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Expeditionary Art Late Night Adventures in Montreal

[By Marc Taro Holmes in Montreal, CA] Winter is coming in Montreal. That (normally) means the end of painting outdoors for awhile. But - it so happens Maria Coryell-Martin at ExpeditionaryArt.com has sent me one of her Pocket Palettes to review.


Maria is known for using her ultra-light gear on expeditions to the south pole, where the size and weight of gear in your pack are a matter of life and death. (Just ask the Franklin Expedition).

So I figured, if the pocket palette works for her, it should work on an arctic expedition of my own. Im heading to downtown Montreal on a November night. Forecast says -3 Celsius! I want to try this thing out in the worst conditions possible. Dark, cold and tired - sketching doesnt get more fun than that :)


About the Palette:

It’s a cute little gadget. Essentially a repurposed business card holder and three sizes of ultra-slim tin pans that you can re-arrange on the sheet magnet inside the case.

My take on the various sized trays is this: teeny small rectangles for pigments; squares and big rectangles for mixing areas. I suppose you could use the squares for pigment if there’s one you know you’ll use frequently. My initial worry with these slim pans is they might not hold enough paint for me. But we will see what we see.



I already use a pretty small paint box. It’s not as if my W&N kit could be called chunky. Is this a mid life crisis where we abandon old partners for a younger slimmer version?

Hah.

I’m always shy about messing with my paint box. It’s time consuming to take apart, messy, and if I don’t like the new pigment, then I have to wash out the half pan and refill the color I *already* wasted! Petty I know. So I suppose theres an advantage to the small pans. Not a big deal to wash one out.



So I’m heading out on a first trial run.

Im taking along the tiny atomizer Maria sent, as well as some 30ml/1 ounce water bottles and my trusty old DaVinci travel sables - which I havent used in a while - not since I started carrying brushes in a brush case. That little black wallet is not included in the Pocket Palette kit - she has a much nicer case that I havent picked up yet.

This is a test of a micro kit! Which means Im also trying out a little 3.5 x 5.5 Stillman and Birn Beta, (which, by way of disclosure, was also sent to me gratis. More on the sketchbook later when I get part way through it).



Ive got a six color setup of fall colors, which I think will work for this night shoot: Neutral Tint, Raw Umber Violet, Turquoise, Quin Gold Deep, Buff Titanium and Grey of Grey. (Yes, this is just a subset of my everyday carry. I’ll try some weirder color choices next time :)

Wish me luck :) That is awfully tiny. I’m not totally sure it’s going to work.



So the kit works great! And the mixing area on the lid works fine. No leaking at the hinge at all.

Ive got the 30ml Nalgene bottle stuck to a binder clip, with the assistance of a magnet taped to the bottom of the bottle.

Setup feels good. Its ultra light, easy enough to hold in one hand. And Im not finding painting with bulky gloves a big deal. Probably because Im not switching brushes. I can do this whole thing with the #6 Pointed Round, DaVinci Travel Sable. With everything clamped down, I havent had to adjust anything, or even go into my bag once.



Round Two! Painting the monuments in Place Du Canada. Its about zero Celsius right now, so no worries with freezing paint water. But its cold enough that Im keeping this to a 15 min sketch. Walking to a coffee shop to dry paint takes longer than the painting itself.

Im getting some weird looks from people - street painting is strange enough, never mind late at night. I overhear someone saying "...only in Montreal". If only they knew! This is happening all over the world even as we speak :)




So, next time people say, "I wish I could paint loose like you" - heres the answer. Go out at midnight in the winter and youll find it quite easy actually :)

Those were three very small sketches, and even though I was painting wet and juicy, you can see Ive used between almost none to 1/2 of a tray.

I would say - if youre painting at a size this kit is intended for (under 9x12"?) - these paint trays are plenty large enough. I was worried for no reason.



Ultimately, mixing on the lid worked better than expected, so I removed two of the square trays, giving me four more colors. If it were spring, I could see cutting one more mixing tray to put some greens back on the menu - which would basically make it my full palette again.

Here (swatches above) is what I have in it right now. Ill see how that goes at Urban Sketchers Montreal this fourth Sunday.

In the mean time - the Expeditionary Art Pocket Palette gets five stars from me! Right now, for the holiday season, Maria is offering Urban Sketchers a discount code. Head over to her store and use EXPLORE2016 sometime before the end of December.

~marc

Available link for download

A Marathon of Miniatures in Montreal

[By Marc Taro Holmes in Montreal, CA] A few weeks back, I had the urge to do a major painting expedition. I was in the middle of an illustration deadline, and all that picky computer work was making me crave some watercolor. I wanted very badly to take a week off and just paint every day. Sadly, there wasnt time for anything like that.

So whats the solution?

See how many miniatures you can do in a day!

These little paintings are from a huge walk all the way across Montreals old port, then hopping the subway up to my old neighborhood on the Plateau. The sketches are approximately 5 x 6.5" painted two-to-a-page on 9x12" Canson Montval watercolor paper taped onto coroplast backing boards.

Im in the process of using up all the cellulose paper I have in stock. I like this stuff for pen-and-wash drawings, and its sort of easy on my nerves to use it up on sketches. (Cheap enough, you dont mind wasting it :)) But I probably wont go back to it for any serious watercolors. Its fine for this kind of speed-sketching, but doesnt take wet-in-wet as well, and in some ways, the washes get a bit too edgy, due to the sizing.

The great thing about working small is: you have to focus on what interests you. Eliminate any unnecessary clutter. Theres just not enough room to get everything in.

Often Ill walk around gazing up at roof lines, looking for the cupolas and chimneys I enjoy. Just below this frame is a mess of real estate signage and boarded up shop windows. Stuff Id just as soon leave out.

This one is all about those back lit church steeples. I do this all the time. Just crop out the parking lot thats in front of me. Looking up gets you out of the everyday, the mundane.

As well, at this size its easier to see a silhouette shape. I find if Im *able* to add detail - its very hard to stop myself. My brain just wants to keep focusing, keep overdoing it. So working small, and working fast, are two ways to short circuit that obsessiveness that comes with drawing. These buildings are four blocks away from me, and on the other side of a park. They were tiny in my view - and thus tiny on the page.

Available link for download

A bit of winter in Montreal

[by Shari Blaukopf in Montreal, Canada] Its a great winter for snow painting in Montreal. Occasionally the temperature goes up and it rains, but magically the next day theres snow covering everything again, and what doesnt look good with a little snow on top of it? Even trash cans become exciting. Someone once commented that I like to paint snow because I only have to cover half the page with paint. I guess thats true.


Of course when the sun comes out the shadows on snow are amazing and my favourite place to paint trees is in the cemetery. Theres a hilltop where I have a great view down a path, and if theres no funeral procession I can paint uninterrupted for a few hours, if I can stand the cold in my car.


The best day to paint this week was right after a snowfall when everything looked like it had been spray-painted, including the vertical surfaces like utility poles and road signs.


On days when its too chilly to paint in the car, I try to find a view from my kitchen window. The row of cedars is pretty boring most of the time but again, with a little snow on them, they are an exercise in negative painting.

Available link for download