Art Classes in Montreal - Conclusion

WHAT DID I TAKE BACK HOME FROM FOUR WEEKS OF ART CLASSES IN MONTREAL?

"Montréal, août 2011", mixed media, 9" x 12"

No. 1 -- As indicated by the photo on the left, I came to the realization that what I can do with my watercolours is Sketching and Journaling. (I know, this is more like a scrapbook, but hey, I'm just a beginner!)

The reason that I had signed up for that Essential Sketchbook class was that I am planning on doing a lot of travelling and, frankly, photography doesn't have the same appeal any more. As much as I used to love films, negatives, contact sheets and fine prints, I find nothing sexy in digital cameras.

And if it comes to recording your trip, nothing stirs up the memories like a little sketch. Add some words, a bit of fancy decorating, and you have an art journal, something that, apparently, the whole world is passionately engaged in, judging by all the books, tutorials, blogs, websites, workshops, etc.

(Click here for my impressions of the Essential Sketchbook course.)

No. 2 -- I discovered watercolour pencils, watercolour travel kits, and, especially, water-soluble pens and waterbrushes. Water-soluble pens are great for sketching on the go, anytime, anywhere. You can carry all you need in one pocket! As for watercolour pencils, I saw a demo by Laure Ferlita I think -- or maybe it was Cathy Johnson? -- about making a tiny palette by creating little squares of colour on watercolour paper, and using that as your colour supply for small sketches on the go. It works! Clever! (Speaking of clever, this girl Laure Ferlita [I keep wanting to combine her two names and call her "Laurita", like we would in Mexico], she runs this business/school/project called "Imaginary Trips". You sign up for a fake trip and make a journal out of it.)

I'm constantly amazed at how creative people are, in so many ways.

No. 3 -- I finally realized the importance of value -- the relative lightness or darkness of a certain area in a drawing or a painting -- without which volume simply doesn't exist. Thanks to Lorna Mulligan, who taught the classes -- this concept finally sunk in, and more importantly, I began to apply it.

No. 4 -- I gained a certain hope that if I practice enough, one day I will be able to draw. No matter that I used to have this ability -- I was admitted at Ecole des Beaux-Arts at age 16, after a very difficult test that only the top 200 out of 2000 had passed. I'm sure the ability is still there, buried under mountains of insecurity.

No. 5 -- I became determined more than ever that what I want to do for the next few decades is to travel as much as I can possibly afford. Travel, take art workshops maybe, sketch, make journals... but for now it's nice to be home and make pink apple jelly with the apples that grow wild everywhere in my small windy village.

No. 6 -- I got a trial run on what equipment is essential when travelling by plane (last year, I had gone by car); in fact, did you know that watercolour tubes are considered to be a liquid, and therefore they are subject to the same restrictions as your mouth wash? Luckily, I was in time to have my suitcase pulled back from the check-in so that I could put the watercolours in there. (It was that or the garbage can for those 20 tubes!) In addition, since we were working en plein air, I also got a trial run on what equipment I should take -- or rather, how much I can comfortably carry, and how much I can use once I'm on location.

No. 7 -- One of my favourite parts was learning to make my own simple sketchbook. I can't show it that one, because my niece, who is an art student, celebrated her 22nd birthday while I was in Montreal, and so I gave it to her as a present. But I've made another one, and you can see it here.

What I didn't gain, however, is some experience in handling watercolours. There was very little encouragement to use them, and I avoided every opportunity to make a fool of myself, so I used other mediums almost all the time. Pen and wash became my favourite alternative, and that's fine. I've ordered a bunch of great books, and I will spend the winter following the lessons in them, in preparation for a watercolour workshop in the south of France, next June, that I've just signed up for.

*  Well, not four weeks full-time! Essential Sketchbook was two evenings a week for four weeks, for a total of 24 hours, and Plants and Flowers was four hours for four Sundays, for a total of 16 hours.

Plant and Flower Painting Course in Montreal

Quick Watercolour Sketch Inside the Greenhouse, 8.5" x 5"

Before your make a face like my friend Louise did upon seeing this, let me point out that it was supposed to be a quick sketch done directly in watercolour without a previous pencil drawing -- just an impression of the inside of the greenhouse.

Each class of this Plant and Flower Painting Course (which was given over four Sundays in August by the Visual Arts Centre, and taught by Lorna Mulligan), met at the Westmount greenhouse, which is just a few blocks from the school.

Strangely enough, most of my flower pictures were produced as part of the Essential Sketchbook class, which was also taught by Ms. Mulligan. The two classes just got intertwined in my mind, but that's okay.

The last class took place on the Sunday of Hurricane Irene, so I skipped it. This reduced the course by 25% but that's life. I was already kind of disappointed with it: I expected more of an emphasis on how to paint individual flowers, or "flower portraits", as they are sometimes called. Instead, we were pretty well left on our own to create our own project in the greenhouse, with some demos and critiques in the classroom after the greenhouse visits.

Lorna is an excellent artist and a very good teacher, and I picked up enough good advice from the Sketchbook class to have made the trip worthwhile.

Here are some of my other flower and plant pictures. Click on them to enlarge if you wish.

Anthurium. Watercolour, 8.5" x 5"

Fushchias. Water-soluble pen, 8.5" x 5"

Ground Cherries. Watercolour and gouache, 8.5" x 5"

Very Old Jade Plant. Water-soluble pen, 8.5" x 5"

Watergrass. Water-soluble pen.

Art Classes in Montreal

My previous post should have been titled Art Classes in Montreal. The Essential Sketchbook course at the Visual Arts Centre is more about drawing than about watercolour, and that's as it should be. So far we've used mostly pencil, ink pen and water soluble pencil, along with some watercolour pencils and ordinary watercolours.

This is a much more productive experience than the Halifax one, and it mostly has to do with the instructor. As I had hoped, Ms. Mulligan is not only a good artist, she is a good teacher, and she gives a lot of homework, which is very important to me, because for some reason I perform much better on my own than in a classroom situation.

Except for the still life, these pictures were all done at home. (Pardon the quality, I only brought my cheap point-and-shoot camera on this trip.)

Click to enlarge.

 A Still Life Done in Class

The object of the exercise was to get us to use at least three values (in this case, a white, a mid-tone and a black).

We had to use a water-soluble pencil or watercolour pencil. I used the latter.

Yes, the white bottle was that much taller than the other objects!

Click to enlarge.

 Assignment from Wednesday's class

Lorna gave us some sheets with photocopied examples of tiny black and white photos that we were to reproduce strictly with ink markers -- no pencils or erasers allowed!

Don't ask me why, but if you want to torture me, give me a pencil and an eraser!  Oddly, I find myself much less inhibited when correcting is not an option. (I've done my best drawings with a computer mouse.)

I went and purchased three more ink pens, so this assignment turned into a marker experiment as well.


These are the pens I used:

Top left and centre: Staedtler Triplus Fineliner
Centre left: Pilot Drawing Pen 01
Bottom left: Staedtler Pigment Liner 0.5
Top and bottom right: Pigma Micron 05

These are the main differences that I found between them:

Staedtler Triplus Fineliner has water-based ink, so it's not waterproof, but sometimes I would want the ink to run, as in this test:

Click to enlarge.

I also applied water to the marks on the birches above, and also to their background.

The black has a purplish tone, which is kind of nice, and the line is not too fine and not too coarse. Comes in many different colours.

The price is only about $1.50* I think. Oh, and if you stain your clothes, the colour will come out in the wash.

Pigma Micron 05 is waterproof** and fade-proof (archival quality). For fineness, it's about the same as the Triplus Fineliner. I enjoyed using it. I paid $3.95* for it.

Staedtler Pigment Liner 0.5 is indelible, waterproof** on paper and lightfast. The line is a little thicker than the others. It cost $3.59*.

Drawn with Pilot Drawing Pen 01

Pilot Drawing Pen 01 is light resistant and waterproof** and I don't know if it comes in different thicknesses, but this one is extremely fine, which is great if that's what you want. I can think of a lot of times when I would want a very fine line. Cost: $2.65.

That big spiral pad was awkward to use, and I got bored with those tiny pictures, so I decided to go out and find my own subjects, and to use my expensive, compact (5" x 8") Moleskine watercolour sketchbook.

I didn't have to go further than two blocks to find these gems.

Montreal is full of fascinating architectural details -- you just have to look up (though you then risk being knocked down by a crazy cyclist!)

(The house detail on the left was done with the Staedtler Pigment Liner 05 and the one on the right, with the Pilot Drawing Pen 01. The one below was drawn using a green Staedtler Fineliner water-soluble pen.) 

What I learned from this outing is that the ink pen is the ideal sketching medium. All I took was my pad, a couple of ink pens, and my small folding stool which I bought at the Army Surplus store. It has a convenient pocket and everything I carried fit into it, including my wallet and keys. For traveling, the stool fits in my suitcase.

For a complete travel kit, I would add a small watercolour field set (reviewed here), and/or a few watercolour pencils, plus a lead pencil, for notes -- all of which would also fit in the stool pocket.

 When I got home, even though I had been drawing out in the fresh air for four or five hours, I was still gung-ho, so I drew this plant in ink, and then I applied watercolours to it.

None of these is a masterpiece, just a pleasant record, and so much more fun than snapping photos. And when you draw something, you really see it.

And that's what sketching is all about.

Click to enlarge.

 Probably the most nerve-wracking class for everyone was the day we went to the park to do quick sketches of people.

We had to use an unsharp pencil, which I think is a good idea, because it prevents you from trying to make a detailed drawing.

And of course you had to work really quickly, because people were moving! That's why my best drawing in this one on the left, of one of my fellow students!

Click to enlarge.

My favourite sketch is the little bicycle on this page.

The bits of colour are from watercolour pencils and waterbrush.


















Click on the link for the follow-up post to this one: Art Classes in Montreal: Conclusion. (And here is the link for my impressions of the Flower Painting course.)

* Montreal retail prices, August 2011.
** All those inks will bleed if you apply water right away.

Watercolour Classes in Montreal

Now that I've let off steam about my recent workshop experiences, I can set free my enthusiasm for next month's watercolour classes at the Visual Arts Centre, in Montreal.

This will be the second year that I spend a month in my hometown of Montreal, visiting with family and taking some classes. Last year, I studied Dreamweaver and Photoshop at Concordia University, and a watercolour class, given by Stephanie Reynolds, at the Visual Arts Centre.

The class was at night and I was so tired from those full-time courses at Concordia that I didn't really produce very much. My best work was Montreal Cityscape. I also remember a still life with a disastrous red cabbage and some really nice blueberries.

But I came back more determined than ever to play with watercolours (with which I had had a brief encounter in Mexico 15 years earlier) and to try and master this most difficult of mediums. Almost as soon as I was back home, I ordered all sorts of books, set up a studio space, and started this blog.

I also resolved to take no other classes but watercolour this summer. So, as soon as the Visual Arts Centre's summer program was published, I registered for two of Lorna Mulligan's classes: Watercolour Plants and Flowers, and The Essential Sketchbook.

I hope Ms. Mulligan the teacher lives up to the admiration I have for her as an artist. And I hope to have some time to practice in-between all the other activities that I have planned for the month!

I'll let you know how it went.

About Watercolor Workshops

 I've just returned from a 3-day watercolor workshop, and I want to set down my impressions about watercolor workshops in general before the memory of this one fades completely.

This is about watercolor workshops but a lot of it can also apply to watercolor classes. I define a workshop as a brief course given by an artist and/or art teacher, usually with a specific theme ("landscape painting", "the south of France", that sort of thing).

And of course what I write here applies to any kind of medium, not just watercolors.

What is the Purpose of a Watercolor Workshop?

It was only after I had been back for a few days and noticed that I hadn't touched my paints that I asked myself what it was that I had hoped to find in that landscape painting workshop.

I'm not naïve enough to have expected that the instructor, Ron Hazell, would wave a magic wand and I would suddenly turn into Jeanne Dobie, Ann Blockley, or Hazel Soan. But there's no shortage of landscapes for practising on around here, so why wasn't I out there painting, or at least taking photos or sketching?

What was it, then, that I was expecting?

Suddenly, it hit me: enthusiasm! excitement! Why hadn't I felt an uncontrollable desire to unpack my material and start painting as soon as I got home?  Worse still, I had felt it only once during the workshop: during one of his lectures, Mr. Hazell said that sometimes he is asked questions like "how do you paint a car?", the (correct) answer being to go home and paint your own car. Then he said we should paint our own car that evening, and bring the result to class the next day.

"Great, an assignment!", I thought. That evening, I parked my car in front of my motel window. I even manoeuvered it into an interesting "pose", with some foreshortening so that I could show off about that. I turned the wheels to make the composition more exciting. I set out my materials and drew the car really big, so that it filled the whole width of the page, then added the colours... I was so entranced that I forgot to have dinner!

The next day, it turned out that I was the only student who had taken the assignment seriously. I couldn't believe it! I now realize that the lack of enthusiasm on the part of the other students (most of whom were "regulars" at this artist's workshops) were probably the reason for the instructors' own lack of pizzazz. (Or was it the other way around?)

Regardless of how imperfect it turned out, that painting of mine was the highlight of the whole workshop for me. It beat all the slick demonstrations of the international artist's savoir-faire, and it made me realize that if the teacher's purpose is to show off his or her own abilities, instead of helping you develop your own, then it's just a waste of your time and money. There are plenty of DVDs with slick demos out there.

Next time, I will read the brochure more carefully.

Upcoming Ron Hazell Watercolour Workshop in Nova Scotia

 

I'll be taking a watercolour landscape workshop from Ron Hazell, the artist who created this beautiful painting, this coming May (2011). I'm looking forward to it!

You can see more of his work at his website: http://www.ronhazell.com/

My First Real Exercise from the New Course

I don't know why I chose this weird rock scene for my first exercise from the Watercolour Secrets course. I mean, I don't like rocks and mountains as much as Bob Davies seems to.

It didn't turn out too badly. The reflections are convincing enough and I like the small blue puddles in the sand.

It was good practice even though this is not the kind of scene that I will paint when I've reached a certain skill level. And I do acquire more control over the brushes and the paint with every picture I paint.