5″X3″ Marker on paper

Another one for the Urban Sketchers Flickr group. Actually I feel like a bit of a fraud presenting Niagara-on-the-Lake pictures as “urban”, it is such a very small town. However, it is the best I can come up with right now as that is where I am every day. I got a window seat at the Epicurean today, I am not brave enough to sketch outside yet.

It has been very mild for several days and we have had a fair bit of rain which has washed much of the snow away, although there are still a few piles of dirty slush as in the foreground of this picture. The weather is changing again now and temperatures are plumetting again. I was talking to some people who drove up from Buffalo today where the schools are closed because of snow and sleet and dreadful road conditions. I guess we get it next.

7″X5.5″ Marker on Paper

In Starbucks again on the weekend, I lucked out and got an armchair. I really need to practise these quick figure studies more, I am not good at the moving targets. Tonight I tried to sketch at the guitar concert but just as I was getting into it the lights went out. I tried drawing in the dark, the results were interesting but not terribly representational. I wonder how Al Hirchfeld did it?

5.5″X7″Marker on paper

Every bar, café, restaurant and bistro has a table close to the kitchen where the staff hang out. Once it would have had an over-full ashtray and a cigarette left smouldering or carefully extinguished to be lit again. Here sits the chef, making a list of supplies needed, planning next week’s menu or writing to his mother, who knows?

The Epicurean is a nice place to go at lunchtime with lovely big southern windows flooding the back section with sunlight. At this time of year there is always lots of room for me to sit and draw undisturbed too.

3.5″X5.5″ Marker on paper

J. did his annual faculty concert at Brock U. today. I actually managed to get there for the first time in about ten years. I wimped out on the hands, the rest was pretty easy, a sitting target in fact.

For any locals out there, there will be a wonderful concert at St Barnabas Anglican Church on Queenston Street, St. Catharines, next Tuesday (Feb 10) at 7:30. The Eden Stell Duo from England are one of the best guitar ensembles in the world. Go here for more information.

5.5″X7″ Marker on paper

I love drawing winter trees, they are both a challenging and a forgiving study. It is easy to get lost in the detail, but it doesn’t really matter too much if you do.

Today is Groundhog Day, a quaint North American tradition that holds that if the groundhog sees his shadow when he comes out of his hole on Groundhog Day we are in for 6 more weeks of winter. There are actually official groundhogs all over the continent with names like Wiareton Willy and Punxsutawney Phil. I think it is all a bit of a moot point in Ontario where Spring is unlikely to show itself until the end of March no matter what Willy does.

This day is also Candlemas in the Christan calender and Imbolc in the pagan Celtic calendar. Whichever way you cut it we are at the very midpoint of winter, halfway between the Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox. Things have to get better from here.

7″X5″ Marker on paper

My latest online love affair is with Urban Sketchers. I found the blog first and immediately fell in love with the incredible variety of contributors from all over the world. Membership is by invitation only and the calibre of work is high. I soon realized that there is also a Flickr group, which is open to all comers. I decided that, with my limited opportunities to sketch in the city, I might attempt a membership there. They, like the blog, have certain rules. Only sketches with an urban theme are allowed and no photographs or drawings from photographs. Well there is the rub! In Ontario in the winter, drawing outside from life is well nigh impossible. The fact that I actually live in a city but work in a very small country town also limits my opportunities, as most of my drawings are done in my lunch hour.

Anyway, all this is a roundabout way of confessing that this is not in fact done from life, even though the style might suggest it. I have been practising drawing from photos on my computer screen in the same way that I draw on location, keeping loose and avoiding getting snarled up with detail. Using a limited range of values like this also helps me to assess composition in case I might later want to paint these subjects in some larger format.

7″X5″ marker on paper

I apologise for the paucity of my offerings lately. I have a bad case of the January blahs. I am sick and tired of drawing from photographs, painting or drawing outside is completely out of the question when it is -10-15C and I really don’t do well with artificial light. I need some new inspiration I think , or maybe just some new weather. On top of everything, I feel like I am coming down with something, although it probably won’t amount to much as I usually throw things off pretty quickly.

7″X5.5″ Marker on Moleskin

I try to swim three times a week. It is very hard to get motivated when it is -13C out there but I reward myself with a tall latte on my way home. I don’t always find somewhere to sit but when I do I try to find something to add to my urban sketchbook. This seemed like the perfect subject as the items on the left at least being inanimate, I would get a chance to have a static anchor to secure the rest of the drawing against. I forgot that they would be constantly moved around by pesky people who would also block my view of the guy in the window seat. Never mind.

5″X7″ Marker on paper

Still having difficulty finding my muse. This is left over from a New Year party.

5″X7″ Marker on paper

The weather is about as vile as it gets. Hovering close to freezing with alternate snow and rain, turning the roads into slush and then ice, and back to slush again. Walking wasn’t much fun either when I went out for this one.