The Dog Days of Summer

Here are a few of my sketches and activities from the dog days of summer so far. 

Daily Sketch: My dog Lexie pausing on the cool grass at Ottawa City Hall

I don't function well in oppressive heat and humidity but I always enjoy my early morning walks with my dog Lexie (who stops frequently to cool off). In the daily sketch above, I joked that she was the "hydrant toll-keeper".


I superimposed a quick urban sketch that I did of the fountain in Confederation Park during the Ottawa Jazz Festival and folks seemed to enjoy the short little video that I created.
 

This fountain in our Confederation Park is made of Peterhead granite and was relocated from Trafalgar Square , London England where it stood for over a century from 1845-1948!

Daily Sketch: Margaret Gallagher

I still maintain my practice of sketching every day. Sometimes I sketch from photos and sometimes I sketch from direct observation.

I am often inspired by stories I come across on social media like the one about Margaret Gallagher who lives off the grid in a 280-year-old cottage with a thatched roof in Belcoo, Northern Ireland.

The Stone School (Portage-du-Fort): Workshop participants doing contour sketches

I was happy with the workshop that I facilitated in Portage-du-Fort, Quebec and I hope that the participants enjoyed it as much as I did. I had fun putting together their kits including my handmade viewfinders. I learned from participant Catherine Timm (who is a fiber artist) that the viewfinder with the red cellophane is used in quilting and called a "Ruby Beholder"!! I love that name for it and I love when the learning goes both ways in a workshop.

Participants workshop kit with my handmade viewfinders and sketch pads and pencils donated by Holbein

I received the email below from workshop participant  Jadwiga (who gave me permission to share her finished sketch) and it made my day.

I was also happy to get out to Mer Bleue Bog for the first of this summer's scheduled "Ottawa Plein Air Adventurers" events. It was oppressively hot (40 with humidex) and the insects (mostly deer flies) were vicious but I managed to do several quick studies before heading home.

Mer Bleue Bog study done in water colour

 My Summer Plans

I will be attending a workshop on Effective and Expressive Urban Sketching given by Ottawa artist and designer, Tom Pajdlhauser. He will be going over the importance of understanding and practicing perspective & design fundamentals and how to apply them to loose, fun and exaggerated observational work. I'm looking forward to applying exaggeration to my work!

Urban Sketching Update

We lost a great friend and fellow sketcher, Mike Lomas recently. In memorium, I created a photo tribute to our sketching adventures with Mike over the years here: https://ottawaurbansketchers.blogspot.com/2019/07/in-memoriam-ottawa-urban-sketcher-mike.html

 Some Art Inspiration 

I'm always looking for art inspiration and I still schedule weekly artist dates for myself whenever I can. My Artist Date for Week #27 was watching the “Rolling Thunder Review” on Netflix and I highly recommend it.

Other inspiration this month so far:

I was inspired researching artist Corita Kent (1918-1986), particularly her teaching style in the classroom. In the following video excerpt of “We Have No Art” (1968) at 17:20 there is a wonderful art assignment worth a look!


I was also inspired by a number of posts from Ottawa artist John Wright and especially the one that pointed me to a new artist (for me) George Butler.

We lost a number of Ottawa artists this summer including the prolific Ben Babelowsky. In remembering him, I revisited the book that I purchased of his Ottawa sketches and I was very inspired indeed.
 

Ottawa artist Bob Babelowsky at work

Ben passed away July 2 at the Ruddy Shenkman Hospice in Kanata. He was 87. "It’s estimated that more than 750,000 Babelowsky prints were produced."

My sketches of Ottawa's black swan last summer (2018)

I was sorry to hear that the always-inspiring Ottawa swans were re-gifted to Montreal by the Ottawa city council. Sketching and painting the black swan (in horrible heat) was a highlight for me last July (2018)

I am always inspired when I come across wildlife, especially in Ottawa, and the swans will be missed by me and many others. I hope they fare well in Montreal.

Jack's snake

Ending on a more positive note, another one of my daily sketches from July is of my B.C. cousin's son Jack. I only see photographs of Jack and I love his curiosity and energy! As soon as I saw the photo of his encounter with a snake, I knew I had to make it my daily sketch.

Stay curious ... sketch every day .... and I hope to post another update before the end of July!