Close to the park

This was a beautiful spring morning and although I had a number of errands to run I didn't feel like driving. On my way to the bank I couldn't help it: the drawing bug bit me and I had to stop, scratch the itch, and draw this house...

Montreal Backyards 1

The facade of a building it's usually its most attractive side. However, there's something about the "B side" of buildings that remains worthy of sketching.

I'm trying to use more colors and accentuate the shadows.  I think the drawing looks kind of flat though.

Rue Milton

This neighborhood is officially known as Milton-Parc, but everybody calls it the McGill Ghetto. It is densely populated by McGill University students and  therefore, is a very lively street, with good  coffee shops, restaurants and a nice second hand bookstore called The Word. I had a good half an hour to spare, so I went into the bookstore and perused around the art shelf. I was most pleased to discover Leonardo Drawings: 60 Works by Leonardo da Vinci, which I bought in anticipation of a visit to the Leonardo exhibition in downtown Montreal.

Montreal: Dawson College and Parc des Écluses

A couple of sketches I did last spring. The first one is a view of Dawson College from Barat road. The second, a sketch done at the Old Port of a place called Parc des Écluses.

EDM # 51-Draw your TV

Well, this is my TV and the shelf which keeps it off the floor. I can't count how many times there have been plans to replace them: a hd flat screen and a proper stand are still in my wish list...

The pictured show is not my favorite. It just happens that I did the sketch on Sunday, the night of the Jutra Awards (thik of it as the Québecois Oscar).  I think it would be really difficult to draw a sitcom or a series: I would get distracted by the plot and by hitting the mute button at every publicity break. 

Drawing with the permanent liner was challenging and required more concentration than sketching with pencil. It forced me to really focus on the different planes to avoid overlapping, and to constantly check for the right proportions and relation between the elements before drawing a single line.  I would definitely try more inks in my future drawings, I get a sense of discipline when I use them.

Old Sketches (5)

St-Jean-Port-Joli, Québec. This town is best known for its wooden sculptures, arts and crafts. However, what I most remember is the delicious meal at La Boustifaille. This sketch of the town church was made while still savouring a crustade aux pommes.

Old Sketches (4)

When I was a child, I accompanied my grandparents to many funerals. I didn't like the funeral homes, which always seemed dark, crowded and oppressing. However, I liked the religious ceremonies, in which most people seemed to find some peace and consolation. At the cemeteries I used to read names and dates on the tombstones and my imagination would make a ghost-like image of the person as I thought he or she might have been in life. 

This is a sketch of the church and the graveyard after a funeral at Les Cèdres, a town 30 minutes west of Montréal.  August 2007.

Old Sketches (3)

A peek at Wood Street from Barat Road. I began to draw the house closest to my parking spot, but the owner noticed and I just couldn't keep sketching under his zealous surveillance, so I just turned the page and fixed the lateral mirror. 

Old Sketches (2)

The windmill was sketched at St-Zotique beach, a popular destination to beat the summer heat some 40 minutes west of Montreal, close to the Ontario border.

This series of old sketches were all made in pencil on a small sketchbook (10x15 cm/4"x6") I got as a Christmas present. I was able to haul it everywhere which was essential to take up a drawing-everywhere habit.

Houses on Avenue Sainte-Croix (final)

I have finished the sketch. Yesterday, a meeting was cancelled and I drove right to the spot to complete it. Drawing in the car is great when the cold wind is blowing and the only place to sit down is actually a parking lot, but I look forward to plain air sketching in the following weeks!

Old sketches (1)

In an earlier post I mentioned how much I used to enjoy sketching in the car. This is the first I made while parking on Barat Road. It was in the middle of winter, 2006. 

Houses on Avenue Sainte-Croix (2)

 I did't make it past day 5 of the Thing-a-Day Blog: it was difficult to find the time to scan and blog about my day 28 days in a row. Nevertheless, I'm committed to finish this sketch of Avenue Sainte-Croix houses. Here's step 2  (at this pace, by the time I finish the snow would have melted completely and the trees would have leaves!).

Houses on Avenue Sainte-Croix

I had a few minutes before a meeting today, so I sketched in the car. The sketchbook I'm drawing on is a Galison with bright and smooth acid-free paper which takes well some water to make a light wash. However it's very bright when scanned (see 01.01.09 post!) so I have been trying to adjust for a better screen display using the Gimp software.

I had forgotten how pleasurable it is to sketch in the car. The past two years I got to sketch almost every Tuesday afternoon. Every twenty minutes I had to turn on the car for a couple of minutes to warm up a little (my ecological conscience would not allow me to keep the engine running for more than that) and make sure the car battery would not fail because the radio was on all the time.

I'll try my best to finish the sketch later this week.

New Year-Nouvelle Année-Año Nuevo

Visit to the Montréal Botanical Gardens. This is one of the Christmas trees inside the Main Exhibition Greenhouse.

Visite au Jardin Botanique de Montréal. Un des sapins de Noël dans la Grand Serre.

Visita al Jardín Botánico de Montréal. Este es uno de los árboles de Navidad en el Invernadero principal.

Summer Music

I just finished formatting the sketch of a cellist performing at the Festival International de Jazz de Montréal. I am still working on another sketch I hope to post soon.
I have been reading the post at the EDM forum about Rose Madder and was quite surprised to learn about its lightfastness. That's why I love the forum, I learn something everyday! I'm only using a 4 colour palette based on Jeanne Dobie's "Making Color Sing." I do love the transparency of her works, but a little more reading about pigments won't hurt and I'll be able to make an informed decision while choosing the next tubes to buy.
The orange was made with a mix of Aureolin Yellow and Rose Madder, both from Holbein (top left corner).My watercolor teacher always stressed that brand and quality matters. She liked a lot Daniel Smith wc, but they're not available in Canada. OK, there's mail order, but I love the feeling of walking into an art store and choosing the colors, reading the labels, the feeling of the brushes, the smell of paper...

Acabo de terminar un croquis de un violoncelista tocando en el Festival Internacional de Jazz de Montréal. Todavía estoy trabajando en otro croquis que espero terminar y publicar pronto. He estado leyendo en el foro de EDM acerca del Rosa de Garanza y me sorprende que sea un color que se destiñe. Es por eso que me encanta el foro: se aprende algo cada día. Estoy usando una paleta de sólo 4 colores, basada en las recomendaciones de Jeanne Dobie y su libro "Making Color Sing". Me encanta la transparencia de sus acuarelas, pero un poco más de estudio acerca de los pigmentos no me hará daño y podré tomar una decisión más informada cuando compre otros tubos de acuarela. El naranja fue obtenido de la mezcla de Aureolína y Rosa de Garanza, ambos de la marca Holbein (esquina superior izquierda). Mi maestra de acuarela solía decir que la marca y la calidad sí importan. A ella le gustaba usar colores de Daniel Smith, pero no están disponibles en Canadá. Claro, están los envíos postales, pero a mí me encanta eso de entrar en una tienda y escoger los colores, leer las etiquetas, sentir los pinceles, el olor del papel...

Summer veggies

Welcome to my kitchen! I've been watching Anita's and Borromini Bear's post about food and got inspired. These are the organic veggies I've got for the first week of July. This is the first time I have ever tried the tatsoi, an Asiatic green leafy veggie with a taste of spinach.

¡Bienvenidos a mi cocina! Me he inspirado de los croquis de alimentos de Anita y de Borromini Bear. He aquí las verduras orgánicas que recibí la primera semana de julio. Es la primera vez que pruebo el tatsoi, una verdura asiática con sabor parecido a la espinaca.

Summer Swimming

Shading is one of the most difficult challenges for me. It took a while before I got the chrome handles! Although I'm satisfied with this attempt, I still have a long way to go before I could say that I feel comfortable drawing reflections.

El sombreado es uno de los retos más difíciles: ¡me tomó un buen rato dibujar el barandal cromado! Y aún cuando estoy satisfecha con el resultado, todavía falta mucho para que pueda decir que me siento a gusto dibujando reflejos.

Portrait Party with Nadine

Hey! Take a look at this portrait exchange! I swapped portraits with Nadine. They're up now at the Portrait Party.

¡Hey! Echa un vistazo a este intercambio de retratos. Intercambié unas fotos con Nadine y ahora están en este blog.

Allô! Jette un coup d'oeil ici. Nadine et moi avons fait un échange de portraits pour la Portrait Party.

Creature and the Celestial Bells

I liked Creature. So I looked up their info and discovered they were performing again the very next day, in the context of a Street Theatre Festival in Lachine. The Festival featured the Celestial Bells. A french troupe of musicians and acrobats that perform some 180 feet above ground, attached to a mobile structure that spins and opens its petal-like armature like a gigantic steel flower.

Me gustó Creature. Busqué más información y descubrí que se presentarían al día siguiente en el contexto del Festival de Teatro de Calle de Lachine. La presentación estelar del festival era el Carrillón Celeste: una troupe francesa de músicos y acróbatas que ofrecen su espectáculo suspendidos a 60 metros de altura, trepados a una estructura móbil que gira y abre sus pétalos metálicos como si fuera una gigantesca flor de acero.

Q in Montreal

On June 26th, I went to the taping of Q, a radioshow that I listen to, that was in the city for a change (they're Toronto based). Then again, I pulled out the moleskine and draw. Couldn't get Hank Jones and Joe Lovano in the picture (concrete column obstructed my view), but made a composition of host Jian Ghomeshi, Gregory Charles and three guys from Creature. The whole presentation was awsome. I'm not the autograph chasing kind of person, but I asked them to sign the sketch. I added some watercolor at home.


El 26 de junio fui a la grabación de Q, un programa de radio que escucho, que para variar estaba en esta ciudad (son de Toronto). Una vez más, saqué el moleskine y me puse a dibujar. Literalmente no pude ver a Hank Jones ni a Joe Lovano (una columna de concreto se interpuso), pero hice una composición con Jian Ghomeshi, el conductor del programa, Gregory Charles y tres chicos de Creature. Toda la presentación estuvo genial. No suelo pedir autógrafos, pero les pedí que me firmaran el croquis. Más tarde lo pinté con acuarela.