I’ve mentioned before that this blog is as much me documenting my sketching events as presenting great art work. This is fortunate as I have very little great art work to present. But here in Quebec we’ve lived through some of the most strict anti-COVID policies for two years. We’re still partially limited in what we can/can’t do and still use vaccination passports and wear masks everywhere. And, right or wrong, we’ve all become trained NOT to go anywhere.
But the last few days has brought relief from our bitter cold and so I’ve gone out walking, mostly in the snow and rain but as the temps have been right around freezing, I’ve enjoyed it. Anyways, I walked through the farmer’s market that’s right down the street from where I live the other day. The place is dead right now due to people not going out but also because there are no farmers there selling stuff so aside from a few permanent stores, there’s not much to be had there.
There is a place that sells coffee, though. It’s located along a big hallway and there are some places to sit on the opposite side of the hallway. There were two women sitting there when I showed up. I decided to get a coffee and draw them. I sat down, got my little 4×6 scribble book out, marked the top/bottom of her head and…they both got up to leave. I quickly sketched a face from “memory” and that’s what you see in the middle of this sketch.
Then I was alone, nobody to sketch. I was thinking of drawing one of the tables when a woman walked down the hallway.. so in the few seconds she was visible, I drew the back of her head. Then another person walked by… another few seconds of scribbling. Each of the people gave me 5-10 seconds to draw them so the results aren’t great. But this was my first foray into a coffee place in two years and so this was downright exciting. I had to post this miserable sketchbook page for posterity.
While I’m posting, here are some other quick sketches I’ve done. There’s no rhyme or reason associated with them. Done on the fly and on a whim.
Here I found an Indigo Prismacolor pencil, decided to sharpen it for some reason and this led me to draw a bit with it.
I’m quite excited about the prospects of getting out sketching again. Hopefully spring is coming early this year. I’ll be posting a massive oil paint project I’ve been doing soon. Just need to turn everything into digital images and I’ll post them.
Good to see you getting out to sketch! Ironically, restrictions are getting looser and laxer here, even as infection rates continue to be sky high. Go figure. But temps are going up a little here too, so that’s one thing to be optimistic about.
It’s been a long time coming. Of course this morning it’s -16C and it rained yesterday so walking without ice skates isn’t possible 🙂 As for restrictions, there may be method to Seattle’s madness. One thing this pandemic has taught me is that the media do NOT want to deal with the details of science and so we haven’t had the fundamental differernces between COVID-Delta and COVID-Omicron. We should be relaxing restrictions because of them. Some in the science community are starting to say things like “Omicron is the vaccine we tried to produce.” Hard to swallow if you haven’t followed worldwide science about COVID I suppose.
Anyways, I’m finally getting to the point where I can follow you guys and sketch outdoors again.
Glad you are able to get out again and the weather is cooperating. How’s you knee doing on your walks?
Yeah, it’s about time. I just hope we get an early spring. As for my knee, it’s my best joint (grin). When I walk a lot my left hip starts to hurt a bit but my knee functions as its brand new.