The sketching course is into its third week and this week’s teacher Prachant Miranda made some wonderful video demonstrations of his watercolour techniques. His assignment for us was to go outside and sketch our surroundings, including the sky. I am trying to do a sketch a day–and gradually my confidence, if not my skill, is building. It has been too cold to sit outside sketching so the first sketch of the City Hall was done from my car. But since today was sunny and warm, I packed all my sketching gear into my bicycle saddle bag and pedalled to the waterfront. There is a marvellous old factory there which I have always loved. To my mind it’s kind of Dickensian. I had to paint squinting through chain link fence–and while I was at it, a man stopped in a car to tell me the site is slated for demolition and a condo development. I tried to find the date of construction for this red brick building, originally the Marsh and Henthorn company, but couldn’t. It must be turn-of-the-last-century. I did find a catalogue of their products from 1912. The building is equally interesting from the other side, so I will go back soon and peer through the chain link once again. (There is lots of this old red brick in Belleville but not all buildings have the charm of detail like the turrets and fan transom found on these two.)
This sketch was done in a café in Toronto last week where the afternoon sun was blasting through the windows. I am trying to sketch quickly with ink and then add watercolours–but ended up using a brush pen for this to capture the sun soaked bikes.
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