Brazil, here I come

I signed up for the Urban Sketchers Symposium. At 12PM my time, I was ready, credit card in hand, list of workshops, main choices, secondary choices just in case. I even changed one workshop at the last minute. 5 minutes later it was done deal.

Chosen workshops:

The joy of movement because I liked the spontaneity of his method, very similar to how I worked in acrylic. I like the idea of mixing colors on paper and manipulating shapes into recognizable forms.

Sketching fundamentals because I need to organize the chaos. I don't have a method of organizing sketches, selecting and framing the subject, not getting lost in details or paralyzed by them.

Never fear the people  this one is self-explanatory. Suffice to see this attempt to add people to the sketch...

Feeling the edges was the last minute change. I originally selected Frank Ching's workshop because I definitely need a better approach to drawing architecture. Frank's workshop seemed a bit more academic. Liz has a more intuitive approach and I decided to take her workshop instead.

I was also very interested in the wide angle perspective workshop. I will save that for some other time ...

Hopefully I will make it to Paratay ... not like last year when I ended up cancelling my registration for Barcelona ...

Portrait Monday

These are the sketches from last session.

I have to measure the eyes better and add some bone structure. I am also thinking about other ways of doing this. Maybe blind contours, one liners, tinted papers. This is more about experimentation then anything else. I am not planning to become a portraitist after all ...

Dynamic Drawing - almost the end

Last week's class was a life model class - 15 min poses. No movement this time. These are some of the unfinished sketches:

Cartridge paper and col-erase pencils. The last one has a face, just not the model's face! I had to sharpen the images to make the lines more visible. The idea was to use the lighter colored pencils for the first pass, then to finish with ink or darker pen/pencils.

Dim Sum

Sunday was the monthly meeting of the Urban Sketchers. Weather being what it is (as in -20C), an indoor location was chosen. About 30 people showed up at the Maison Kam Fung - we occupied three round tables!

Everybody's sketchbook looked amazing! I saw somebody painting with pearless watercolors. What's neat about these is that they come in sheets that can be cut and glued on a cardboard support and voila - portable palette that is light and flat.

I thought I was going to sketch the food. I was there a bit before 10 a.m so I decided to warm sketching the people around until the food arrived. But when the steaming baskets were brought to the table, I was more preoccupied with eating than sketching. And after about 2 hrs, I realized my pages had no rhyme or reason composition-wise. Alas, it was too late to fix it!

This is what I managed:

I brought three watercolor pencils and ink fountain pens. At home, I washed some red around the parts tjat are somewhat salvageable. I could probably cover the rest with collage if I find some Chinese papers or images, but this is all I have for now...

Opera costumes

Last Sunday I went back to the cultural center to finish sketching the opera costumes on display. Lo and behold, there were some new additions on display. My visit coincided with a guided visit lead by the director of the Opera de Montreal!

There I was, sitting quietly in my corner and not minding much what was happening around me until the presentation started and I was surrounded by people!

I was planning to take pictures of the remaining costumes, but I missed the Portrait Monday session. Will do so next week, if the exhibition is not over.

Red Iguana ... and ghosts

I had this photo of my friend Richard standing in frond of a fast food joint somewhere in Utah. I thought it would make a cute sketch and good practice exercise for perspective drawing. The pencil sketch was relatively ok. It is when I added color and people that nothing was ok anymore. The foreground figures ended were disproportionate and so ugly that I decided to cover them with collage and continue painting on top of them.

I ended up with a funny scene that could be made into a story - if ever I will have time to start writing again. Maybe in another lifetime.

I should have done thumbnail sketches, but I totally forgot. There is all this empty space in lower right corner that bothers me on paper, but that I totally ignored in the photo. And practice sketching the figures before adding them to make sure there are no ghosts! I am planning to retry this at some point ...when, it remains to be seen.

Back to basic - 2

The topic of the week - tone and form. I finally learned how to draw ellipses! Even more important, I learned that not all ellipses are created equal. What was I thinking ???

What I mean is this: I always assumed that the cross-sections through a cylindrical objects are the same (basically I would struggle to make them all at the same angle). They are ellipses alright. But the angle changes! Some sections will be lower that the eye level, some might be higher. Depending how low the sections are in respect to the horizon line, they form of the ellipses will change! Tadah ....

And the other elementary thing that did not cross my mind - how to make cylindrical object symmetrical.
Measure! Take the mid-line and measure points on each side to make sure they are equally spaced from the mid-line.

It took a while to measure! I even had to play it by the ear in the end because the original measurement was wrong. I did not want to use the ruler again because I will not always have a ruler handy. So I measured with the pencil. One day I suppose it will get easier!

This is all I had time for in one (longish) setting. I don't think I drew a more 3D object ever! Thank you, Earnest!

Back to Basics - 1

The first Strathmore course of the year is open. The assignment for the first week was a pencil sketch. I had difficulty with the measurements. They simply would not add up, meaning that what I measured (or thought I measured) was not the same as the size on paper. Usual stuff, I am afraid.

This time, I followed the suggestion in the course and used a ruler to measure. Now, this worked. No approximation, "this looks almost 3 units and 1/3" and other such things. It works great for 1:1 renderings.

I have a nice photo of a shell I took at the Redpath museum. That makes a nice subject for a texture exercise in pen or pencil. It is on my to-do list.

Portrait Monday...

... might become a theme. Only the future will show.

I was somewhat satisfied with the results of the session last week, I went back. This time, I brought the Canson 7x10 multimedia sketchbook and pens: Lamy safary EF with brown ink, Pilot Penmanship with whatever ink ships with, and Pentel Pocket Brush Pen. Watercolors too, but I was not planning to use them for the portrait session.

Five people showed up, so we each drew four faces. Nothing went as planned, of course. But am I even surprised?!

For the 3 min poses, I used the Lamy pen. Unsettling. I don;t knmow if I was reacting to the pen - sliding too fast on the page, did not like the marks - or to the fact that the sketches were horrible or both. Of course I blamed the pen... Discarded the sketches.

For the 20 min poses, I started with the Pilot penmanship. I kept 2 sketches of the same person.

I prefer the one at the left. They turned out to be about 2x3!!! I tried to make them bigger, but somehow I ended up making these itsy-bitsy sketches. I can't stand small, yet I could not make myself make bigger marks.

The colored rectangles are just to make them stand out somewhat among the other sketches that are on the same page.

The ink is not waterproof, so at home I blended it.

I still like the left one better, even if I have to correct his left eye a bit to make it more 3D. The light literally cut his face in two from the top left side of the forehead to the bottom of the left ear.

I tried to apply Loomis - but the result was very scary. I think the permanence of the pen took away the freedom of error. When I used pencil last week, it mattered less if the first layout of the face was wrong I could always erase or adjust. But with the pen, everything remains visible in spite of possible corrections.

For the second model, I used the same pen. Discarded the sketches. I of course attributed the result to the use of the pen and I switched for the Pentel Pocket Brush for the last two models.

Discarded all sketches of model nr 3. Kept two of model nr. 4.

I prefer the top one. In the second one, I tried to reinforce the shadows around the eye sockets, but that gives him a mean air.

The session ended earlier than usual, so on the way out I stopped to sketch the costumes of the opera found the exhibition currently on display at the George Vanier Cultural Centre. I had time for one - and I worked fast. I went straight to watercolor, I did not want to be locked inside!

I am planning to go back and sketch the other costumes. I thought about having a spread with all of them the way they are displayed, but with a spiral bind I don't think it would look nice.

This is all folks... in case anybody is reading this.

Goals for next week: DRAW BIGGER! I will use the same pens and concentrate on varying the marks. I am also checking the web to see how other people do it, sometimes that can give ideas on how to approach different things (shadows for example).

Went to town

After the long run on Saturday, I decided to go to break the routine and go to town instead of going to meet my running buddies. My plan was to hit Cafe Italia in time for lunch, then go to Hachem and finally to La Maison Tricotée to refill my tea containers.

But we all know what happens to the best laid plans ...

On the way to Cafe Italia, I decided to pass by the Jean Talon market. Nothing left of the market from 20 years ago when one could fill up a truck with fresh fruits and veggies for a reasonable price. Now, everything is expensive, as everywhere else of course. Lots of gourmet shops - which I like. At the same time they represent as many temptations to try this and that. too bad though that the cheaper version of the market is gone. There should be both ...

I did good to just browse around until I found the tea place!

Of course I had to order some tea with plain scones, orange marmalade and creme fraiche. Totally decadent.

The rest of the day went by in a hurry. I will definitely go back to sketch at the knitting shop - and sample their fabulous teas by Les Thes C.G.

Pre and post Loomis

Spring is nowhere to be seen...so I am using photo references to draw. I usually draw myself - obvious reason: always available. But I decided to stop doing that because I realized I unconsciously transfer my features to other faces. I have a picture taken in Utah of my friend and I used it.

First attempt:

I could not believe  the result, I think if I would see this by mistake before going to bed I'd have nightmares.

So I tried again:

OhMyGod!!! What's with those eyes??!! I pulled out Loomis's book and also checked the videos on proko.com. This is third trial:

At least this one looks more human. There is one major problem though - it does not look like my friend at all. Not even 5% like the sketches made Monday.

I think the problem is with the angles. The only time I was able to draw a face that resembled the original was when I scrupulously paid attention to the angles. This is the next step - redo the sketch, apply Loomis to find the placement of the features and then pay attention to the angles. I enlarged the pic on my computer, hopefully that will help. This will definitely be the topic of practice for the next few weeks at the portrait meeting.

Portrait drawing

Last Monday, I decided to go to a portrait drawing session at the George Vanier cultural center. Every Monday, people show up and draw each other. Poses are 20 min. Cool ... I hesitated going because my drawing skills are in their infant period, but in the end I braved the cold (-25C) and went. I took a pad of newsprint and the col-erase pencils, plus some woodless graphite. I would guess the sketches bare maybe a 5% resemblance to the models. I will keep going because there are so many things I can practice - various medias, papers etc. I also started practicing the Loomis method for drawing heads. I run into some weird things with this method when I tried to draw heads in extreme angles.

Here are the results from Monday:

Yuan

Yuan is a vegetarian restaurant on St-Denis and Sherbrooke. I never tried the a-la-carte dishes and I find that the buffet option is a hit-and-miss, probably depending who the chef is. I just went back and it was ok. The peanut sauce was disappointing - too watery and flavorless. My favorite is tofu with basil sauce.
I took pictures of the food and sketched it at home.