Watching and Sketching the Seasons Change

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Winter seems to drag on and on. This year February has been a veritable mini ice age for us in the northeast.  All these sketches are my attempts to deal with the struggle of so much snow, such bitter cold temperatures, the lack of sunlight and being cooped up in the house. I really think I'd go crazy if I couldn't sketch my way through this season.

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Documenting each day's weather, its colors, the almost imperceptible changes, is one way I stay hopeful through dark winter times.

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As I write this post, we are now at the very tail end of March. There is still snow on the ground, though it is receding.  Yet, snow is predicted for tomorrow. So March may also go out the same way it came in, like a lion.

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The views from the various windows in the house are repeated over and over again in my winter sketches.  That's a good thing and an interesting thing. The more times I sketch those views the more I push the envelope trying to find something of interest in a very familiar scene.

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Winter's gifts are often hard to appreciate, hard to understand and even hard to perceive when they are given.  As the spring begins to bud, ever so tentatively, but insistently I'm reflecting on what this winter has given me. Looking back through last month's sketches is a way that I do that. I hope you've enjoyed looking back with me and watching the seasons change.

Nature Sketching in Winter

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Click image to enlarge

Winter. Over the years I've learned to make peace with this most difficult of seasons. Cold, dry air, snow, freezing rain, short dark days, long nights, staying inside a lot.  None of those are any of my favorite things,  I like being outside, sunshine, mild weather and loooong days.

Winter and it's rhythms of stillness, quietude, and natural turning inward for sleep and rest have taken a long time to charm me, but charm me the have (mostly).  I still dread winters when we get walloped with snow storm after snow storm, the power goes out, the plows don't come and the snow piles in the super market parking lot tower over you head form months at a time.

Good thing I have dogs, they get me out numerous times a day, starting at about 5am, so I can drink in some of the austere and minimal beauty of winter, even if it's only in my backyard.

Living near the beach is a special treat in winter as the beach takes on a whole other look when it's covered in snow. The top sketch is at a local beach. I parked along the bike path and sketched from the car.  I've found if your car is good and warm it will stay warm enough to sketch after you turn off the engine for about 45 minutes. I stay bundled up in the car, wear  finger-less gloves and take a hot drink with me.

The second sketch is of views from my windows.  On January 5th I was greeted with a butter colored full moon setting over the western tree line.  That was amazingly gorgeous. I was out with the dogs and couldn't get enough of it's soft roundness and buttery sheen.  So I called the dogs back in and grabbed my sketchbook and sat in front of the sun room window and penned a simple sketch.  Upstairs in my studio my windows face Southeast and I was also able to catch the sunrise (bottom sketch).

Because both these subjects disappear quickly and both depend on the contrast between light and dark to capture their essence I used a Tradio Stylo pen which has water soluble ink. When I add watercolor to the sketches the ink infiltrates the colors, deepens and quickly I can get the murky, shadowy darkness I need.

End of the Year Sketch Dump

 Click on any image to enlarge.  I'm trying to get all ( most) of my sketches up on the blog before the year ends. Even though I know I've missed a few I'm beginning to feel at least somewhat organized.

One of my big resolutions for 2015 (is it really twenty-fifteen ???) is to be much more timely about blogging my sketches and other studio stuff like print making, book binding, collages and drawings.  

 I think this may be the year of working on paper, and alternate media for me. Which I'm excited about. Working just for me and not for entry into juried shows. I'm totally looking forward to that kind of freedom.

I find keeping up with posting to my Facebook sketching page www.facebook.com/sketchbookhypothesis   and the Facebook groups Artists Journal Workshop and Connecticut Sketchers PLUS this blog to be very challenging.

It is however my intention to have much more here on the blog (especially with all the changres coming to Facebook in 2015). AND maybe, just Maybe I'll be able to get some video tutorials and classes going! Wouldn't that be exciting??

 Keep scrolling down to see the rest of this year's sketches. Then I'll have one more post for the year and I'll begin a fresh in 2015.