Rue Sherbrooke, Museum District

At last! Yes – I’ve been on a long hiatus, (working hard on a book project, that sadly I cannot discuss quite yet). I apologize the drawings haven’t been flowing as fast as you or I would like. But! In the next few weeks we will be back to steady posting. It is getting close to the Urban Sketchers symposium in Lisbon, so I have to be all tuned up and ready to draw!

[Le Chateau – Ballpoint sketch with Watercolor, 14×17″]

This is the rooftop of a towering stone apartment block across Sherbrooke from the Musée de Beaux-arts. Seen from down a side street, peering out from an awning.  (It started raining immediately after I had the line art roughed in).

I had always thought it was the Ritz Hotel, (which is nearby; under renovation at the moment). But on investigation I find it’s actually simply apartments. Apartments for people so extravagantly affluent they need to live in a historic castle high above our city! I poked my head in the front door – and there are shockingly few addresses on the directory. It looks like there should be hundreds of apartments – but I have to think it’s quality over quantity up there. I imagine these are the third and fourth homes of the sons of bottled water millionaires and the parchment-skinned ex-wives of mineral rights barons. Only used in ski season, before retiring to the Canary Islands in darker months. Talk like that is not going to get me an invitation to enjoy the view however.

[Church of St.Andrew and St.Paul, Ballpoint sketch with Watercolor, 14×17″]

Since the rain wasn’t letting up, this next is from the third floor of the Musée, looking out at the church tower across the street.

There’s a very convenient window with a waist height marble shelf where one can stand and draw.  And as a bonus, it’s free admission to this wing, (the permanent collection).  So you can get this sketch yourself any time. The rough stone church has been under scaffolding the last few times I visited Montreal – but finally, it seems restored to it’s original antiquity. I really ran out of time on this one, so I’ll be back some day to get a nicer drawing. Don’t even try to make sense of the perspective down below the tower :) HA!