This week marks William Shakespeare’s birthday. Shakespeare, who was born in 1564, endured a life chequered by outbreaks of plague. Seven hundred years later, it still rings true! To mark this some of Britain’s most famous Shakespearean actors, including Dame Judi Dench, read from Richard II. Here are the lyrics…. and if you would like to hear them played out by Dame Judy Dench — a real treat — , just go and view it on the excellent news show BBCNewsnight.

KING RICHARD II
I have been studying how I may compare
This prison where I live unto the world:
And for because the world is populous
And here is not a creature but myself,
I cannot do it; yet I’ll hammer it out.
My brain I’ll prove the female to my soul,
My soul the father; and these two beget
A generation of still-breeding thoughts,
And these same thoughts people this little world,
In humours like the people of this world,
For no thought is contented.
The better sort,
As thoughts of things divine, are intermix’d
With scruples and do set the word itself
Against the word:
As thus, ‘Come, little ones,’ and then again,
‘It is as hard to come as for a camel
To thread the postern of a small needle’s eye.’
Thoughts tending to ambition, they do plot
Unlikely wonders; how these vain weak nails
May tear a passage through the flinty ribs
Of this hard world, my ragged prison walls,
And, for they cannot, die in their own pride.
Thoughts tending to content flatter themselves
That they are not the first of fortune’s slaves,
Nor shall not be the last; like silly beggars
Who sitting in the stocks refuge their shame,
That many have and others must sit there;
And in this thought they find a kind of ease,
Bearing their own misfortunes on the back
Of such as have before endured the like.
Thus play I in one person many people,
And none contented: sometimes am I king;
Then treasons make me wish myself a beggar,
And so I am: then crushing penury
Persuades me I was better when a king;
Then am I king’d again: and by and by
Think that I am unking’d by Bolingbroke,
And straight am nothing: but whate’er I be,
Nor I nor any man that but man is
With nothing shall be pleased, till he be eased
With being nothing.
Music do I hear?

Paper: Hand•book journal co. 8″ x 8″ #26
Ink: Lexington Grey
Fountain Pen: Pilot Penmanship EF
Watercolours: New Gamboge, Q. Gold, Ceruleant Blue, Ultramarine, Q. Rose, Q. Burnt Orange, etc.

After 10 days of laryngitis, for a professor, this is deeply frightful in many ways. I have not spoken in 10 days can you imagine? So many times during this past week have I pictured myself, in dreams and awake, coming into class not being able to speak out loud! Yikes!

Slowly but surely my voice is healing, but it will still be a while before it finds its own resonance and the minute that I force it, it breaks… I wonder what kind of a week is waiting for me with the students -)))

I have been listening to this song for the past week, and oh what a song! What lyrics and artist…

There are so many things that I love about this sketch. The purple eyes (a bit like Elizabeth Taylor’s were), the wavy beard, the intensity of the colours and the very round face with crooked glasses… the jagged edges around the throat… and the loneliness… all of this is real for me. Can you see something else? The night gave me inspiration to continue. I go to bed too late and wake up too late — hah-hah!

Handbook Journal Pocket Landscape Red

The signpost stands where the crossways meet
There’s but one road to the journey’s end
The wanderer bent with his heavy load is waiting for a friend
The sun sinks slowly behind the hill
The dead leaves lie where the wind has blown
Likewise he who has travelled far must find his way alone
And as he leaves so the signpost turns
To point the way to the journey’s end
The old grey man with his heavy load no longer needs a friend
— Journey’s End, by Strawbs, album Grave New World

While listening to Strawbs, the Grave New World album I took the last of the afternoon to paint a snow scene. I have the week off and it feels really good, even though I still have loads of correcting, the income taxes to prepare, classes for next week to prepare… I am liberated from going to the College! To get back into painting, especially with watercolour, it was a good idea for me to go back to basics today and start over as if I was a beginner — which I am in a sense -)

For me this means, no ink lines, hardly any pencil lines, picking a classic watercolour scene, wetting the paper beforehand and then taking my time and painting and make sure of letting the paints dry before continuing (as I usually don’t).

First I put some water in the bottom half of the sheet, waited a bit, and then took some Cerulean Blue to create the effect of snow squalls. Then for the top snow mounds (4) I actually wet the individual mounds and then dropped the Cerulean, then went on to another mound. Learning from the master Grant Fuller.

Colours: Q. Gold, B. Sienna, Cerulean Blue and Phthalo Blue
Paper: Hand•book paper co., field watercolour journal 8″ x 8″

Oh boy! Watercolour papers are a diverse bunch of papers! When I started painting a few years back, I used to love the Moleskine Watercolour Notebook and then a couple of years later while experimenting with other papers the Moleskine was put aside as I preferred most of the other ones. This morning when I picked it up again, I decided to paint with watercolours (not India Ink) and wow! I love it again! Such a strange relationship that we have with these beautiful papers. In the same way, some of the colours that I have used in the past have been put aside to be replaced by other ones and sometimes they come back in – they are sneaky like that – wouldn’t you say?

On Sundays, while I am working or painting I always listen to music and today was an Ani DiFranco type of day. One of the softest songs is You had time…

Paper: #27 Moleskine Watercolour Notebook
Fountain Pen: Platinum 3776 EF (the 3776 is the height in meters of Mount Fuji)
Ink: DeAtramentis Document Black
Watercolours: DS Q. Gold, DS Pyrrol Crimson, DS Cerulean Chromium, W&N Burnt Sienna

Here is my present palette colours which I am really enjoying as they contain the colours that I love. The next one that I will exchange is the MC Azo Yello as I find it too opaque…

All the fine winds gone
And this sweet world is so much older
Animals pull the night around their shoulders
Flowers fall to their naked knees
Here I come now, here I come
I hear you been out there looking for something to love
The dark force that shifts at the edge of the tree
It’s alright, it’s alright
When you turn so long and lovely, it’s hard to believe
That we’re falling now in the name of the Anthrocene
— Anthrocene by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds

Sometimes when you enter a building and you look around you and assess the place and wham! You love it? Well, this is definitely my kind of place. This beautiful grand desk filled with books, papers and of course fountain pens is just in my style. I took out my Bombay Black India Ink bottle to create the washes and am quite satisfied with the different values that it gave me, going from a soft light gray to quite dark values.

On another note, the semester is in full swing, a whole lot of correcting and prepping to do and just being present for the students is quite engaging, to say the least.

Paper: #27 Moleskine Watercolour Sketchbook
Ink: Dr. Ph. Martin’s Bombay Black India Ink
Fountain Pen: Pilot Namiki Falcon SEF

As we advance in life it becomes more and more difficult,
but in fighting the difficulties the inmost strength of the heart is developed.
— Vincent van Gogh

Why do you think that someone like me would draw doughnuts? Well, because they are spherical thus difficult to draw and paint, at least for me. So after many months of not having touched a paintbrush, these small subjects made me realize that I am sooo rusty and my eyes are having trouble judging foreshortening. For those of you in the know, you probably understand this, and these were my 5th and 6th attempts… the other ones were just good for the recycling bin. No matter, I had fun doing these. The colours that I used for the doughnut were mainly Raw Sienna & Burnt Sienna as a first wash. Did you know that there are actually poems that have been written on doughnuts? Hah-hah! Funny!

Paper: Handbook field watercolour journal
Colours: Lemon Yellow, Q. Rose, French Ultramarine Raw Sienna, Burnt Sienna

Different watercolour papers take paint differently and the new Moleskine Sketchbook which is identified as Art Plus is made for drawing, even though it takes some washes and you do not have to scrub them in as much as with the older versions of the Moleskine Sketchbooks.  It is an improved paper for watercolours, and I feel a bit nostalgic about losing the scrubby texture the older paper used to give me… hah! Things change…

Fountain Pen: Pilot Falcon SEF
Watercolours: New Gamboge DS, Q. Rose DS, Antwerp Blue W&N
Sketchbook: Moleskine Art+ Sketchbook, Large

“I must study politics and war so that my sons
may have the liberty to study mathematics and philosophy.
My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy,
geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation,
commerce, and agriculture, in order to give their children
a right to study painting, poetry, music,
architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain.”
— John Adams, founder, 1735

A soft, warm and dry day in Rigaud today and as I have not dabbled in watercolours for quite a while, I painted one of my iris drawings after having totally ruined another drawing that I had just done of a beautiful Ostrya virginiana leave, trunk & flower… also commonly known as a Hophornbeam or Ironwood and Bois de fer in french in Québec.

Watercolours: DS New Gamboge, DS Q. Rose, and W&N Antwerp Blue
Sketchbook: Stillman & Birn Gamma Series

Each day has its own individuality of colour.
— Hawthorne on Painting

Flowers are in bloom here in Quebec, just in time to cooperate with my slowly recovering energy levels and the urge to draw. For those of you who did not know, I had an operation and now all is well — finally. I am starting to live again and it feels so good. Here in Rigaud the bugs are alive and feisty as we had a cold spring and I think that all of the mosquitoes waited to emerge at the same time in my backyard… real little pests they are, but the birds are singing galore and they are feasting and feeding their hatchlings.

I had never realized this before, but drawing and painting need high concentration levels and energy. You have to be in the moment and you have to stay in the moment, for quite a while I might add… so could we call drawing or painting a “meditation in observation”? Well I guess that it depends if you draw/paint directly from observation as plein-air artists do, or if you draw from your imagination with references? Or if you draw from your imagination without references? Have you ever tried without references? It is really hard but it is essential in developing your visual memory.

So no matter which way that you draw, and I do recommend that you rotate your habitual way of drawing to accommodate all three ways, drawing is good for you!

Fountain Pen: Pilot Falcon SEF
Ink: De Atramentis Document Black Ink
Paper: Stillman & Birn, Gamma Series 9″x6″