Sketchaday 15: from the cheerfully macabre back to the sublime

Posted on August 2, 2016 by julia

Taco club Sunday 31.07.16

The weather remained uncertain today so we didn’t attempt any ambitious hikes. We gave Mum and Dad a break this morning so they could have their first trail bike ride together since Leo was born. Then we all headed over to Taco club for another gargantuan meal. The decor is slightly macabre but nobody seems too spooked by it. You might detect that the two chairs in the middle are at different levels: I started the sketch from two directions at once and it didn’t quite coincide in the middle. That’s part of the risk and also the charm of sketching quickly on the spot. I added the colour afterwards, with water soluble coloured pencils. The smooth paper of this little sketchpad (a moleskin that someone gave me) suits this medium perfectly.

Trans Canada Highway bridge Sunday 31.07.16

Late in the afternoon the weather was suitably dramatic for a view of the road bridge, which is part of the Trans-Canada highway, one of the world’s longest national highways. I started a larger watercolour but became so involved in the architecture of the bridge I decided to do a quick sketch as well to try and capture the atmosphere.  This took me about 40 minutes and I added colour afterwards. That’s the edge of Mt Macpherson in the background.

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#Sketchaday14:lounging around town

Posted on July 31, 2016 by julia

I actually drew this the previous day after our adventure on the Pipe, when it got so hot and sultry all we felt like doing was sitting in a cafe and drinking iced water.  The Revelstoke lamp posts…

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#Sketchaday14:lounging around town

Posted on July 31, 2016 by julia

Lamp posts, Pam's cafe, Friday 29.07.16

I actually drew this the previous day after our adventure on the Pipe, when it got so hot and sultry all we felt like doing was sitting in a cafe and drinking iced water.  The Revelstoke lamp posts are very distinctive, and from this angle I had a fine view of two of them. We were sitting outside Pam’s (Paramjit’s) Kitchen, and  we did enjoy two delicious wraps – the shahi paneer and the veggie sabzi – even if we had to take half our meal home because we felt too hot to eat it all!

I decided this picture needed some colour to draw attention to the lamp posts, so today I finished it off with coloured pencils.

Lamp posts, Pam's cafe in colour, Friday 29.07.16

We had another tasty and super healthy lunch today at the Craft Bierhaus. Six of us each had equally satisfying dishes and the beer was outstanding. I had my first experience of Kombucha – an interesting compromise between iced tea and beer, flavoured with hibiscus.

After lunch the rain hammered down – we even had hail. We took a circuitous route home hopping from one shop awning to the next, and decided to take the rest of the day off.

Peace at last Saturday 30.07.16

After a hard day’s touring

 

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#Sketchaday13: painting the backyard and shooting the Pipe

Posted on July 31, 2016 by julia

This morning was so glorious I had to paint the other view from Ian and V’s patio: Mt Mackenzie. I was surprised that the mountain remained a misty blue grey during the whole hour and a half …

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#Sketchaday13: painting the backyard and shooting the Pipe

Posted on July 31, 2016 by julia

Mt Mackenzie from back patio

This morning was so glorious I had to paint the other view from Ian and V’s patio: Mt Mackenzie. I was surprised that the mountain remained a misty blue grey during the whole hour and a half that I painted this. A crow landed on the power line just as I was finishing, so it had to go in the picture. There are more power lines but I didn’t think they were needed.

Just as I finished the picture it was time to take the gondola to the Revelation Lodge at Mt Mackenzie (on the right of the mountain the way you see it in this picture) for breakfast, followed by our ride on the Pipe, or the Coaster as it’s also called. I wasn’t at all sure about the prospect – although I enjoy gentle skiing and very gentle bike riding, this sounded like a very out of control experience. For a taster, here’s the video which my son filmed with a camera strapped to his head.

We had a two hour wait after breakfast finished (you have to be up very early to be first in the queue) so I passed the time and kept calm by drawing the view of Revelstoke from the Lodge.

These are the before and after versions: the first one was drawn entirely on the spot, then version 2 had some detail added to it after I looked at the photo I took from the same position.  I felt the sketch needed some extra tonal clarity: the photo brought out some detail that I hadn’t seen, but I was careful not to make the drawing too fussy and over detailed.

I calmed myself down a bit further and relaxed my eyes from squinting into the distance by drawing some of the myriad wild flowers that are in the mountains at this time of year.

These are pearly everlastings, Anaphalis margaritacea . They grow like weeds and are often regarded as weeds. They have been used as a tobacco substitute, a purgative, as a poultice for aches and pains and for healing sunburn. I added the colour the following day, using it to bring out the detail of the foreground plant. They were growing in rocks with ferns and other plants, so I might create a larger composition using the photos I took, but keeping the simplicity of the original sketch.

Then I did the Pipe.

The pipe

No, that’s not me. It wasn’t at all as bad as I was expecting – you can go as fast or slow as you like, unless you’re behind someone who’s being very slow. I went slow enough to notice some more lovely wild flowers half way down the mountain. And I did enjoy the fast bits, as I felt reasonably in control.

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Sketchaday12a: sketching off the spot

Posted on July 30, 2016 by julia

In #Sketchaday11  I attempted a watercolour on the spot but an encroaching storm interrupted the process almost as soon as I had started. This is how far I got: It’s a view of Lake Revelstoke…

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Sketchaday12a: sketching off the spot

Posted on July 30, 2016 by julia

In #Sketchaday11  I attempted a watercolour on the spot but an encroaching storm interrupted the process almost as soon as I had started. This is how far I got:

View from Eagle Knoll pt 1

It’s a view of Lake Revelstoke, the reservoir above Revelstoke, from Eagle Knoll. On the morning after I painted this, I attempted to finish the picture using some photos I’d taken. Yes, I have been doing all my drawings on the spot so far, but at some stage I will be taking these notes and making more drawings, paintings or prints from them, using photos as well.I did a practice run in  #Sketchaday9 and it wasn’t very successful. The sketch from memory in Sketchaday6 worked better, as I was working directly from my own previous sketch. The important thing is to try to retain the freshness of the on the spot sketches, and in a way this picture works just as it is, like a Chinese painting.  I could call it ‘before the storm’. But I wanted to finish the whole scene, so I resorted to working ‘off the spot’.

Photographs always show a slightly different view from the one we see, depending on the shape of the lens or the viewpoint/angle at which the camera is being held. So I tend to take several photos, trying not to depend on one for all the information. Even the small beginnings I made to this sketch tell me a lot about what I was most interested in, what colours I was seeing, and how much detail I wanted to put in. Most importantly, I had sat and looked at the scene, instead of flashing a camera at it and walking on.

Working on the view from Eagle knoll

After an hour and a half, I felt I’d done quite enough. I think it reflects what I was seeing, without taking too much information from the photo and consequently killing the freshness.

The reservoir from Eagle Knoll 28.07.16

 

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#Sketchaday12: ‘Let’s stop and feel this place’

Posted on July 30, 2016 by julia

Mt Coursier 2 Thursday 28.07.16

Our pass from the previous day entitled us to another trip up the mountain, so this time we drove straight to the top car park and took the shuttle to the summit. The views were absolutely mind blowing: I’ve been to Banff so I know what sublime looks like, but every mountain range has its own special magic. I drew this view of Mt Coursier from the Fridge, a cave that remains full of snow throughout the summer because the sun never reaches it. I don’t know if Mt Coursier was named after Isabel Coursier or one of her ancestors, but I think she deserves to have a mountain named after her. She broke a world ski-jumping record in 1920 at the age of 16 – in a sport that women were not encouraged to take part in, unless they held a man’s hand while they attempted the jump! Isabel was scornful of ski lifts, preferring to climb the mountain each time before she made her jumps, as a way to strengthen the leg muscles.

As you can see, I extended my drawing onto another piece of paper and was intending to draw more on the left, taking in Mt St Cyr and Mt Dickey, but I wisely focused on Mt Coursier. The only part of this picture that vaguely reflects what I saw during the whole time I drew this is the foreground and the range of smaller ridges in front of Mt Coursier. The background was constantly changing as the clouds shifted, so that different ranges became sometimes silhouettes, sometimes clearly defined rocky faces. I concluded that I should have done ten different small paintings instead of one. But I feel as though I walked those mountains during the two hours that I sat there watching them.

I was assaulted by squadrons of mosquitoes as I drew, but other wildlife was also about: a marmot ventured out of his den and posed for his picture, and a pika also came to have a look. The track that took us to the Fridge is called the First Footsteps Trail, and it’s dedicated to the First Nations peoples who lived in the Revelstoke area.

Let's stop and feel this place

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#Sketchaday11: Exploring Grizzly country, and sketching Revelstoke in the rain

Posted on July 28, 2016 by julia

Revelstoke street in colour, 27.07.16

I did this sketch at the end of the day, after a brief rainstorm that chased us off Revelstoke mountain. We stopped to buy some of Canada’s excellent range of beers, and this street scene caught my eye – with a backdrop of Mt McKenzie emerging from a rain cloud. this gives you an idea of Revelstoke’s curious architecture, a hotch potch of old and new buildings, brickwork and weatherboard.

The sketch I did on the spot was entirely in pencil and took about 20 minutes.

Revelstoke street, 27.07.16

After I got home I felt it needed some colour, and then some more strength in the foreground, so I added first water colour and then some pen work.

I was intending to do some sketching on the mountain today, but as soon as I found the perfect place to paint, a fierce storm began to gather on the mountain next to us and a flash of lighting struck the valley below. I did make a start, painting three hills in the foreground, so I at least have a strong memory of the scene. We took some amazing shots on the way down, which I may or may not use for sketching from – but the important thing is to do a sketch from life every day.

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#Sketchaday10:First forage into Bear Country

Posted on July 27, 2016 by julia
fruits of the forest 26.07.16

Fruits of the forest. Crabapples, snowberries and raspberries. Waterproof felt pen and watercolour with watercolour pencil here and there.

We took our first walk outside the town today, on our own, along the Green Belt path that takes you on a picturesque tour of the river valley near the part of the town south of the river, known as Big Eddy.  The first thing we noticed was a small piece of bear scat – a little pile of cheery stones, nestled in a scattering of manure.  We were then scouting seriously for more signs, but we were out of luck. It was probably too hot for any self respecting bear to be out foraging. So we contented ourselves with searching out berries that bears might eat, and discovered that some of them were very tasty for humans too. There were wild raspberries, wild strawberries (not ready yet) and wild blackcurrants, as well as a berry that resembled and tasted like a small blueberry, but its leaf resembled a holly leaf. I didn’t think to pick a sprig and bring it back home, but I did find some crab apples and snowberries (do not eat, they are poisonous to humans, but they are supposed to be good for morning sickness, curing cuts and sores, shampoo and teething pains. Don’t take my word for it). The raspberries that I drew are actually from the garden at home, which we were instructed to pick rather than leave them for the bears to come and find. When nearly every house in Revelstoke has at least one tree groaning with fruit, it’s a little hard to deter bears from foraging in the township, but they aren’t often seen close to human habitation unless the food supply is too tempting.

21st century multitasking 25.07.16

21st century multitasking

Leo still needs plenty of cuddles to get him to sleep at night, but his mum has found ways of getting work done.

 

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