St Patrick, patron saint of frozen artists

I went out yesterday, meaning to sketch from an indoor vantage point I’d seen a few months ago. Only to be stymied by routine security. Long story, perhaps I’ll get the shot another time, when the public is actually allowed in. Since I couldn’t get my chosen view, I hit the nearby streets.

I can tell you, April 05, 2012, here in Montreal – it is NOT WARM ENOUGH TO DRAW OUTSIDE!!!

In my giddy anticipation of drawing from a seventh floor window I wasn’t properly dressed for standing around for two hours on the street. I managed to do the sketch and put down a huge mottled Vandyke/Cerulean wash – then I had to hightail it for a nearby cafe.

I finished this up huddled over some bacon pizza. It was an accident. I was delirious from cold and ordered the first thing that caught my eye. Perhaps my shivering frame was demanding calories to burn. When they make bacon pizza here, they use the whole hog. I mean, there were five layers of laminated bacon in some places. Duly resurrected, I finished my sketch.

This is St. Patrick’s Basilica on 460 René-Lévesque. Built some 150 years ago, it would have been high above the city, on the outer edges of the Irish immigrant neighborhood.  Today it’s right in the center of downtown. One day I’ll make it inside to see the pillars made of massive oak trees, and the combined fleur-de-lis and shamrock heraldry.