A Rocky Day

Today was Labour Day here in Canada.  The weather was cool and gloomy, but as it wasn't actually raining I went sketching for a couple of hours.  Quite unintentionally I ended up drawing stone masonry and stone sculpture as a theme.

 I have had a hankering to get up to Moorside, the Mackenzie King Estate in the Gatineau Hills for some time.  On the way into the property I met   John Shaw-Rimington of The Dry Stone Wall Association of Canada who was doing a dry laid stone wall demonstration.  Well, in fairness, his assistant Shim, was busy, while John chatted to interested visitors.  In addition to shattering the stereotype of what a mason looks like, Shim also demonstrated that it is possible to build very regular walls with rounded field stone.

John has a blog about dry stone masonry entitled Thinking With My Hands".
http://thinking-stoneman.blogspot.com/

Mackenzie-King found the Moorside property in 1900 on a cycling trip.  He spent 50 summers there and over those years created an estate complete with perennial gardens and several faux ruins.  The largest is an amalgam of artifacts including a stone relief from the English House of Parliament that has been damaged by bombing in the second world war and the fireplace of his famous, great grandfather William Lyon Mackenzie.

Mackenzie-King had his "L'arc de Triumphe" constructed from a parts of a demolished building to commemorate his 1935 election victory.  It marks the edge the meadow which surrounds the house and the forest and looks like some sort of "The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe" portal.

On the way back into town I stopped at the Remic Rapids on the Ottawa River where John Felice Ceprano has been balancing rocks as elegant and unexpected sculptures every summer since 1986.
www.jfceprano.com

People stop by all day long and John seems to be a constant presence, even on weekends and evenings. It is a popular destination for photographers, although you'd be better off to just buy the amazing photos John sells right there on site.


John is very friendly and chats and jokes with people  between moments of fiddling and adjusting small rocks and hefting large ones to start new sculptures.

1st Quarter Report

I started Sketch Journal 3 months ago as a personal project to practice drawing and learn a little about scanning, posting and the basic mechanics of the Internet.  It has been a really fun experience, complete with some personal growth and surprises.  As a means to benchmark this milestone, I thought I'd summarize the experience.

DRAWING
Practicing drawing was the fundamental goal.  I set a goal of doing 3 drawings a week and have been able to do that...at least if averaged.  That was good, but the downside is that I haven't I been discriminating enough about what I posted.

When I review,my sketchbooks from the last three months the observation that emerges is 'the faster, the better'.  When I have time and block out in pencil, then ink over the drawing gets really stiff and not necessarily more accurate.  I'm thinking pencil structure should be reserved for  straightening out my wandering vanishing points and overall composition, and let the detail be a looser and implied.

I'm new to painting and loving how a little colour can pull together a vague line drawing.  The discipline here is to figure out when to stop.  I have been observing how my Urbansketcher mentors often use only a few colours and spill colours together.  That is a segue to what I have picked up from mining the USK site.

MENTORS
I've been studying not just the 'corresponandants' but also the 'members' work through the Urbansketchers site.  Like any journey there has been an evolution in what appeals in terms of styles to emulate. My 'hero' at this point is Luis Ruiz, who is an an architect from Malaga, Spain who draws prolifically with a nice balance of perspective accuracy and implied detail.  He is sparing and strategic in his use of colour.  In the words of a an architect colleague, Alex Rankin, he 'draws like an angel'.     http://www.urbansketchers.org/search/label/Luis%20Ruiz.

Next up is, Mark Selander, a member from the Seattle USK group, who like me, is fascinated by heavy equipment but has taken it to a whole other sophisticated and delightfully wacky level in his day job as an illustrator.  http://rocketsandrabbits.wordpress.com/.

Just as I'm struggling with my propensity to stiffen  and overwork my drawings I'm  trying to mediate  my attraction to the way architects have been taught to draw with the expressiveness of those who have come from art school backgrounds.    Here is a list of the people I am currently studying.

Marc Taro Holmes, a game character development artist from Montreal.
http://citizensketcher.wordpress.com/

Rob Carey, an American teaching in Germany.  http://kunst-by-rob.blogspot.com/

Liz Steele, a very well travelled Australian, tea loving architect. http://www.lizsteel.com/

Omar Jamillo,  who is originally from Ecuador and studied in Germany.  I'm not clear on whether he is an architect or landscape architect (like me) , but it doesn't really matter as he seems to be forging ahead as an artist.  He spent last summer in St. John's Newfoundland and is now on a one month gig sketching the Berlin Ballet company on tour - how cool is that?    http://www.flickr.com/photos/omarpaint

There are a bunch of other people I watch, but the shift in interest has been towards a few people who draw people more than things.  Top amongst these are Thomas Thorspecken, who is a former Disney animator who now draws and writes about cultural events in Florida.  Not so much for the stories as the drawings.    http://www.analogartistdigitalworld.com/

URBANSKETCHERS
I couldn't go to the second USK symposium which was held in Lisbon this summer.  I'm really hoping to get to the 2012 event and waiting with great anticipation for the announcement of next years venue.

Just recently the USK site posted its various chapter sites.  Seattle would be a hands down first choice to meet several of those sketchers, and to visit my stepbrother Mark Glyde. ( check out his blog, wish I could write like him-  http://glydeartventure.posterous.com/ )  I've been thinking that next time I plan a trip I'll investigate if there is a sketchcrawl planned in that city, or even contact someone to go drawing with.  Which brings me to Ottawa.  I am member no. 4 here and have approached the other 3 about meeting up, but not yet organized a date.  That is on my 'to do' list.

BLOGGING

This was the surprise.  I've had fun entering this international virtual society, but didn't expect to have so much fun with the techie side .  I have been watching my visitation statistics with great interest.  Not sure why I need an audience, so much as astounded with the idea that someone I've never met  would check out the site.  I have been hesitant to share the address with work colleagues and friends but have noticed that my passive posting of the URL on my limited Facebook page has attracted many visits. That being said, friends are not necessarily as interested as other sketchers.   The hits have accelerated this last month, but the real test will be repeat visitors.  I am trying to figure out how to install a more sophisticated analytics application to get a sense of that.  It may be distracting from my simple intent of just drawing, but it has been fun nonetheless.  My experience with blogging has prompted, Matt Mills,  a colleague at my office to start a photography site.  With some luck he'll help me figure out the tech piece.  He's off to a good start ...sort of modelled on the USK theme of telling a little story with each image.  Check it out - sent him a comment.  http://www.matthewmills.ca/

NEXT QUARTER
More drawing.  Ink without pencil (I think of this a drawing without a net).

More People.  I'm planning to participate in a life drawing group this fall. I did life drawing for a couple of years while in University and recon that is the best way to concur my fear of drawing people.

The challenge here is flow.  Trying too hard seems to cramp up my style.  I'm  aiming for expressiveness over accuracy over the next 3 months.

Deja Vous all over again

"same time, same channel"  "groundhog day"

Tonight after work I had a request from the boys to pick them up at the skateboard park ....and while dinner was cooking this was the scene - skate vids at the Mac.

Boys at the Mac

Our son Tommy is a skateboard fanatic.  Between skate sessions he watches you-tube skate videos and edits his own vids.

Through the summer friends often stay over for dinner or even all night and once its dark this is a typical scene at the computer station.

Mellos Sign

Melos is a classic diner located on the edge of the By Ward Market district of Ottawa.  The kind of place where you really don't need to look at the menu because all the standard choices are available - bacon and two, BLT, club on brown with mayo... even poutine.

My Favourite Lunch Restaurant isn't a Restaurant

BITE THIS operates seasonally out of a trailer across the street from my office. It is owner, Donna, is a lovely woman who is a veteran of the street cart food business.  Her motto is 'Fresh Food with Attitude'. The fare is eclectic fusion and includes greek, asian, steak in pita and this being Ottawa, Poutine.  (Poutine is a gooey mess of cheese curds and gravy on french fried potatoes.)  The vibe is funky in a sohisticated, non-pretentious kind of  way.

I give it my 5 star rating.  Tell Donna,  John sent you!

420 fleet

I wanted to go for a short sail today but sailing requires a breeze.  Instead I took a look around the boatyard and ended up at the junior club.  The 420 dinghies were lined up awaiting abuse Monday from our junior sailors.

As a club dinghy 420's are great and perhaps more important, durable.  While 29er's are increasingly popular with racers, they would be a nightmare to maintain in a sailing school situation.

A Prime Minister with Presence

There are statues of many of our Prime Ministers scattered around the perimeter of Parliament Hill.  William Lyon Mackenzie King is one of my favourites, both as a leader and as a sculpture.  His figure has a presence of command out doors in the Parliamentary landscape - imagine how he commanded a room.

As a man Mackenzie King lead Canada through most of the depression  and the Second World War.  He got on with Churchill and Roosevelt, in part through the guidance of his dead mother as channeled to him by his faithful Irish terrier, 'Pat'.  He was also responsible for instigating the major planning and urban design initiatives that have made Ottawa such a distinctive Capital.  I also enjoy visiting his estate, now part of Gatineau Park, where he built faux ruins incorporating some stone elements from the bombed House of Parliament.  Legend has it, that he asked his friend Winston Churchill for a few pieces and they were shipped here by submarine.

As a sculpture, the figure is boldly abstracted and stands apart from the realistic style of the neighbouring works.  I just wish the sculptor had added Pat, for company.  After all FDR, at his fantastic Washington monument has his Scottie, Fala, with him.

Oh, and an obscure note - some of the roofs on Centre Block are green and others are bronze in colour.  They are all copper, but the more recently replaced portions have not yet oxidized to the beautiful green patina of the Peace Tower.  As for Mr. Mackenzie King, he's bronze, and as long as the birds stay off likely to stay that colour.

Another Deconstruction

This is a former, or nearly former, government office building at 90 Elgin Street, here in Ottawa.  I developed urban design guidelines for a new building on this site, but had not heard anything about the project until recently seeing the deconstruction start.

It seems a waste to demolish the building, but there are many technical constraints, such as floor to floor heights and seismic ( earthquake) structural stiffening that make it more practical to construct a new building.

So - another architectural anatomy lesson for me to draw.