Living in Montreal and sketching in all seasons means I spend at least half the year drawing from my car. Palette balanced next to the gear shift, water bottle in the cup holder, sketchbook propped against the steering wheel—this is my normal setup from November until April. Sometimes it gets pretty cold, but that means I sketch faster, and with watercolor you want the washes to be fresh looking. There are usually only one or two days in the winter when the temperature is so low that the paint freezes on my brush and I am forced to finish my sketch at home. Some people have suggested adding vodka or gin to my water container, but I have yet to try that. I never thought I would love painting winter scenes so much, but on a sunny day when the shadows on the fresh snow are purply-blue, there is nothing more beautiful.
I live in a residential suburb, close to several older towns (Lachine, Pointe-Claire and Sainte Anne de Bellevue), on the shores of Lake St. Louis—my favorite places to park and sketch when I can’t get to downtown Montreal. Pointe-Claire has a village center with a main street, a windmill and lots of historic houses. There’s also a boating club where I’ve sketched so often that I’ve been given the code for the gate, even though I don’t even own a boat.
Sketching architecture has never come easily for me. If I’m working in pen and watercolor, I always do the diagonals in pencil first because I will inevitably mess up the perspective if I go straight to pen. I suppose I did learn about perspective in art school, but my approach is more intuitive than scientific. I see flat shapes rather than volumes in space, so things don’t always line up, and I am always in awe when I have the opportunity to sketch beside an architect whose drawings are dead on. I guess I’ll just have to keep practicing those vanishing points.
YELLOW HOUSE
Pointe-Claire
WINTER CHOCOLATIER
Pointe-Claire
ST. JOACHIM IN WINTER
Pointe-Claire