Toronto Urban Sketchers Celebrate Toronto

A couple months ago I got a chance to meet Micayla who's the founder of Celebrate Toronto : A growing event celebrating the birthday of the city. Toronto's turning 182 years old this year and for the past 3 years she's been honouring the official birth of the city by throwing it a party. As part of the festivities, artists are invited to submit their artwork to showcase and sell the night of the show and throughout the entire month of March. This year, 10 Toronto Urban Sketchers, including myself, will be participating to the artshow. On the left are the three artworks that I submitted for the show, two of which are also in our recent publication : Urban Sketching Disappearing Landmarks in Toronto. 

The celebrations will take place tomorrow, Saturday March 6, 2016. Here's a sneak peek of the installations :

You can still get you tickets for the show on the main site or at the door. 

My Sketching Buddies

I bought a box of Rembrandt watercolour metal basic set pans when I first started my plein air sketching. I love it very much. Then I bought a larger one after I finished some colours.

After a while, I wanted to make my own one which can carry more colours. I bought a cosmetic box and stuck more colours. I love this box very much, very light. For cleaning water, I use the bill plastic bottle. It won't leak.

Later, I used more and more colours so I bought a larger watercolour palette and put those pans in it.

After some years, I went back to a smaller size. I put some pans into a pill box which I bought from the drug store. You can put a short brush or more colours in another size.

For the easel, I made my own one with a camera tripod. These things are very light-weighted. The stool was available from an outdoor camping equipment store.

Sketching the Roy Thomson Hall

I've been fascinated by the Roy Thomson Hall for a while. Located on the corner of King St. W and Simcoe St, it is hard to miss this unique building in the shape of a cone with its top cut off : a conical frustum (I just learned that word). Mostly composed of glass windows arranged in a beautiful geometrical pattern, the hall opened its doors in 1982, thanks to the Roy Thomson's family who generously donated $4.5 million to help with the the fundraising efforts to complete its construction.

Roy Thomson Hall is connected to the Toronto PATH, which is an underground pedestrian walkway connecting several buildings and subway stations in the downtown core. This feature is particularly useful in the winter months when it's too cold to sketch outside. Along the PATH, there's a nice view of the Hall from across a pond. The pond is drained in the winter. Apparently, the original plan of the architect Arthur Erickson, was for the pond to be an ice skating rink in the winter. But I don't think it's ever been used for that, which is a shame and a missed opportunity. Having people skating there would bring the space to life and make better use of it. Instead, it lies empty for a couple months every year. Still it's a great sight for sketchers in the winter and most of us set up camp in the hall facing the ponds to sketch the view from indoors. I will have to come back there in the summer as suggested by a passerby who told me that"it's much nicer in the summer."   

Royal Bank Building

I kept thinking about sketching the old building on Yonge ang King Streets when I came to Starbucks nearby. I love the huge scaled Corinthian columns and the details above the windows of the building. Today was my chance! I picked a spot near a big window facing the old building across the street.

The Royal Bank Building on the northeast corner of Yonge and King Streets was built in 1915. It is one of the heritage buildings in downtown Toronto.

Union Station Under Construction

Earlier this month a couple of us went to sketch in the Great Hall at Union Station, which is said to be the busiest transportation facility in Canada. Fortunately, it wasn't too busy over the weekend and we had plenty of space to sit and sketch.  I was surprised to see the large windows covered up behind a matrix of scaffolding and giant orange tarp covering half of the both  along one side of the space. The tarp is what gave the orange glow on the photos above. 

The station is currently undergoing a major revitalization but most of us didn't expect the Great Hall to be part of it. One of the sketchers joked that she can't remember a time when there wasn't any kind of construction at Union Station. That's the reality of a growing city : lots of constructions everywhere! We still managed to find great subjects to sketch. Since the obvious features of the space were hidden, we had to look for the less obvious features and pay attention to some of the details like the columns marking the entrance to the train waiting area, the views from the window a little further and the people passing by. 

What caught my attention was a new coffee shop booth called pilot, right in the middle of the space. The booth has a unique shape is reminiscent of a paper airplane. I wonder if the name was the inspiration behind the design of the booth. Not that coffee has much to do with a plane, other than perhaps the fact that it's imported and may have travelled by plane. I couldn't find any information about the story behind the name on their website. Maybe the concept of the plane was the idea of the architect, Williamson Chong, or maybe it's pure coincidence. But the shape of the booth definitely got my attention. There is not a lot of space for the baristas. There were 1-2 at a time on rotation while we were sketching. Speaking of baristas, I've been wondering why this "new" term is being used for the staff working behind the counter in coffee shops. Turns out it's an Italian word for bartender. Now you know :) 

TOUSK Meetup #53 Union Station - Perspective 101

Our next meetup will take place at the Union Station. This time our talented sketcher and correspondent, Hasibush, will run a small workshop in parallel, on perspective for beginners. Space for the workshop is limited to 10 people and it's already full. If you didn't get a chance to reserve your spot for the workshop, don't worry. We'll probably do another one in the near future.  In the mean time, you can join the rest of the group to sketch the various areas of the train station, which is full of interesting subjects to draw. For more details on the schedule for the day, please see out our meetup page.

Urban Sketching Disappearing Landmarks in Toronto

Toronto is said to be one of Canada’s fastest growing cities. Consequently, you’ll see a lot of construction year round in the city. Old small buildings are being replaced by new tall buildings in every corners of the city. I’ve only been living in Toronto for a little over two years, and already many areas don’t look the same as they did only two years ago. This growth often comes at the expense of the architectural history of the city often to the sadness of long time residents who have a history with some of these buildings. This gave  the Toronto Urban Sketchers the idea of creating a book capturing some of the landmarks of the city before they disappear, as a way to commemorate them in a creative way. So over the past couple months, we gathered around places like Honest Ed’s, the Cookbook Store, Captain John’s Restaurant Boat and more, to capture their portrait while we still had time.

21 sketchers collaborated in putting together our first book : Urban Sketching Disappearing Landmarks in Toronto. We self published the book. Towards the end of 2015, I got invited by CBC Radio to talk about the book. The interview inspired me to create a little video montage of our journey thus far.  It’s a great little memento that you can see below. 

If you’re interested in purchasing the book, it is currently available on Amazon. I’m looking into the possibility of having the book available in local bookstores and libraries. It’s a first for me so we’ll see how that goes. But it was a great experience for myself and for the group and we’ll probably try to create another one this year.

A long line at Starbucks

We had a meeting at Yorkdale shopping mall yesterday. It's always hard to find a parking spot there. And it's also not easy to find a sketching spot because there were so many things happening in the mall.

We walked around and finally we decided to sit at Starbucks. I went to buy a coffee and it was a long line. I felt so tired after I got one and started sketching. 

I looked at Starbucks and the line was still very long. Then I have found that I forgot to bring my pen, so I used a pencil instead and painted with watercolor. Back home, I put the black lines and the wordings on the page. 

Sketching at the Museum of Inuit Art

It's always a bit of a challenge to find an new and interesting place to host an urban sketching event in the winter, specially as the group keeps growing. I tend to spend hours online searching for new places and planning the day around it. Fortunately I came across the Museum of Inuit Art and despite its relatively small size, it looked like there were quite a few interesting sculptures for everyone to sketch, so it was chosen as the first destination for 2016.

I've always been curious to find out more about the culture and history natives, as I find it's not a topic that is readily available to non-natives, so the fact that this museum exist definitely got my attention. What an awesome place!! I love the modern minimalist design of the space which is a great backdrop for the intricate artwork in the museum. It is meant to evoke the ice flows, snow drifts and wind swept tundra of the Canadian Arctic, so that Inuit art can be appreciated with some sense of the environment in which it was created. 

As the organizer, I ofter only have time for one good sketch, so after greeting the participants and taking pictures and videos of the space, I chose to sketch a piece from master sculptor Abraham Anghik Ruben called Beowolf, made out of Brazilian soapstone. It just captured my attention right at the entrance of the museum. The receptionist was amazed that I could stand there for an hour or so, just fixated on the sculpture. 

There's something interesting that happens when you start sketching something like this, at least for me. I get in some sort of trance where only me, my thoughts and the object I'm sketching exists and I start discovering all kinds of things I wouldn't have if it wasn't for essentially interacting with that subject. In the case of Beowolf, I was intrigued  by all its intricate parts and how the openings create intense contrasts. And then I noticed all the little creatures embedded in the sculpture like a mix between a rabbit and a chameleon on top of his head, a pig nestle on his side, a dolphin and a bird closer to the front, and other animals I probably missed on the other side.

I worked a little more of the contrasts and the details of my sketch, carefully noting where the darkest area were so that I could complete it later on at home, as I knew I wouldn't have enough time that day. Later on, I went over my drawing with an Inktense pencil that's water soluble. Using a water brush, I then increased the contrast of the sketch and added a green and blue wash over it.

We had a great turnout. A little over 20 sketchers took part in this event and many, including myself, plan to go back again in the near future. I also was made aware of two other places where we can see more native art in the city : the TD Gallery of Inuit Art and the Bay of Spirit Gallery. 

The next sketching event will take place at the Yorkdale Mall. For more information, you can visit our meetup group here. 

Night Sketching - holiday challenge

What a great 2015 year for Toronto Urban Sketchers! 

I am very happy to be part of such a wonderful group of sketchers!!!!  

I just wanted to share my final challenge for the year.  I challenged myself to a night sketch (in the cold)!  It was at one of my favourite places to sketch – Evergreen Brick Works – with the music and sounds of their evening play called “Tails from the City”.

I tried to capture the string of seasonal lights that was decorating the entrance plaza.  One of the hardest things was that I could not see the colours that I was applying to my sketch because it was to dark.  I therefore took some time at home to fix up my values.  I will have to find a place with more light or bring a flashlight with me the next time. 

 

 

Here are some of my favourite Christmas ornaments decorating our family tree this year.

I always wanted to try out the watercolour iridescent medium….I found the right place to add and play with it on the gingerbread house.

All the best in the New Year…

Cheers and happy sketching in 2016!!!!