Question for you: Why are you doing #OneWeek100People? I’ve spent most of my adult life just getting good at drawing – for no particular reason. Besides the reason, ‘I love drawing’. That’s the best reason to do anything, isn’t it? I’ve worked as a game designer, and of course taught art – but to be totally honest, these weren’t really *goals* of mine, just things which paid me to get better at drawing. If I had to give a reason why I wanted to draw, there is one thing – well, two things. One was to illustrate book covers. When I was a kid, I was addicted to reading. My dad worked at a books ..read more

As much as I love #OneWeek100People, there is a tension for me. The ability to take a week off and go sketching is an absolute self indulgence. I’m retired-slash-unemployed (the line is fuzzy), and we don’t have kids. No too many illnesses at home to take care of. So, I’m completely free to ‘do nothing’ if I feel like it :) But – to be honest – I don’t feel like I’m learning that much any longer? With the sketchbook drawings I mean. I know that I’m getting incrementally better with every sketch, but – when you’re a beginner, you proceed by leaps and bounds. It’s very gratifying! And it feels ..read more

Ok, I did it! Day Four; finished my 50 in watercolor! I really wanted to do 100 in color. In fact, I wanted to do 100 every day this year! 500 in a week! – But I’m a long way from achieving that. [ Click Anywhere to Start the Sllideshow ] It’s kind of an interesting goal. 500 in a week. I haven’t really tried it for real, but I keep thinking about it ;) A genuinely stupid idea, that might actually be amazing if you accomplished it. You’d really need to be organized. Like – the biggest problem is the wet drawings. If I was using dry media I could just work in a book. But you can’t do that in w ..read more

So, if I couldn’t do 100 pen-and-ink people in a single day, what makes me think I can do it in watercolor? I only managed 25 today! The same thing happened to me last year! What’s that saying about doing the same thing over and over expecting different results? :) It shouldn’t be a surprise that doing a sketch (clear-line in pencil this time) AND painting it – naturally that’s going to take twice as long. Plus – I have to find a restaurant (or the study carrel’s at the public library are perfect) where I can lay out sets of six or seven sketches and work them all wet at the same time. I do t ..read more

I love subway sketching. Nobody dares to make eye contact on the subway. – So yesterday I did too much walking around and not enough drawing. Good exercise, and it was a sunny afternoon so I didn’t mind, but I didn’t get my 100! – and then the next day; winter is back! So that sucks. Streets may be empty, but there’s an unending stream of people outside the metro station. – Here in Quebec we have a convenience store called ‘Couche-Tard’, meaning, Go-to-Bed-Late. Back home they’re called ’40 Winks’, but I’m not sure if there’s many of them still standing in Alberta. Here we call it a dépanneu ..read more

It’s (almost) spring in Montreal, and the city is coming back to life – or – that’s just me I suppose. There’s plenty of people who enjoy winter, but I’m not one of them! In the dark months, I go into hibernation. When March finally rolls around, it’s time for #OneWeek100People – it’s become a pagan ritual for me. A wild celebration of street drawing :) All work stops, I skip the gym, drop the home-reno projects, and I can eat anything I want when I’m out sketching! Keep it Simple, Stupid < My mantra. For the last few years, I’ve been somewhat pulling back on Urban Sketching (as you are ..read more

It’s almost spring, the weather is turning. Slowly, slowly there’s more light each day. This time of year I’m starting to anticipate our annual sketching challenge #OneWeek100People. When March rolls around in Montreal, the street-sketching season is still on the edge. Some years it’s honestly still too cold – but I always have the museums and the subway for sketching days. I have a touch of seasonal-affective disorder. It runs in my family. I’m not as bad as some people, but it’s enough that I’m really counting the days till you can go out without boots and a coat, and get a whole day of sun ..read more

Hey everyone! Here’s a little free handout I made for the first ever USK:MTL instructed workshop! Held this past weekend in the Old Port of Montreal. The local team put on a great event, with three instructors, in a excellent location offering drawing subjects only a few steps away! If you’re ever in town and looking for a cute place to sketch, I recommend the little park called Place d’Youville. It has one of the loveliest buildings in town: the Caserne Central de Pompiers. Built on the archeological site of the first Parliament of Canada. There is a very well done museum exhibition and inte ..read more

Someone had asked me about how to paint interesting backgrounds for these floral sketches – so! I thought I’d do a slightly longer video (10 min) showing a rose painting from beginning to end. This sketch emphasizes Negative Painting and Broken Silhouettes, and shows the way I fuse shapes by laying rich strokes of color side by side <<< and the importance of working briskly enough. You have to keep the wet edge moving forward, until you close the shape you’re working on. Ideally, all your strokes will merge on the paper, and you won’t get any dry edges inside a shape. I titled this v ..read more

Something different for Day 21! For day 21, I have an experimental video for you. I’ve done a full-length recording of a sketch, I believe it’s 23 minutes long. Significantly longer than the little slices I’ve been putting up for you so far. Unfortunately, it also took two days longer than I hoped to get this finished. This is a portrait sketch of Zack Pinsent of @Pinsnt_Tailoring on IG, and it’s a vertical video, so you may want to watch it on your phone or tablet (very likely you are), for the best vertical experience :) I’m very interested to know if you enjoy this video? Is it interesting ..read more