I had an exciting experience today. It’s Christmas, December 25th, and I’m in Quebec City. Our average December high temperatures are 15-16F. But I got a spiffy new pair of gloves for Christmas and I decided to give them a test drive. There is no snow on the ground here, which is almost a miracle. but what definitely is a miracle is that it’s over 40F here today, or 25-degrees above normal. It was warmer yesterday 🙂
And so, though my purpose was to take a walk, I couldn’t resist the thrill of doing a street sketch on Christmas day. I sat on a bench at the edge of a park and drew this little sketch of a gate across the street. The sketch is trivial and yet incredibly significant to me at the same time. Outdoor sketching on Christmas; who’da thunk it?
Stillman & Birn Alpha softcover, Namiki Falcon, DeAtramentis Document Black
Amazing! You are warmer there in Quebec City than we are in Arizona! And we had snow this morning in the mountains. Glad you could get out to do some street sketching, love the gate.
The outdoor sketching was pretty insignificant but it’s sort of like ‘it’s the thought that counts’; I got to do some. The temps are supposed to drop tomorrow and we’ll be blessed by snow, but the snowblower is ready and I’m glad winter is being kind…so far. — Larry
Love it! I’d hoped to do some outdoor sketching here too, but it was cold and windy by the time we got out there…
I would have liked to do more but it was late afternoon before I got out and that meant there wasn’t much light (sunset is 4PM right now). Happy Holidays to you and Joe. — Larry
We’re in the 30s here in Seattle! What a weird weather pattern. Good for you, though — I’ve yet to do an outdoor sketch on Christmas!
If I can get the fact that the penguins and polar bears are in dire straits, that puffin babies are choking on the fish brought back by their parents (due to changes in fish migrations), and all the other horrible things spinning off climate change, I could get used to warm winters. Happy Holidays to you and Greg. — Larry
Nice sketch! We have around that same temperature, too, but rain as well, so no sketching. Last year, it was around -13 F… If those new gloves are good for skething, I hope you’ll do a post on them, as I’m trying to find something that works! 🙂
We’re heading in that direction too, Viktoria, and we’re supposed to get snow tomorrow. But it was good while it lasted. Maybe I’ll spend the winter becoming a portrait artist 🙂
As for the gloves, I actually got two pairs. One pair are toasty-warm leather gloves, but not suitable for sketching. The second pair, however, has potential. They’re those kinds of gloves that allow you to use a touch-screen and they’re very tight-fitting and thin. They’re a bit slippery for pen-holding but they work well with my mechanical pencils, regular pencils and I’m going to be looking through my pen collection for a pen that doesn’t have a smooth, grip section. Whether it will matter, though, is another thing as once we get to normal Quebec temps, this Arizona boy stays inside.
Happy holidays — Larry