Saturday, August 3, 2013

mermaid

mermaid by interior_perspective
mermaid, a photo by interior_perspective on Flickr.
Avant-garde designers poured their creativity and best skills into ONE | Outfits from a New Era. The official title of this dress is "Mermaid Skin" by Geneviève Bouchard. According to the information sheet, 97 salmon skins, 40 mussel shells and 300 metres of fishing line were kept away from the landfill, however this one-of-a-kind garment must be displayed in a freezer to keep its good looks!

http://www.ec.gc.ca/biosphere/default.asp?lang=En&n=8BCED24D-1

Sunday, July 14, 2013

Place d'Armes, Montreal 1

A group of enthusiastic sketchers gathered yesterday in Old Montreal to take part in the 40th World Wide SketchCrawl. We were happy to have Topi, a visitor from Finland, who is spending his vacation in the city and found us through the international forum. The heat was building up and good shade spots were a bit difficult to find.
I spent the morning at Place Jacques Cartier and the afternoon at Place d'Armes, in front of the Basilica, however the Hotel Place d'Armes seemed more appealing to sketch because the horse drawn carriages were parked nearby.

Saturday, May 18, 2013

Beaver Hall Building

This building was once the head office of Bell Canada. It was built between 1927-1929, with a steel frame. In the 20's the advances in construction technology allowed architects and engineers to conceive higher buildings which were often taken as emblematic of the proprietor's prestige.
At the time, the Beaver Hall was the second tallest building in the city (the Royal Bank Tower was the highest) and was designed to include a number of services to employees, like lounges, a nursing station and a preventive medicine office.
The official address is 1050 Beaver Hall, however the sketch was made from the point of view of the National Bank building front door, which is at 600 de la Gauchetière, in Downtown Montréal.

Saturday, April 27, 2013

Rue de l'Eglise

Rue de l'Eglise by interior_perspective
Rue de l'Eglise, a photo by interior_perspective on Flickr.
Is it easier to draw familiar buildings or something completely new to the eye? Do we always have the whole scope of what we want to draw? I think some buildings catch our eye immediately, while others awake our senses in a more subtile manner. For example, I've seen the adjacent hall to this church many times but it was always second to the church's main façade. That is, until I took a different route and approached the building from another point of view. Then I saw its geometry, the wooden beams of the roof, the deep shadow marking the front door, the little garden (not sketched), the details that delineate what I think it is its own personality. I thought of it like a neighbour you cross paths with on your way to work: you exchange nothing but a polite "good morning" for a year or more, until one day you find each other at a common friend's dinner party, then you start a real conversation and the discovery begins.