Queen Fresh Market

Sketching from a parking lot

 This perfect little grocery at the top of my street has super produce and other necessary ingredients, which inspires healthy appetites and good cooking. Morning light makes the sign and the oranges glow, so I screwed up my courage and went out to make a sketch. Using the photo I was able to isolate those wonderful blacks on the iPad. The underpainting will be cool- a mixture of burnt umber and Prussian blue, which will dry fast.

Cropped and sketched from photo

Amazing how three dimensional it is already, just wiping out underpainting!

A nice sketch, but the perspective on the awning needed correction.

Tools to Go

 This is what I carry in my minimalist sling purse:

Tombow Waterbrush Set with flat, medium &fine

And a tin with watercolour pans ( these are Genzäh handmade in Toronto!)

Sketching at Wanda’s- A new Noodlers Pen

 A window can be so useful to frame a viewpoint. This was quite relaxing and the new fountain pen behaved itself for the most part, as I am breaking it in. The typical Augusta Avenue Victorian has the front reinvented with a roof that extends out to the sidewalk. These were all veggie stands when I moved to Toronto, and boy have things changed!

Wires and signage, angles and shapes; all these converge about the top 1/3 of the window. I hoped to develop detail at that part and let everything else be less fussy. 

Cup of earl grey

Finished; the brown ink from the Noodler’s fountain pen and Noodler’s Walnut Ink are working smoothly on Strathmore Multi Media paper, 4x6 in.

Read about fountain pens from Liz Steel’s point of view here