exercise is really opening doors for me.  I struggle with the fact that my typical “style” is rather tight and SLOW.  Sometimes I want to capture something without spending a lot of time.  Sometimes I want to capture a LOT, and don’t have the time given my style.  So developing an alternative is useful to me.  Note that I didn’t say replacement.

Anyways, I’m starting to try to bring some of that more loose, quicker approach into my sketching and here’s an example.  Not a single-line drawing by any means but one done more loosely and more quickly than is my norm.  New adventures.

It was done on the same 6×9 sheets of cheap watercolor paper that I’ve been using for my single-line exercises.  BTW, Marc’s course is spectacular, providing more bang for the buck than most courses.  I highly recommend it.

Some Random Sketches

I mentioned that I’m behind in my blogging.  I guess I’m sufficiently behind that I can’t even remember which sketches were done on which days.  The sketch I said I did of City Hall when with my daughter wasn’t done when she was there at all, but rather a day or so earlier (along with a bunch of other ones).  This was the sketch I did while my daughter and I sat near City Hall.  I was experimenting with a washable, red ink and my brush pen got the better of me.  I really think washable inks are better utilized with an actual brush where you can better control the water.

At another time I was waiting for a friend to come by to pick me up and so I doodled a couple sketches like this one.  Same red ink (J.Herbin 1670 Hematite).

We’ve been having great summer evening weather lately so there’s been considerable porch sitting.  On one of those occasions I grabbed some veggies and did this quick sketch.  The “mustache book” paper doesn’t handle watercolors very well (it is afterall a 4×6 el cheapo [$2] book from the dollarstore) but such sketches are lots of fun and good practice.  Goodness knows I need all the practice I can get.

I do a lot of these kinds of sketches but don’t scan all of them.  I’m just sharing them to illustrate what I do with my little bits of time.

A Day With My Daughter

My daughter returned to school last week but before she did we spent one morning wandering around old Quebec City,  enjoying an unseasonably warm day.  We sat down near City Hall in the new fountain area south of the building and while we chatted, I did this quick sketch.

We continued walking, talking and generally wasting time until hunger took hold.  We decided to head to one of my favorite spots for lunch, McDonalds.  Not any old McDonalds as I’m not particularly fond of the food, but rather the McDonalds on St. Jean street, where you can sit in a window on the 2nd floor and look out at great scenes and down on lots of tourists.  I’ve done a lot of sketches from this perch (their coffee ain’t bad).  On this day, since I didn’t want to spend a lot of time ignoring my daughter, I did a simple sketch of the window contents across the street.  The pitcher was tall and very striking.  I doubt I did it justice in the few minutes I spent on it.

My daughter was supposed to meet someone downtown in the afternoon and so eventually we split up and I headed home.  On my way I found that the Levis Marathon, an annual event, was finishing up.  I decided to quickly sketch some of the spectators lined up along the receiving path the runners took to the finish line, along with the proverbial guy who feels the need to climb up on the fence to be above everyone else.

It was a good day.  Not a lot of sketching but just enough.  In writing this I’m realizing just how far behind I am in blog posting as this day took place more than a week ago.  I’ll try to get caught up ‘real soon.’

 

Jupon Presse On Rue St. Jean

We’re getting bonus summer here.  Maybe it’s payback for the lousy June and July we had   In any case, I’ve been taking advantage of it and doing a lot of walking and sketching.

I found myself on Rue St. Jean, one of the iconic streets that lead from the old city through, coincidentally, the St. Jean Gate.  A few blocks from the old city is an old church and an accompanying cemetery with headstones that date back into the 1700s.  This was the ‘edge of town’ cemetery back then, I suppose.

It has become a park, as the graves were all moved at some point, though many of the original gravestones remain, it’s where downtown people go to eat lunch and enjoy the trees and park benches.  I was going to draw some of the old head stones, but as I rounded the end of the church I saw this store across the street from the church.  I’m sure I’ve walked under those awnings a bunch of times but I’ve never noticed them.  From the cemetery the store was hard to miss and I found the place really cute.  So I drew it.

ps – I was asked the other day what watercolors I use.  I use Daniel Smith and love them.  I wish they’d pay me to say that but they don’t.  You can get their color chart here.

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

Sketchcrawl At Bois Du Coulonge

This month’s Croquistes de Quebec sketchcrawl will be held at Bois du Coulonge.   If you’re unfamiliar with the park, it’s a gorgeous piece of land with trails through the forest, large gardens, a few buildings and bridges, and views of the St. Lawrence River.  In short, it’s a fantastic place for a sketchcrawl.

We’ll be there on Sunday, Sept 13th, starting at 9:30.  We should eat lunch together (bring your lunch) around 12:00 and then sketch again in the afternoon. Hope you can be there.  For more info, go to the Croquistes de Quebec website.

Sketching In St. Vallier

Last Wednesday several of us drove to St. Vallier at the invitation of Louise Denault, one of our sketching buddies.  This was very exciting because St. Vallier is a beautiful place, with a wide variety of sketching locations.

4×6 toned paper, Platinum Carbon pen, Platinum Carbon Black ink

I took advantage of the fact that, for once, I wasn’t driving and so I did some quick sketches along the way.  The bumps in the road added to the scribbly nature of the sketches but it was fun anyway.

We picked up Louise at her house and headed to a side road overlooking the valley and its agricultural fields.  Everyone set up next to a wheat field with the expanse of the valley behind it, but I walked down the road to sketch an outbuilding I’d seen as we arrived.

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

Claudette and Louise came to where I was sketching just as I was finishing and we walked back to the group together.  It had been determined that it was time for lunch and that we would head back to Louise’s house for lunch.

As everyone else was packing up I looked out at the valley and decided it would be an opportunity to do another one of those one-line sketch drawings and so I did one.  I did ‘cheat’ a bit and lifted my pen a couple times to keep the drawing a bit cleaner, but by the time everyone was packed I’d done the sketch, added some darks, and was slopping paint on the piece of cheap Bristol on which I did it.  I mention this last thing because it was a mistake.  I thought I’d grabbed a piece of watercolor paper but instead I was trying to herd water on a piece of slippery, coated paper and I was using a waterbrush to do it.  That was exciting.  But this was a few minutes of fun and the result isn’t horrible (grin).

6×9 Bristol paper, Namiki Falcon, De Atramentis Document Black

Lunch was to die for, and if I’d eaten one more bite that might have happened.  Louise provided quite a spread, with a beautiful salad, lots of cheeses, smoked sturgeon, quiche, baguettes, and wine… lots of wine.  I was stuffed.  And then Louise mentioned the pies…two pies.  And, of course, we had to try both of them

Louise’s house is amazing but it’s the backyard, with its gardens, gazebo and view of the St. Lawrence that is the real jewel and we were eating in said gazebo.  I’m used to a protein bar and a coffee when I go sketching.   This was different, a really good kind of different

And now that we were done with lunch, it was time to get out sketching again.  So, barely able to move, I left the gazebo completely delier, my new French word for the day.  It means to be loosened up, and boy, was I loose.  Any looser and I would’ve fallen down.  I needed a nap.

Off we went, to a small nature park not far from St. Vallier.  It was a parking lot, picnic tables, some trails and a gazebo set up for bird watching along the coast.  Most of us decided to draw the gazebo.  Here’s mine.

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

It was a great day but by then we were all pretty worn out and called it a day.  Thanks to Louise for all her hospitality, her zucchinis, and that fantastic lunch.

Sketching Entrepreneur Expands Operations

A few blog posts ago I mentioned a little girl I ran into who was sketching and collecting money from people watching her sketch.  I thought she was cute as a button and was quite the entrepreneur.  Made me wonder if I should sit on the street sketching with a hat to catch the coins.  I decided that cute kid and old man were not equivalent skills and that I just didn’t have what it took for that business.

Anyways, I was walking down that same street, though on the opposite side of the street and I nearly laughed out loud.  It seems this intrepid entrepreneur has expanded.  I guess business was so good she had to get an assistant to collect the money so the ‘artiste’ wouldn’t be bothered by the customers.  A sign has been added and the new employee wears a tiara.  I guess business is booming.

Making Zucchini Pizzas

I bet you’re wondering what zucchini pizza has to do with sketching.  Well, it is related… sort of.  I was sketching in St. Vallier with friends (blog post later) and our host has a grand garden and insisted that we take a bunch of veggies home with us.  While others weren’t too interested in zucchini, I wanted a couple of the real big ones.  You know the ones.  They’re great for soups and for PIZZA.  My friends being the curious sorts, wanted to know what I was talking about and, ultimately, they wanted a big zucchini too.

Thus…Making Zucchini Pizza is all about sketching group cohesiveness as I explain to them how they are made.  I apologize in advance for the poor photos.  My kitchen is not set up for photography.

Step 1:  Slice some 1/2″ segments of zucchini and lay them on an aluminum foil-covered baking sheet.  If I think about it, adding a bit of oil to the foil is probably a good thing but I generally forget and it’s not a problem.

Step 2: Prepare sauce and toppings.  You can start with tomato sauce and build your own pizza sauce with the addition of stuff like oregano, basil, thyme, pepper, and maybe a dollop of tomato paste, but I had this little can of pizza sauce and so that’s what I used.  I chopped some red onion and green pepper as toppings but to each her own.

Step 3:  Spoon the sauce on the zucchini and smush it around, followed by whatever toppings you want to add.  These go in an oven (350F) for about 20 minutes.

Step 4: Then you add cheese.  I typically use cheddar because that’s what I typically have on hand but the choice is yours.  I forgot to take a photo of this step.  Sorry.  Imagine a pile of grated cheese on top of each zucchini proto-pizza.

Step 5: Then it’s back in the oven for a few minutes to until the cheese is well melted and probably dripping over the edges of the zucchini.  At this point the only thing left to do is eat them, which, of course, is the best part.

 

 

 

 

Single-Line Sketching Revisited

I reported on some single-line sketches I’d done in a previous post, an idea presented by Marc Taro Holmes in his free PDF handout, Making Expressive Pen and Ink Drawings on Location.  Marc has a new Craftsy course titled Travel Sketching in Mixed Media, an amazing follow up to his People in Motion course and he begins the course with the single-line sketching exercise.

Getting to see him actually do single-line sketches made me realize that I was doing them “wrong.”  They are, afterall, an exercise meant to loosen up your hand and to get you to emphasize the big shapes, while not becoming mired in details.  But Marc had said, “Keep the pen moving” and so I did.  The result was that each time I had to stop to figure out how to get from one thing to the next (a distracting problem of single-line sketching) I ended up with a bunch of squiggles as I “kept the pen moving.”  The results were very scribbly sketches.

Ok…just you…yeah, you, the one looking into the monitor.  Lean in close because I don’t want to give away Marc’s secret to everyone, but just between you and me [dropping my voice to a whisper] he doesn’t do that.  He stops his pen on occasion as he looks how best to get from point A to B between objects.

And so, I was out doing more single-line drawings.  I’ve also decided that I’ve got to learn, once and for all, how to draw while holding my sketchbook and standing up.  I really struggle with that.  My line work becomes completely out of control.

I took some inexpensive watercolor paper (9×12) and cut it in half.  These 6×9 sheets were used as I did a bunch of single-line drawings.  Each of them only took a minute or two for the linework.  Then I added some brush pen darks (another place I struggle) and for a few of them I added color.

This is a great exercise that sets the stage for the less radical approaches to expressive drawing that Marc explains in his class.  Tell you about them?  Heck no…go take the class (grin).  You’ll never regret it and Craftsy classes are inexpensive.  Here’s one of my single-line sketches.

Wedded Sketching Bliss

My wife and I have been together for nearly 30 years and married for 28 of them.  There have been a lot of potholes on our road through life but I can count on one hand the number of big arguments we’ve had.  It’s uncanny as I’m impossible to live with – at least I couldn’t do it.

But last week we went sketching together.  It’s not the first time but it hasn’t been a regular event either.  We put together picnic food and headed to the Plains of Abraham to sit in the shade and enjoy a perfect day.  It was a glorious day.

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

I drew a tree.  It’s clear that I need more experience sketching trees.  Still, it was fun and my wife was drawing a tree while sitting right next to me.  Life was sweet.

Then it was lunch time and we chatted, watched squirrels and talked about sketching.  What more could a guy want in life?  Besides, the cheese and baguette were great.

We only had 25 minutes left on our parking time (grrr…grumble), so we decided to do another sketch.  I wandered around a bit while she sat down to draw.  I decided on this scene and rushed it a bit to fit it into the time frame and think I might return with more time and bigger sketchbook.  This was done in a 3×5 Moleskine watercolor book.