We had a snow storm on Friday and Saturday and as I didn’t want to venture too far for a sketch, I chose to stay in the comforts of my own home and spy on my hubby outside shoveling the sidewalk and using the snowblower on the driveway. While he toiled away in the freezing cold, I sat on a comfy chair and sketched. I did a couple sketches of him, and then chose the snow blower itself, an amazing piece of machinery. One, I have never had to use, I must confess!
Going with the snow removal theme, I was in St. Paul on Sunday to buy another sketchbook. I had some time to kill, so drove around a residential neighborhood, but the old houses weren’t quite doing it for me. I noticed the Grandview Theater (which I have never noticed before) and there was ample parking on the city street. The white and black striped marquee caught my eye. I noticed movement and saw that a guy was standing on top of the marquee and shoveling snow off of it and chucking it over the sides to the ground. There…. THAT was my sketch! Blimey, there’s a car parked right in front of mine…. what to do… oh, I’ll include it in the sketch! And so I sat in my car with the heater blowing, watching this guy shovel snow off a rooftop. Later, as the sketch was coming together, I noticed the lights on the marquee went on, neon red lit up the stripes and the words on the sign, and flashy white lights twinkled on the other areas.
Finally, I did a sketch today. Again from inside a warm house. I was looking out to my back yard and saw a squirrel in a nearby tree. He ran down the trunk and bounced across the snowy yard to the pine tree in the back of the yard. I liked the contrast of the boughs, heavy with snow, as well as the shadows of purple over the brilliant white snow. I sketched with pen, added watercolor, and then when dry, I used white acrylic paint to do the snow on the branches. I also sketched my neighbor’s truck across the street, which sat covered in snow. I love to paint and sketch snow, its shadows and highlights, the way it piles up, the footprints.
