Month: June 2013

Sketches / Drawings / Paintings, Urban Sketching

The Angel :: Monument George-Étienne Cartier

by Jane HannahLeave a Comment on The Angel :: Monument George-Étienne Cartier

Today the Urban Sketchers of Montreal regrouped and we were a happy gang of people. The sun was out, the tam tams were drumming and the feeling was just good. Sketchers are really nice people ;-) And I actually found a free parking space just in front of the monument — yeah!

So here is The Angel (1919) sculpted by George William Hill (1862–1934) and is one of the most important monuments in Montreal. It is a very symbolic monument as the 4  women represent the 4 first provinces, the Angel represents La Renommée, the Canadian legislation and education are also represented.
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Aujourd’hui les Sketchers urbains de Montréal se sont regroupés au bas du Mont-Royal en-avant (et arrière) du monument George Étienne Cartier. Nous étions une belle gang, de bonne humeur avec le soleil qui nous accompagnait.

Voici le monument (1919) qui a été sculpté par George William Hill (1862-1934) et qui est un des monuments les plus importants de Montréal. Il est  symbolique car les 4 femmes au bas de la statue représentent les 4 premières provinces, la législation et l’éducation sont aussi représentés. George-Étienne Cartier était un avocat qui eut une vie controversée entre le peuple québécois français et le peuple anglophone du Canada. Certains l’appellent un héros, d’autres l’appellent un traître! Voici la dichotomie canadienne ;-)

Colours: Mayan Blue, Burnt Sienna and Aureolin Yellow
Paper: Moleskine

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Sketches / Drawings / Paintings, Urban Sketching

Trip down south… and a few lessons in the making! Une couple de leçons plus tard.

by Jane Hannah3 Comments on Trip down south… and a few lessons in the making! Une couple de leçons plus tard.

We left in a rush, pretty much at the last minute, last Friday for a well deserved break to Cayo Largo… which turned out to be hot, humid and hot… the exact opposite of our Quebec weather conditions.

On the first day of the trip, my colour palette was exposed to close to 46ºC temperatures, and when I opened my handbag, all of the Winsor & Newton watercolours had dripped all over my handbag and over each other! Not so for the Daniel Smith nor Schminke watercolours. Yikes! So I spent the rest of my day trying to salvage and clean the mess up. Lesson #1.

When I started painting in the sketchbook, I did not notice that the sunscreen on my arm had touched the right-hand side of the page… and it acted as wax on the paper. You can see the effects of this under the bridge, on the left palm tree. Lesson #2.

In this temperature, the Daniel Smith watercolours all seemed to granulate and take in the salt from the sea air. They did not react well to the hot temperature. Lesson #3.

Sketchbook:  Trav•e•logue series watercolor journals by Hand•book Journal Co.
Size: 8.25″ x 8.25″
Bought at Avenue des arts, a fine arts shop in Westmount.
Recommended by: Shari Blaukopf

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Sketches / Drawings / Paintings, Urban Sketching

Last painting of Kamouraska :: Dernière peinture de Kamouraska

by Jane Hannah4 Comments on Last painting of Kamouraska :: Dernière peinture de Kamouraska

— June 7, 2013 :: Kamouraska —
This is the last full painting that I did in Kamouraska. This took place behind the Restaurant L’Amuse-Bouche in the morning. I started by putting in a wash of yellow merging into crimson and then merging into blue. In the morning the islands seem to be floating on top of the estuary and at night they seemed to be sinking… what a wonderful show that our beautiful planet creates for us!

Voici la dernière peinture que j’ai peinte à Kamouraska. Elle a été peinte juste en arrière du restaurant L’Amuse-Bouche. J’ai commencé par mettre un lavis de jaune, rouge et bleu. Au matin, les îles dans l’estuaire semblaient flotter par-dessus l’eau et en soirée elles semblaient se noyer… quel spectacle que notre belle planète nous donne!

Paper: Fabriano Artistico Cold Pressed 12″ x 10″

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Sketches / Drawings / Paintings, Urban Sketching

Kamouraska day 4 :: Jour 4 Kamouraska

by Jane HannahLeave a Comment on Kamouraska day 4 :: Jour 4 Kamouraska

This was our last day of painting in Kamouraska and Shari chose to stay in the village to let us paint the architectural details of this very quaint village or simply paint the views. In the morning we painted the rocks and the views on the east side of the village behind the Resto L’Amuse-Bouche (where they serve tapas). (I still have to finish this painting before posting it… should do it this coming weekend). In the afternoon we painted behind the Café Côté Est. I did not paint in the afternoon… I just looked and looked and looked… and breathed in… and breathed in the salty air filled with odours of algae. Ohmmmmm ;-) These are thumbnails of compositional and tonal values that I did of the views that I had sitting on the porch at the Breughel Microbrewery. Mmmmm…

Au petit matin de notre dernière journée à Kamouraska on a peint en-arrière du Resto L’Amuse-bouche. Les rochers et la pointe de Kamouraska ont été peints (je vais poster cette peinture plus tard cette fds car je ne l’ai jamais finie) et en après-midi nous avons peint en-arrière du Café Côté Est. Moi je n’ai pas peint… j’ai simplement regardé l’estuaire et regardé et regardé l’estuaire… encore et encore…  et j’ai pris de grands respirs de cet air salin ayant une senteur distinctive d’algues marines… ohmmmmmm ;-) Quel bonheur! Donc je vous offre des petits croquis de mes compositions de la journée précédente à la Microbrasserie Breughel.

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Sketches / Drawings / Paintings, Urban Sketching

Kamouraska day 3 & more :: Jour 3 Kamouraska… et plus!

by Jane Hannah7 Comments on Kamouraska day 3 & more :: Jour 3 Kamouraska… et plus!

– June 5th, 2013 in St-André overlooking the marsh from the lighthouse –
On our 3rd day in Kamouraska Shari spoke about the relations of cold/warm colours, opaque/transparent, primary, secondary colours. So here is the sketch that I did of the salt marshes and of the small village of St-André and its church.

– Le 5 juin 2013 au phare de St-André –
Pour notre 3e jour à Kamouraska, nous nous sommes rendus au phare de St-André un très petit village juste à côté de Kamouraska. Ce phare est entouré des battures salines et j’ai peint l’église au loin.

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When I decided to follow the workshop, one of my wishes was to be able to paint without having to draw in ink before… I wanted to paint instead of illustrating. I have been practicing what Shari taught us since, and this is one of the results. I am finally starting to understand how it works and what I realized today was that all of my brushes did not carry enough water… and Linda lent me one of her brushes with a 20 point, and wow! Lo and behold! I got it ;-) Thank you Linda for lending me your brush. So I painted today two views of Chemin St-Georges in Rigaud… which one do you like best?

Une des choses que je voulais apprendre pendant l’atelier était de me libérer d’illustrer avec des plumes et peindre! Sans utiliser de plume fontaine! Et voici le résultat, le chemin St-Georges à Rigaud. Ce que je réalise est que mes pinceaux sont tous trop petits… Linda m’a passé un pineau rond #20, et wow! La quantité d’eau que ce pinceau peut transporter fait toute la différence. Merci Linda!

Paper: Moleskine Watercolour Sketchbook
Colour: Cerulean Blue (Schmincke), Aureolin Yellow (W&N) and Alizarin Crimson (DS).

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Sketches / Drawings / Paintings, Urban Sketching

Kamouraska Day 2 :: Jour 2 à Kamouraska

by Jane HannahLeave a Comment on Kamouraska Day 2 :: Jour 2 à Kamouraska

— June 4th, 2013 on the Kamouraska Wharf —
On our second day in Kamouraska, Shari taught us to think about composition, without forgetting to include the value sketches. For the composition aspect, we needed to do at least 3 thumbnails horizontal and vertical of what we were seeing and to choose the one that we liked best. This is, in my opinion, the first thing that any artist should do. With the different thumbnails we can zoom into a landscape or zoom out, change the horizon line to higher or lower, and determine what are the best aspects in the future painting. So here are my compositions for one of the views on that day. I was playing around with some colours, so I decided to do colour composition thumbnails.

— Le 4 juin 2013 sur le Quai de Kamouraska —
Lors de notre deuxième journée à Kamouraska, Shari nous a parlé de composition. Faire au moins 3 esquisses verticaux/horizontaux de l’endroit que l’on veut peindre, et décider si l’on veut se rapprocher ou s’éloigner aussi. Ceci est une des premières choses que l’on apprend en communications graphiques aussi. Une fois la composition déterminée, on peut faire notre étude de valeurs de gris. Moi je me suis amusée et j’ai essayé de faire des esquisses avec des compositions en couleurs. 

Paper: Moleskine Sketchbook
Pencil lines

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Sketches / Drawings / Paintings, Urban Sketching

Kamouraska, Day 1 :: Jour 1 à Kamouraska

by Jane Hannah2 Comments on Kamouraska, Day 1 :: Jour 1 à Kamouraska

I came back yesterday from Kamouraska and what a beauty of a village. Even though there are only 500 inhabitants that live there year round, the quality of the people, architecture and services are outstanding. So this painting was done on our first day of the workshop and we were freezing. The week started very cold and warmed up eventually.

We started our workshop with value sketching. For these series of houses, I used three values… highlights, midtones and shadows. Can you identify them? For this, we use one colour and first paint in the light values with a wash, then with a 2nd wash for the midtones and finally a 3rd wash for the shadow areas. I also found out that when we put in too much water,”blossoms” form in our watercolours (in my dark values on the side of the houses we can easily see them). Shari had a special challenge for me during the week and it was to put aside my fountain pens that I love so much and only draw with pencil lines — yikes ;-)

Je suis revenue de Kamouraska hier après-midi et ce petit village de 500 habitants est splendide… autant dans l’accueil des gens, la qualité de leurs produits et la belle architecture. Il faisait très froid au début de la semaine et s’est réchauffé assez vite.

Pour notre première journée, nous avons travaillé les valeurs de tons. Dans cette série de maisons, j’ai utilisé trois tonalités. Ombres, tons moyens et tons clairs… pouvez-vous les identifier? Pour faire ceci nous utilisons une couleur seulement, et avec un premier lavis pour les tons clairs, ensuite un 2e lavis pour les tons moyens et un 3e pour les ombres. Shari avait un défi pour moi et c’était de ne pas utiliser mes plumes fontaines et de travailler qu’au crayon — ayoye ;-)

Paper: Moleskine Sketchbook
Pencil lines
Colour: Payne’s Grey

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