First Snow

2/9/14 Platinum Carbon ink, watercolor, Stillman & Birn Beta sketchbook

It’s not the first snowfall of the season, but the first that piled up and stuck. A half-inch of accumulation was predicted in my neck of the Pacific Northwest, but we actually got a couple of inches overnight. Waking to flocked trees and the thick kind of quiet that comes with snowfall is always a bit magical (especially on Sunday when there’s nowhere to commute to).

It’s also the first snow I attempted to sketch – ever. Although it has snowed at least once a year since I started sketching in 2011, I remember feeling completely technically unprepared each time: How do I paint the white? Do I draw it, or just try to paint around it? It was overwhelming.

I wasn’t much better prepared this morning. But I have been admiring the many beautiful snow sketches of Shari Blaukopf, Nina Johansson and Joan T., so I had been looking forward to an opportunity to give it a shot. Since I don’t drive in snow (not in my little convertible hockey puck!), and I felt no compelling reason to put on my boots, I simply opened the front door and stood on our dry porch to sketch the scene across the street. (The temperature was in the low 30s, so I didn’t even have to put gloves on.)

Maybe snow should become my latest sketching nemesis. But given that it snows here only a couple of times per season, I won’t get many opportunities to try to slay it. I’ll just be happy that I got this sketch done in the nick of time to post it to this week’s Urban Sketchers Flickr group theme, “Weather.”

(Speaking of sketching nemeses, I just noticed that this sketch includes three of mine: architecture, trees and cars. Battling three nemeses in a single sketch on a Sunday morning! Time to go in for hot chocolate.)