Daily Sketch: The Sunburst Building

My Instagram photo of my lunchtime sketch 
of the Sunburst Building at Bank & Slater

I stopped for sushi at the Miso restaurant on Bank St in Ottawa and did this quick sketch while I ate a great bowl of miso soup and a platter of their vegetarian sushi.

I noticed the "Sunburst Building" sign for the very first time!

That is the best part about urban sketching. You always see things that you would never see until you pause to do a sketch.

I wondered why it was called the "Sunburst Building" and when I got home I did a quick google search which landed me on the urbsite page: http://urbsite.blogspot.ca/2013/03/from-pork-to-perfection.html. There is LOTS of information on this building at the urbsite blog.

The "Sunburst Building" in the 1940s
Source: City of Ottawa Archives (Dave Sproul Collection)
via the Urbsite blog

From the urbsite blog:

"The building at 129-131 Bank Street appears to have been built ca.1910 for the Matthews-Laird Co., meat suppliers, with two floors of offices and workshops to rent above. By the 1940s the storefront was divided into two for L.J. Fraser Ltd., haberdashers and a shoe repair shop. 

The building's ground floor exterior was given a not unsympathetic renovation in the 1980s which was then cluttered up by a cheerful mess of signs. The original store height is now divided into two cramped levels."

Why is it called the "Sunburst Building"? I still don't know. The urbsite - an incredible source for everything historical in Ottawa - ended their post with "For some reason, it is now called the Sunburst Building"

If you have any idea why or how it received this name, please let me know in the comment section below.

Here is the palette that I used for the sketch - a QOR watercolor sampler that I received and used today for the first time. These watercolors were quite lovely to use in my art journal (Strathmore 500 Series Mixed Media, 100% cotton paper).

Golden's new QOR (pronounced "core") watercolor line uses a unique binder called Aquazol® instead of the usual watercolor binder - gum arabic. The name "QOR" comes from a technical acronym meaning "Quality of Results."

The colors in my sketch dried quite vivid and strong and didn't lighten with drying. This is one of the main selling features of the Aquazol® binder. I would like to definitely try some more paintings with this sampler in the future.

QOR watercolor sampler

QOR watercolor sampler