Month: February 2015

Be like the bird that,
passing on her flight awhile on boughs too slight,
feels them give way beneath her,
and yet sings,
knowing that she hath wings.
— Victor Hugo

These are the remnants of Valentine’s Day, my dried up peach roses. I find them as beautiful as the fresh ones, even though they have dropped, are crinkly and shrivelled -) I just wanted to mention that the fountain pen that I used for this drawing is quite special. It is extremely fine and is about 25$, which is a very good deal. I bought it on Amazon and I am extremely happy with it. I also bought a converter to put the ink in it and I think that I paid about 8$.

Voici les roses de la St-Valentin de couleur pêche qui sont toutes séchées, défraîchies, tombantes et recroquevillées sur elles-même, et elles sont toujours aussi belles. Je voulais mentionner que j’utilise souvent cette plume fontaine que j’aime beaucoup car le bout est très fin. Je l’ai acheté sur Amazon avec le convertisseur pour l’encre et je suis très contente de sa qualité. 

Paper: Moleskine Sketchbook 5″ x 8″
Fountain Pen: Platinum Desk Pen EF DP1000AB
Ink: Noodlers’ Lexington Grey
Location: Rigaud, Québec, Canada

As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth,
so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind.
To make a deep physical path,
we walk again and again.
To make a deep mental path,
we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.
—  Henry David Thoreau

This post is for Linda… and I hope that you are enjoying the sun and the warmth of the southern climes. Despite all of the the grading and preparation for my classes that I must do I have managed to enjoy my day. Today everyone in my region seemed to be outdoors as we were hovering near the 0ºC and it felt wonderful, even if there was no sun — we have been living in -20ºC to -30ºC weather for the past month, and today’s temperature was a very sweet change. On grey days, it is hard to make things pop as there are hardly any shadows so I tried experimenting with some colours, and see how I could keep a subdued hue and keep the painting soft. These are the poultry farms on our campus which abuts the McDonald Campus, McGill’s agricultural campus.

En dépit de toutes les corrections et la préparation pour mes cours j’ai réussi à aimer ma journée. Aujourd’hui il semble que tout le monde dans ma région était dehors à prendre plaisir à saluer les températures clémentes… 0ºC pour nous semble bien chaud à comparer aux températures de -20ºC et -30ºC que nous avons eues pendant le dernier mois. Quand les journées sont grises comme aujourd’hui il n’y a pas d’ombres donc les peintures sont moins contrastées et peut-être plus atmosphériques et c’est ceci que j’ai essayé de créer. Voici les poulaillers du campus McDonald, la section agricole de l’université McGill.

Paper: Travelogue Handbook Series
Colours: Q. Gold, Alizarin Crimson, Cobalt Blue
Fountain Pen: Pilot Penmanship EF
Ink: Noodlers’ Lexington Grey
Location: Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue, Québec, Canada

How right it is to love flowers and the greenery of pines
and ivy and hawthorn hedges;
they have been with us from the very beginning.
— Vincent Van Gogh.

One of the advantages to teaching in the mornings is that I have some afternoons free to paint! As the flu seems to be finally over and today was not as frigid as it has been in the past weeks, it just felt good to draw what I was seeing. As you can see, the snow was melting today creating beautiful reflections on the asphalt. Paper quality in watercolour painting is very important as depending on the paper that you are using, the intensity of the colours might change as some papers absorb more than others. The paper that I used seems to let the paint glide on it, and makes some interesting effects (as you can see in the sky).

Un des avantages à enseigner le matin est que je peux prendre certains après-midis pour peindre. La température aujourd’hui était bien plus clémente que dans les dernières semaines permettant aux reflects d’immeubles de se créer dans la neige fondante. Le papier utilisé en aquarelle est très important, car certains papiers absorbent beaucoup trop la peinture — ou pas assez — dans certains cas. Le papier que j’ai utilisé aujourd’hui laisse l’aquarelle glisser sur la feuille avec le résultat que vous voyez dans le ciel… assez intéressant.

Paper: Travelogue Handbook Series
Colours: Q. Gold, Q. Orange, Alizarin Crimson, Burnt Umber & Payne’s Gray
Fountain Pen: Pilot Penmanship EF
Ink: Noodlers’ Lexington Grey
Location: Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue, Québec, Canada

For the past two weeks I have been down with the flu, and what a flu was it! I think that I slept more in the past two weeks than in a normal months’ time.  I am sure glad that it is almost over even though there are still remnants of it floating in the air around me. Today was a joyful day as I did two things that I love.  The first one is listening to majestic music such as J. S. Bach’s St. Matthew’s Passion, Aria no. 65 and the other is to have the time to paint something that I like and that turned out not too shabbily. So today I happily painted the Arctic Circle where I work at John Abbott College, which is an outside tunnel that has an oval form that links two buildings together.

Les deux dernières semaines j’ai eu la grippe et quelle grippe! Elle m’a assommée d’aplomb et j’ai dormi pendant le jour, une chose qui m’arrive très rarement. Je suis très contente qu’elle soit passée et aujourd’hui j’étais bien heureuse de peindre le Cercle arctique Cégep John Abbott. Il y a deux choses que j’aime beaucoup, la première est d’écouter la majestueuse musique de J. S. Bach La Passion de St-Matthew, Aria no. 65 et d’avoir le temps de peindre en ayant un résultat respectable. 

Paper: Travelogue Handbook Series
Colours: New Gambodge, Q. Orange, Burnt Umber, Alizarin Crimson & French Ultramarine
Fountain Pen: Pilot Penmanship EF
Ink: Noodlers’ Lexington Grey
Location: Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue, Québec, Canada

Bump, bump, bump little heart
along this journey
we’ve gone together,
you piping all the fuel.
You’re fistsize, and fistlike
you clench and unclench,
clench and unclench,
keeping this head upright
to batter its way
through the walls of the day.
— Milton Acorn, the People’s Poet.

Yesterday’s drawings turned into paintings today. The bottom painting was my first one and the face has not enough highlights but I am happy the T-shirt. I am happy with the black dress painting. It was kind of cool to transform a very informal gesture drawing into something more tangible and the way that Marc teaches it makes it nice. I am feeling more at ease now that I have started and I should soon follow up with my next one.

Paper: Bockingford CP 140 lbs.
Colours: Prussian Blue, Aureolin Yellow, Alizarin Crimson, Burnt Sienna
Fountain Pen: Pilot Prera EF
Ink: Noodlers’ Lexington Grey