Category Archives: Sketches, etc

My sketchbook is a place to draw, experiment and enjoy. It a place where ideas germinate. Last year I sketched at the Cuckoo Trattoria garden in Coombs, BC and in Montréal, St.Louis Square.

Cuckoo Trattoria, Vancouver Island

The Cuckoo garden is intimate with buddha statues, lots of greenery, potted Japanese maples. A water fountain descends softly into an elongated pond. Time passes endlessly for me. But other visitors pause and leave quickly to have lunch, buy a plant or a garden ornament.

St Louis Square, Montréal

St. Louis Square (1876) is surrounded on 3 sides by Rue Du Square-Saint-Louis and the busy, Rue St. Denis. It is tranquil but has an air of excitement with colourful Victorian row houses, commercial shops, busts of  Octave Crémazie  and  Émile Nelligan. Here children play, put their feet in the fountain while adults, dream, gossip or sleep on near by benches.

This spring, using my sketch book as reference I painted scenes from Cuckoo Trattoria garden. When I transfer my memories and watercolour sketches to canvas, I laboured over colour, proportions, representation. My sketchbook liberates these inhibitions, you are happy the weather is dry, happy the people relax and stay, happy the pencil and paint flow with easy.

Water is the current theme of an exhibition of paintings at The White Flag Gallery,  from July 11-August 16, 2014. The below painting is my part of the gallery exhibition. If you are in or near Brockville,(Ontario) please visit, you will be warmly welcomed.

Linda Denis, Water Garden/Monday, acrylic on canvas, 12×12 inches, 2014

Mackenzie King (1874-1950) was Canada’s 10th and longest serving Prime Minister. He is remembered for his odd ways: consulting the crystal ball and talking to his dead mother. His head may have been in strange places but his heart was big. He bequeathed his summer home with 231 hectares in the Gatineau hills to the Canadian people. The garden elements distinguishes this place and many feel it is haunted by King. The ruins are from London’s Abbey, Ottawa’s British American Bank Note ( demolished in 1936) and other bits and pieces of bygone buildings.

My thought is he listened to elder Dan George and gave us Mackenzie King Estate.   Nothing belongs to you, of what there is, of what you take, you must share.

I sat on the porch step of his former summer home and sketched the stone lion statute attached to a flag pole. This place requires many hours to sketch and many days in different seasons.

stone lion, Mackenzie King Estate, Qc

Lion’s Head, acrylic, 30×30

The lion symbol is strong and protective and this month he became part of a garden series I am painting.

So many times when you put your painting up for a critique the question is asked,”Where does the light come from?”. Recently a seasoned artist and teacher said it comes from everywhere.  I like the idea of it being an unanswerable question. Academically, all will tell us to be sensible and look at the shadows cast by the sun or the street lamp. It a gift to forget the rules.

C.B. Liddell writes about this, Nihonga: without the Hand over the Eye in the Japan Times. She states,

“At its essential level, art is a battle between the eye and the hand; the first representing sensory input, the second artistic habit and convention. When the hand outweighs the eye, art can become over-stylized, clichéd, and eventually dead.”

So when I sketch, I accept this way of thinking and enjoy the scenery before me.

sketch, pond at Pitfield House

sketch, Moulin Légaré, St. Eustache

sketch, House on grounds of Bois-de-Liesse

For many years, usually the first or second week of April a group of plein air painters make their way to Auberge de Nos Aïeux. Some like the comradeship of a group outing while others do their own thing. In the evening after supper the comments start:  Water is deep, here we climb over snow banks or wow you nailed it. Yes, we need to get in touch with nature.

Allison Robichaud makes the pilgrimage to Les Éboulements every year. This year he brings with him his most recent book, titled  Plein Air Painting by a Plein Air Master. It is a great read, loaded with helpful hints, advice and stories. He sells the book at cost : 25$  delivered by post. Here is his email,  robisnow at ebtech.net   Below are a few images of Allison paintings completed this spring. The snow was plentiful, the fog heavy and the wind bone chilling.

This spring I went to paint at the local church, the big one on the hill not the small sailor’s church at the edge of the river in St-Joseph- de- la Rive. The church yard is empty and lots of space to park and I get out of the cold blowing wind. In the past an elderly lady comes to chat with me but not this year. She tells me about the theft of doves and angels from the tombstones. Then we talk about all the young children buried here. As she says, it only in recent times that we have our children for life. I feel melancholy and start to paint the Angel with the missing leg.

Linda Denis, Cast Iron Angel Tombstone, oil, 2014

The image of Bill Reid‘s (1920-1998)  Spirit of Haidi Gwaii  was on the Canadian 20 dollar bill from 2004-2012. So, when I visited the Canadian Museum of History in Gatineau this past week I took the opportunity to sketch the original white plaster cast that stands in the Grand Hall. There are only two bronze versions of this sculpture in existence. The Black Canoe installed at the Canadian Embassy in Washington, D.C. and the second and final casting, The Jade Canoe at Vancouver International Airport.

Bill Reid, The Spirit of Haida Gwaii,1986, Canadian Museum of History, Gatineau, photo by Jim Cox

You need to pay to sketch from the inside but the grounds outside are free. It is a great view with the Parliament buildings, the distance dome of the NAG, the Ottawa River and on the Québec side remnants of a stonemasonry building from previous times. As someone suggested, Ottawa should put up a big mirror on this side of the river and they would have this wonderful view. The museum buildings are by architect Douglas Cardinal. If you have only a short time to visit this site the many outdoor sculptures and gardens are well worth it.

The book, The Black Canoe, Bill Reid and the Spirit of Haida Gwai with photographs by Ulli Steltzer and text by Robert Bringhurst enhances our appreciation of the dedication and perserverance of all people who helped artist Bill Reid to complete this sculpture. Diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 1970, it must have been a tremendous effort for him but he quote’s it “gave him a purpose and drive“.

Here are my pencil sketches done in my Venezia sketchbook. The Mouse Woman tucked under Raven’s tail and the Chief directing his loaded boat

pencil sketch, Mouse Woman, 2014

Venezia sketchbook by Fabriano, pencil, 2014