Tuesday, January 20, 2009

View from the Malbaie Rectory, Gaspe, Quebec

Tonight in class Christina wanted us to try sampling Pan Pastels. I've tried them before, and while they are interesting I don't like them as well as the regular sticks - although the one place I do find them very useful is in underpainting on Canson paper. But I was more than willing to play with them again - and this class was mostly play. 

We had no still life setup tonight, and Christina was suggesting we try landscapes. People had magazine images and things to work from, but I hate to work from copyrighted material. I had forgotten to bring any photos of my own - but had a brainstorm! I pulled up my online Picasaweb photo albums on my Blackberry and selected a photo there to use as a reference.

This photo is from the trip I took to Quebec's incredible Gaspe peninsula in the summer of 2005, to visit with some friends from my 'piffle' internet group. We stayed at a lovely former Anglican rectory in the little village of Saint-Georges-de-Malbaie, and this was the view we saw across the street if you looked off to the right. If you looked straight ahead you saw the famous Perce Rock off in the distance. 

So I worked from a ref on a tiny Blackberry screen to create this one, using Pan Pastels, though I did add some work with the sticks on top to get a tiny bit more detail. I can't do the scene justice. Imagine waking up to that lovely view every morning.

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