CALGARY SKYLINE

JMB: A night view of Calgary's skyline from lover's leap - well, at least where you can get romantic and sketch this fabulous view at night. We spent more time with Steve and Annie later on during the day.

SS:A fairly frosty morning of sketching with JMB and Annie. We meet at the Palliser Hotel (Paralyser in local parlance) and then pile into the trusty Jeep-still with the windows out- and head for Crescent Heights, specifically the ridge overlooking the City Centre. This is my favorite view in the entire City: the dense downtown core contained by the CP Rails on the south and the majestic Bow, swooping through Sunnyside on the north. Today, the mountains are sporting a fresh skiff of snow. What is always striking to me is the amount of foliage - even in the late Fall - for a prairie city. It masks and softens the ridged planes of the homes and business hugging the valley floor. Off toward Shaganappi Golf Course, a new tower is rising on the site of the old Westgate Hotel. It's a lot to fit into a sketch and after forty minutes or so, we're chilled to the bone. Annie, who is currently enrolled at ACAD, is sketching us sketching the view. She's working on life drawings for an upcoming assignment but shows us her recent pencil drawing of the Lion's Gate Bridge, which we scan and include in the Bridges of Calgary entry going back to mid-summer.

JMB: Annie joined Steve and I for the last warm day of the year. We went to the escarpment where we undertook to sketch Calgary's skyline. Very much like a familiar face, you know all the features, yet the moment pen meets paper you discover so much more to what you knew so well. Drawing skylines, like any landscape from a vantage point, requires focus, quick decisions and a balanced eye. The lesson learned for Urban Design is invaluable: visual angles, perspectives and vantage points are all revealed in their context, and it is with an entirely new knowledge of the urban space that you then can go back into it to draw it anew.

SS:Time to ride down the hill to Kensington and a comfy armchair in the Spice Cafe. Removing layers of clothing, we grab a spot by the fire and look for suitable subjects: Annie, a baby in a hamper; JMB, people conversing at a nearby table; for me the ceiling offers an interesting assemblage of pipes and wires, lines going off in all directions. Then it's back for another crack at the Heights. How to make sense of this jumble. It's really more than one should attempt in a single frame so fudging is key. After applying the subdued washes, I realize I should have paid a little more attention to the values to allow for a better representation of the perspective. Funny thing is my eye's not really picking out the tonal differences when I take in the scene. The colors meld seamlessly, winter's muted palette of grays and earth tones. It's been a good few hours of sketching, camraderie and laughter along the way. There are, of course, many great vantages of the core, Scotsman Hill, Fire Park, and probably one of the best, the Shaganappi Golf Course driving range, a real hidden gem, unless you're a golfer. We'll save these for another day.

JMB:We then headed to a coffee shop to get our hands loosened for indoor scenes and the winter season. It also brings closer to drawing people: they are the figure/ground or negative/positive or yin/yang to urban design, since it is their motion, and especially the repeatedness of their motion which defines the space which we try to fit around them, or conversely the manner in which they fit in the space we have defined for them.
JMB:These two extremes, skyline and people are the limiting boundaries to sketching for urban design.