A week of Christmas drawings

My Old Year's Resolution: Do a drawing a day for the rest of the year.  Which shouldn't be so difficult, starting as I did on December 22.  

Beer and pretzels

Continued development of my alternative career as a beer illustrator.  And, because man cannot live on beer alone, pretzels.

Nine ladies dancing

Well, three ladies, but multiple drawings of each.  And they weren't really dancing, they were posing.  But there was music involved.  Two from Dr Sketchy's - Lola Frost in "Frost Bite" and Sweet Virginia in "The Gibson Girl" (Dr Sketchy regulars will be able to figure out what the competition was in the second picture, involving a Victorian hairbrush) - and a flamenco dancer at Basic Inquiry.  Coming next, 10 lords a'leaping.  Or maybe 5 golden rings, that would be easier.

December in Edmonton and Vancouver

I met fellow urbansketcher Fei at the Chapters on Whyte Avenue in Edmonton, a good refuge for winter sketching.  The main challenge is that it is dark so early.  I tried to capture the contrast between the late afternoon cold outside the window and the warmly lit interior - not totally successfully, but I like the yellow-purple combination.

The Edmonton airport is mostly quite awful, but there were a few nice things to draw, including an impressive two-story green wall.

Back in Vancouver, the meet-up group went to the Santa Claus parade.  It was a strange event.  The crowd - all dressed in black - was surly when I tried to pass through to get to the meetup; the "floats" seemed to be dominated by various police, fire and military vehicles, which didn't really seem festive; there was a cacophony of sirens, horns, bagpipes, and some kind of mournful wailing (a good thing was that the noise drowned out any Christmas carols - we've already had a month of those).  Or maybe I was just being a scrooge...

Fortunately, being Vancouver, there also happened to be an anime convention nearby, which attracted a large group of cosplay people.  They were cheerful, friendly, and, best of all, colourful.  The drawing reminds me of elves I used to draw on Christmas cards 40 years ago.

Flamenco

The Vancouver Urbansketchers accomplished a remarkable feat - they got me out of the house on a dark rainy Wednesday night in November.  The event was flamenco at the Kino Cafe on Cambie.  As always, I was thankful I went.  The rain pouring down in the street outside just made the cafe all the more warm and energetic.  Drawing a flamenco dancer in action was a challenge - one-minute gestures just don't quite prepare you for "poses" that last one beat of 12/8 time.  I used my "eyelid photography" technique of closing my eyes quickly, like a camera shutter, to freeze a pose.  I try to get down the few main elements of the gesture before the image fades away, then add whatever bits are needed to make it look like a human.  It's also fun just to scribble to the rhythm with a dip pen, then make it look like a person with a quick brush of paint.  Although I do think that some of the results say "disco" more than "flamenco"...

Eastside Culture Crawl

It was a warm sunny day at the Eastside Culture Crawl.  I finally thawed the last of the bones that I froze at last year's event.  Surprisingly, the building at 1000 Parker Street is still standing, so I drew it again, this time from the sunny south side, with its awesome graffiti. I grabbed lunch from one of the food trucks - traditional Canadian fare of kim-chee tacos (though the Szechuan perogies were also tempting).  I ended up giving an impromptu demonstration and lecture on lunch-drawing to about 15 culture-crawlers, expounding on my thesis that you appreciate food three times as much if you draw it first - in the drawing, in the extended anticipation, and finally in the eating.  You also learn to draw faster if you're hungry.  Then I went inside, and did an architecturally exact drawing of the busy interior.  As I heard one couple say: "How many floors are there?" "Nobody knows."  

Skating on First Lake

It was a first for me this morning - skating on a frozen lake in Vancouver.  It's certainly cold enough up the mountains most of the winter, but usually the lakes are filled or covered with snow.  But this year we've had over a week of cold clear weather before any snow has fallen, so there was at least the minimum 4 inches of clear ice on First Lake at Hollyburn.  I went this morning before the low sun got above the trees - fortunately, because an inversion had set up over night and it was 10 degrees C up there, even though it was below freezing at home.  So, an even rarer event - skating on a frozen lake in a t-shirt.  The ice was still solid and fast, and I had the whole place to myself.  As the sun finally hit it at about 10 o'clock, the ice started to make spectacular booming cracking sounds, so I retired to a warm sunny spot on shore to paint the lake and my melting skate tracks.  Maybe I'll go back for a swim tomorrow.