The Weary Gladiator
I don’t usually post nude figure drawings on this blog. I have another page for that (over here). But, as my life drawing classwork gets better, there’s becoming an overlap between the academic stuff, and the urban sketching. The way I’m doing spontaneous watercolor portraits – it’s all sort of all the same thing these days.
Anyway, I won’t make a habit of it. Posting too many life drawing studies just gets repetitive. But I did go to a couple sessions the other week – as part the traditional “It’s January, let’s go back to the gym”, kind of new years resolution :)
[Figure drawing workshop, various 10, 15 and 20 minute poses, watercolor, working wet-on-dry]
The model for this session was an older gentleman, in great shape for a person of any age. In his youth, he must have been a handsome beast.
I always give models a little code name in my head. This guy was ‘the weary gladiator’.
I don’t know if he’s been a life-long art model – but he clearly knows how to set a pose. One of the best I’ve seen in Montreal. You occasionally see models use a wooden pole for supporting a raised arm. But not many models use posing blocks. Simple cubes of wood that let you raise a hand or foot, or brace a neck. It’s an old-school technique that really helps shape the body. In traditional ateliers you might even find block and tackle to allow hanging a model from the ceiling.
This was at UQAM at the Sunday afternoon quick pose session. It’s a good work environment, (tables, easels, benches), always with good models. If 5-20’s are your thing, I recommend checking it out. I will say, the spots by the door are back lit by the skylights at this time of year – so head to the back of the room unless you like silhouette shapes as much as I do.
Persistence: The Only Technique that Matters
I don’t usually show my ‘bad’ sketches. I often draw on loose sheets of paper, and tear up bad ones right on the spot. So there’s no evidence.
These happen to be in a sketchbook, and this was such a classic incident, I figured I’d post it for you.
Here we have what I’d consider to be a pretty average drawing. Not very structurally sound. It’s stiff. And it doesn’t even show what’s going on.
I ran into this fellow doing a lampworking demonstration at the Corning Museum of Glass. He’s probably there 9-5, five days a week, doing his thing. But I only had 20 minutes before I had to be somewhere.
I’d found him just as he ignited his jet of flame and started to melt glass. I’m a sucker for a jet of flame. I’ll watch anything on fire.
So I dive right in aaaand – – – terrible sketch right?
Despite the interesting subject – it just didn’t turn out.
We had driven two hours out of the way to see the other demo I was heading to – so, I wasn’t interested in missing that. But this drawing was really bugging me. I had already taken five steps away when I thought ‘No. Actually – I can’t live with it”.
So – turned around, did another one.
But, wouldn’t you know it!
Still a pretty weak drawing.
I’ve become a lot more demanding about capturing a likeness in recent months. It’s never going to be perfect – but this isn’t even close.
Plus – I don’t mind a messy drawing – I’m fine with a sketchy feeling. But I want open, floating lines that have some elegance. This guy looks hunched over – his shoulder is a mess.
Even though the clock was ticking, there was nothing to be done but try again.
I had to slow down, ignore the possibility of losing a good seat for the show, take my time, and really look at the guy. Find what is distinctive about him.
His shoulder length hair rolls down the back of his skull, and flips up around his neck. It’s not just a bunch of lines – it’s a flowing shape with weight. Smoothly falling, only then dissolving to brush work.
He had a bit of a heavy jaw (a little chubby – after all, he’s a desk worker like me). His goatee was very specifically trimmed. Almost a Fu Manchu mustache – not just a generic scruff of hair. A beard always follows the jaw line. It’s not pasted on – it reveals the shape of the jaw.Solving that leads me to his somewhat fleshy lips, and prominent – yet pointy – nose.
Now I have an actual person, not a generic human.
As well, the strange device spitting flame – it’s like a little cannon on spindly legs jetting blue fire. That’s a unique prop that is important to get right. Add in the glass rods and sculpted vials he’s crafting – and now I have a real description of an artist doing lampwork. A useful document of the day, not just a scribbled person.
Hope that helps you feel good about any bad drawings that happen. Use them as an opportunity. Flip the page and keep going. Getting a bit better each time. Persistence is everything in this game.
Ahoy! Pirates and Ships at the Pointe
Who doesn’t love those rascally swashbuckling pirates?
They’re the embodiment of the 99%. Romanticized history. Escaped slaves giving what-for to the Empire that shanghaied them. It’s the Robin Hood thing. With more robbing, and less giving to the poor. Unless you use the classic rationalization: ” Well, I’m poor, so I’m keeping this booty”.
I wanted to escape the winter with an afternoon of museum sketching – so poked my head into the relatively new Pirates or Privateers exhibit at the Pointe a Calliere Museum of Archaeology. I was actually there for an entirely different show, but I got distracted.
I’m about 25% through the book The Republic of Pirates: Being the True and Surprising Story of the Caribbean Pirates and the Man Who Brought Them Down
But I digress.
This is really an exhibit for kids. There’s not a lot to see. And a great deal of imagination is required to enjoy it. If you’ve seen it, and compare your memory with these drawings, you’ll already know what I mean.
There’s a pair of wooden ship models (I can never resist drawing a model ship), a few historical costumes on manikins, (also a go-to sketching thing for me) and otherwise it’s a few flintlocks and sextants in glass cases, and a lot of cut-out graphics and interpretive signage of the dreaded ‘interactive’ variety – where the kids can push a button to hear some recorded voice acting.
The only real attraction is that the room is filled to bursting with a full size pirate ship!
As if the building was somehow built around the thing. It’s perfectly planned for kids to run around, playing pretend pirates, while parents in turn pretend their kids might be getting an education. But I can’t criticize. If you have a 5 year old, they’ll probably dig this place. It can be their reward after you drag them through the grown up exhibits.
No major art-tips to say today, other than these are in a shiny new Stillman & Birn Epsilon Series Sketchbook (8.5 x11″).
I’m also pleased to say we can now get Stillman & Birn books in Montreal. Pierre, the owner at our local shop Avenue des Arts has gone out of his way to organize Canadian distribution. He mentioned you can also get them in Edmonton at the Paint Spot (I worked there with some good friends back in art school!). Thanks to their teamwork on the import effort.
So, that’s good news. S&B have put out a few new sizes as well – I’m looking forward to trying out a nice Alpha Series 9 x 6″
Winter in Montreal : Sketching from the Car
[Random street view in Westmount, watercolor, approx 12×16″, about 45 mins]
Went out painting the other day with Shari. We practiced our Great White North version of plein air painting – sketching from the car.
It’s not the ideal circumstance by any means :) A little cramped for space. I had a small bottle of water in the gearshift drink holder, and my clipped on palette-and-board combo leaning on the passenger side dash. It was worse for Shari behind the steering wheel. You have to alternate the heat from blowing on your feet to clearing the window. And your views are chosen for you, depending on where you can find snowplowed parking space.
But, this is what you do in winter to get a chance for good conversation and urban sketching. Have to keep the brush in play, even in the grey months.
There are beautiful days when it’s blue sky and the snow looks crisp and clean. But a lot of the time, the dominant colors in Montreal are warm grey. Overcast sky, wet sandstone, leafless trees and greeny-black pines. Lucky for me, I love these colors!
[Westmount City Hall, watercolor, approx 12×16″]
Smoke and Mirrors : Big Tobacco on Trial
As an Urban Sketcher, I’ve always been curious about the practice of courtroom sketching. Especially now that cameras are permitted in much of the US and the profession seems to be dying out.
Luckily for Canadians, the decision here whether to allow photography is decided on a case-by-case basis and is pretty much reserved for public inquiries with a significant social or humanitarian issue.
In serious criminal cases and some corporate law, if anyone wants a visual record of events there’s still a need for someone scribbling away with pencil and paper.
Suzanne Côté, recently appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada, (standing) and Deborah Glendinning (seated, right). representing Imperial Tobacco.
I was surprised to learn no special permission is required to sketch. Any member of the public is free to attend and stay as long as they like.
However, no liquids are allowed in the courtroom. This is probably more about spilled coffee than watercolors, but it meant I had to draw in the moment and paint later.
I ended up spending four days making small sketches in pencil and taking them back to the studio to assemble into digital collages. These were printed onto Fabriano 140 pound paper and painted in watercolor, allowing the drawing to show through. (This is my typical solution when I can’t paint on the spot).
Cynthia Callard and colleague blogging the proceedings
So, you might ask, how did I choose this particular trial to sketch?
Initially, I was interested in a high profile murder case, but thinking it over I decided the killer didn’t need any more publicity.
Fortunately, while asking around about the regulations, I met journalist Cynthia Callard. Cynthia has spent the last three years (250+ days in court) observing a set of class actions brought against cigarette manufacturers Rothmans Benson and Hedges, Imperial Tobacco Ltd., and JTI-Macdonald. She has collected everything into a day-by-day narrative on her blog: Eye on the Trials.
It makes fascinating reading. It’s hard to tear yourself away from this epic tale of people unable to limit their addictions. Cigarettes on one hand, and to making money on the other.
Simon Potter representing Rothmans Benson and Hedges
At stake is a record-breaking $27 billion figure that would pay restitution for anyone in Quebec, going back 50 years, who suffered damage to their health from smoking.
This is only the first of these Canadian suits to come to trial. They were filed in 1998 and have taken 13 years to work their way through the system. Other attempts are underway in various provinces, and will likely proceed no matter what is decided here.
The validity of these suits seems pretty clear. On the face of it, things look pretty dark. The plaintiffs assert that:
- Tobacco companies planned massive advertising campaigns designed to hook people on their products, even after it was understood that cigarettes were dangerous. They knew people would die, yet they carried on making money.
- There is written proof in their own words that instead of choosing to stop killing folks, manufacturers did their best to hide the facts. Including destroying documents containing too much hard truth, and enriching a select group of experts, paid to obfuscate the science for as long as possible.
- Worse than that, manufacturers doubled down, focusing new marketing on teens, setting them up for a lifetime of addiction, planning on making profits at the expense of public health for an entire generation.
To say this version of events describes a failure of corporate citizenship seems to be putting it lightly.
However – I only know this second hand. I’ve come in at the very end of this long affair and I didn’t see any of that evidence myself.
All I was actually able to observe, was the summation by the defense team. And I have to say, they are very convincing speakers.
Here is the tobacco companies version as best as I can recall:
Potter, Pratte, and Côté, (studio portraits, from publicity photos)
- Ok, we admit now scientists have proven that smoking is addictive and dangerous. But, we couldn’t have known that back when we started this business.
- The government said Health Canada would take care of spreading the bad news to smokers. So that wasn’t our job – and in fact, we were initially ordered to stay quiet on the subject of risk, so the message would come from reliable sources.
- Also, there are plenty of dangerous products, (like say, motorcycles or ice climbing gear), so that’s why we have a consumer protection act. It wasn’t our decision to give tobacco an exemption under that act – that was the government’s choice. So, it’s democracy to blame, and anyway, if we didn’t sell it, others would.
- Besides, tobacco manufacturers operate under a federal license, and as a requirement of that, for years now we have put big, scary, un-missable health warnings on every package – making it very clear you should not buy our products.
- Plus, we don’t do any of those evil ads anymore! Haven’t for years. Kids shouldn’t smoke, this is a problem with schools not being strict enough in the ’70s and ’80s, not with us targeting youth.
RBH council Simon Potter argues – why should smokers, who have accepted the risks, be compensated when the risks materialize? People who chose to smoke don’t deserve compensation just as “I don’t deserve compensation because I am overweight.” (Which he is, speaking factually).
I personally felt this argument is tarnished by the uncharitable conclusion it offers. To whit: If you didn’t quit smoking and died from it, it’s your own fault buddy. Everyone else knew, why not you?
Guy Pratte speaking for Imperial Tobacco Ltd
Honestly, I can’t see how the tobacco companies could lose in the short run here. I am just a layman – but it seems, no matter where you fall on the morality of selling tobacco, they are selling a legal product, in a legal way.
Yet – Even if the companies are released from responsibility, doesn’t that mean we are all left with the larger questions?
How can our government continue to license the sale of a product that kills people?
How can the shareholders, managers, and owners of these companies continue to turn a blind eye to the cost of profit?
If the best defense is: “We all agreed in the ’70s that smoking deaths were an acceptable risk” – well – how much longer do we have to put up with that poor choice?
Judge Riordan’s final decision will likely take weeks or even months. And after this, there are certain to be appeals. But I am waiting with great interest to see what develops. Is it possible that this is the first step towards a smoke-free Canada?
Editors Note: Jump to the conclusion of the story! The judgment is out!
After-Sketching Sketching
There are only a few doodles from the workshop trip to Brazil I haven’t posted yet: The party sketches.
After all the official workshops and stand-and-deliver painting demos are done, it’s an Urban Sketchers tradition to hang out and draw each other over dinner. This is social drawing time, so it tends to be simple pen doodles. Just a Pilot G-Tec 0.4mm ballpoint in this case. It’s a chance for some great conversation, with friends who don’t mind if you draw them obsessively.
This particular day Liz Steel and I had gone out to demo for our friend Rafa and his students from Federal University. Afterwards the gang from the symposium met up, and he took us out for our first taste of Feijoada and then on a sketchwalk through Rio’s historic Santa Teresa neighborhood, (past a big police checkpoint), and down to the Rio Scenarium for a night of sketching and Samba.
These may not be the great artworks that go on gallery walls – but they’re the best memories of a sketchers workshop. I’m just now (20 years on in drawing) starting to feel like I can sketch spontaneous portraits. I’ve been practicing getting likenesses. (More on that in future posts). And it’s a great relief to be able to do it. Drawing people you know personally is kind of nerve wracking. What if they turn out funny looking?
Fortunately everyone I know is already funny looking. No! wait. What I mean is, fortunately fellow urban sketchers are good natured about it. Nobody cares if the drawings turn out odd, because we know that’s the only way to learn – making a lot of odd looking people – until you get the hang of it.
This was the night Laurel captured my favorite USK photo of all time – so here it is again, just because I think these guys look so cool.
Using Color Notation for Speed Sketching, Jasper Parkway
So the funeral is over and done with. Plus most of the paperwork required to make an orderly transition. Not much fun to be handling these things right now. Those that know us, can guess that my wife Laurel did it all.
These recent days, I find myself keenly aware of our finite life span. I felt every ticking second being wasted in meetings with funeral directors. It’s been a reminder to me to get my own affairs in order. I’m leaving a directive telling those vultures exactly what they can do with their satin lined boxes.
I’m sure everyone wants to say what they’re thinking to those guys. I think I’ll pay in advance, so I can say it in person. I don’t get how anyone can do that job in good conscience. There needs to be a website for ugly brass urns so nobody has to be the sales person.
But. Enough about that.
We had a day before the flight home. So we took a drive up north, past Lake Louise and towards the Saskatchewan River Crossing. The same route we took this summer in fact – but this time, suitably shrouded in ice and fog.
Seemed like it fit the occasion well enough.
We chose to ignore the fact our rental didn’t come with snow tires. It mostly worked out. Got stuck briefly. Had to get a snow plow driver to loan us a shovel and some gravel. You should probably respect the posted warnings about tires. Don’t do what we did. There’s no phone signal up here.
There were people that we probably should have visited in town, but I felt we should take a day to recharge, see some nature, make some art. I expect nobody will mind all that much. Who wants to sit around talking about funerals.
These are quick sketches, captured from the car while Laurel was walking up and down the roadside taking photos. Perhaps 5-10 minutes at a go. They’re done in a mix of water-soluble and water-proof line – two fountain pens, alternating – planning ahead which lines I wanted to stay, which I wanted to melt. Color is the usual W&N pan watercolors, sketched in rapidly – a page of three sketches painted over in another 10 minutes, probably less.
This last one is Vermilion Lakes near the town of Banff. The lakes are surround by marshy areas full of twiggy willow bushes with clouds of bright red branches. Quite a remarkable sight.
I had a pad of TerraSkin paper lying about, grabbed that when we flew out the door. Had just been given to me to test out recently. A tradesmen we had around the house turns out to be married to the Canadian distributor. So, I can say – it works exactly as advertised. The plastic-y paper is mostly waterproof – not rippling in the slightest when wet. Watercolor pools on the surface, but eventually dries down, and can be painted over without any lifting. As opposed to YUPO – which seems similar at first, but is really quite different in practice. If you’re going out in the field, on a sketching trip where you want to pack light – a pad of TerraSkin will definitely allow you to paint without taping your paper down. On the other hand, you will have to wait for it to dry before you can close the book.
Did you notice the margin notes – the small letters and numbers? Those are color and value notes (on a 5 value scale). I did all the sketches as time allowed – working quickly, being ready to move when Laurel was done shooting. I ended up painting in the car during the long drive, but in the past I’ve come back for color in the evenings. If I don’t do it the same day, I rarely get back to it.
So the notes, GR1 for ‘grey. value 1’ or G4 – for ‘green, value 4’ (pine trees), are to help me remember the colors. They’re a bit vague. You should probably note actual pigments you’d use. But they only needed to assist my memory for a few hours at most. I knew by context if I meant (G)rey or (G)reen. Also, I didn’t stick entirely to the plan. Many greys became blues or purples. Didn’t want to be depressing.
So in any case – there’s a trick for drawing fast and coloring later. Try it out, see if it helps? It’s an option when you don’t want to stop to take a reference photo. I’m drawing too fast in this case to be switching between pens and camera. Besides, the colors I see are not always visible to a cheap camera. Sometimes they’re not even there at all.
Modern Medicine
Here’s dad in the hospital. Heart attack while out walking. Unconscious for unknown time, phoned in by a passing Samaritan.
Machines to push the air, control body temperature. Drugs to tweak heart rate, blood flow, control seizures – really another kind of small machines – alchemical technology.
Only half the job though. The big question is the mind. Is there anyone in there? We’ll see about that in a couple days. Or not.
Epilogue : In the end, while the care in the hospital was excellent, Allen Douglas Holmes would never regain consciousness. Damage to the brain following his heart attack was extensive. He passed on Dec 9/14 at age 71.
Anyone who knew him would agree he lived his life on his own terms. That is the best lesson he leaves the world.
Thanks everyone, for the support and well wishes.
Workshop Announcement! : Exploring Cortona with a Sketchbook, June 2015
I’m excited to announce a one week sketching workshop in Cortona, Italy, to take place this upcoming June 8-15, 2015.
This will be my first time sketching in Italy, so we’re working in partnership with the art-tour operator Toscana Americana. We’ll be based in Cortona, with day trips to Siena, Lake Trasimeno and San Feliciano (day transportation included). Our hosts have arranged wine tastings and dinners each evening, and there are options for transport to and from the airport in Florence to the home base in Cortona.
Read all about it on the workshop page HERE:
Old Newfoundland Sketchbook : Redux
A few years back we did a road trip across Newfoundland. I was looking through my old sketchbooks, digging up reference images for an upcoming project, and I realized I’ve never actually posted scans from the trip.
I did a video flip through back in the day – which is fun and all, but I’m no videographer. It’s on the dark and grainy side. So here’s a better look at my first successful water-soluble sketches.
These were done with a Lamy Joy fountain pen, the name brand ink cartridges and a 6×9″ Stillman and Birn Alpha sketchbook. Tinted with Windsor and Newton Watercolors.
Citizen Sketcher 