My daughter has been home for the holidays and so we’ve been playing games, goofing around, and we’ve watched an endless (to me) stream of Christmas movies. I heard on the news that they released 146 new Christmas movies this year, as though there weren’t already enough of them. Most are little more than a rationale to fill the screen with Christmas tree decorations while providing a place for romance novelists to ply their craft.
My wife and daughter control the remote during the holidays, so in the name of family unity I watched a lot of Christmas movies. Eventually, though, I tired of expending energy trying to stay awake and I got out pointy devices and a 4×6 sketchbook and spent time doodling.
Most of the results were incomplete, poor drawings because I was just drawing stuff that flashed by in the movies. I’ll spare you all of those. But sometimes I’d see something, try to draw it, it would disappear, and I’d continue to some point of semi-completion. Here’s one spawned by a guy walking with a big rain hat.
Other times I’d draw some object in the room, like this coffee cup. I’ve come to realize that our living room is really boring.
I grabbed some oranges that I am doing as an oil painting and drew them rather too quickly with pencil.
And then there were times when I’d just draw from my imagination. I’m never quite sure how to use this word, imagination, as I’ve seen a hundred photos of steam locomotives coming out of a tunnel but I use the word here to suggest that I had no model before me, photographic or otherwise. These little doodles kept me awake so I consider all of them, even the ones I don’t share with you here, a big success.
Yesterday we got a just below freezing day with no wind and I went for a walk. I’d just come out of our indoor farmers market (selling xmas stuff right now) and I was removing my mask, which is required indoors in Quebec. A woman came out, stopped in front of me and, I think started putting on her gloves. I’m a fast-draw artist and so my 4×6 book and pen were in hand before I even thought about it and I dashed this off in the time it took her to put on her gloves and walk away. It felt good to draw a person. I haven’t done it in…eeek….years. Will this COVID thingie ever end?
We watched 2 Christmas movies, and that was enough! 😉 My first sketch of a person “in the wild” since COVID was only a couple months ago, and it felt very weird and rusty but also wonderful because it seemed “normal.” I had hoped to continue more of it regularly this winter, but then omicron came roaring through. Sigh.
Two might be excessive but I applaud your ability to avoid them. I find Omicron the best COVID news we’ve had in a long time but it’s slammed the door on activities here in Quebec. Hopefully, Omicron will infect us all and then disappear, leaving us immune from its ilk. It did feel good to do an “outdoor” sketch, as small as it was. We seem to be going from “warm” (not much below freezing to “cold” (cold enough to keep me indoors – -15C) in waves. I might be sneaking out on those warm periods and do a bit of sketching.