The Mercury Lounge - Byward Market

I had a wonderful day yesterday participating in the Ottawa World Wide SketchCrawl 49  despite the cool temperatures.

http://ottawaurbansketchers.blogspot.ca/

It was lovely to see some familiar faces and make some new acquaintances with some amazing Ottawa artists!

For the full report of our 49th world wide sketchcrawl, visit the Ottawa Urban Sketchers blog post: http://ottawaurbansketchers.blogspot.ca/2015/10/a-great-day-in-ottawas-byward-market.html

I managed to make six sketches (some incomplete because we needed to get indoors to warm up our hands).

The sketch below of the Mercury Lounge was my favourite of the day because of all the beautiful orange! To sketch this, the three of us (Jaymie, Suvitha and I) sat nestled safely on a parking curb between two market vendors while the sun came out briefly. It was lovely!

"The Mercury Lounge"
Urban sketch by Cindi Moynahan-Foreman

P.S. If you are interested in seeing what other artists at SketchCrawls around the world did 

on October 24, 2015, for the 49th WW SketchCrawl - visit this link: 

http://www.sketchcrawl.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=76

Social Media Artist Connections

I absolutely love how social media connects artists, their art and their stories.

In posting the follow-ups and reports from this 49th Ottawa WW SketchCrawl, Toronto artist Carolynn Bloomer (http://carolynnbloomer.com/) commented on a facebook post written by Ottawa artist/sketchcrawler Laurie Foster.

Carolynn comes from an artistic Montreal family. Both her mother and father were artists. Carolynn's father Stephen ("Steve") Bloomer (http://stephenbloomer.blogspot.ca/) taught art at John Abbott College (CEGEP) in Montreal where he taught Laurie Foster.

Laurie wrote to Carolynn on facebook:

It was your dad who introduced me to sketching in markets from life -- at John Abbott he took us downtown to rue St. Laurent once, I think. He'd get so excited about everything, it was catching!

Well, this captured my curiosity. On facebook, Carolynn Bloomer responded, 

 He LOVED markets. The fish market – Waldman's –was a place he was particularly passionate about. Everything was pretty high-key there; the bright lights reflecting the wet shimmering textures, the silvery blues and greys, the brightly staring eyes of the fish and the wonderful human characters (we loved to see the men and women dressed in rich furs and buttery leather boots picking their way amongst the muddy buckets and sandy crates full of live sea creatures, and the salty, scale-covered guys in toques.... Well I guess I need to pack my sketch book and hie myself off to a market!!

More Quotes 

Montreal artist, illustrator, art teacher Steve Bloomer

I am adding these quotes found through online research following the sketchcrawl and Laurie and Carolynn's comments about Steve Bloomer 's love for markets.

Steve Bloomer's market love inspires me and echoes my feelings when I visit or sit in a busy market place like Ottawa's Byward market, or the Windsor market of my childhood, or the St. Lawrence market of my youth.....

Carolyn Bloomer wrote,

One place that always inspired Steve was a market. He was drawn to the colour, shapes, noise and teeming humanity found there; the repetition of pattern in the displays of fruit and vegetables, and the way their colours changed depending on whether they were in the shade or exposed to the sun. He studied the people: their demeanor and attitudes, sometimes bustling about, sometimes in watchful repose. He had a particular fondness for fish markets (and he could identify every type of fish!). He appreciated the mounds of crushed ice, and the many stacked, silver fish shapes with their still-shocked expressions and their glistening scales; and also the different types of people there. He loved the juxtaposition of plaid-shirted men wearing hip-waders and people in full-length mink coats tip-toeing around the wet floors in their expensive leather boots. 

The ambience of these places — the pride of the vendors and their camaraderie, shoppers jostling each other to get closer to the produce, people pushing wagons and pulling shopping carts — all this was Steve’s raw material for the story that he’d then set about to tell, with lines, shapes and colour, on paper or canvas.

I plan to sketch the ByWard market throughout this winter. The ByWard Market vendors work all year round, outdoors, no matter what the weather!

At the market, there's always a story to tell, as Steve would put it, just waiting to be told "with lines, shapes and colour on paper or canvas".....

I thought it would be lovely to close with a video of Carolynn Bloomers ceramics...as a way of thanking her (and Laurie) for sharing the wonderful story about her father Steve Bloomer's love of markets.