Missing People

6/4/20 hedge trimmer

I miss drawing people. I don’t mean posed models on live video. I mean flesh-and-blood people right before my eyes – playing fiddles, eating lunch, drinking coffee, shopping, moving, breathing and doing all the many other things people do in their ordinary lives and who aren’t aware that I’m drawing them. For nearly nine years, I have deliberately gone to places with the sole purpose of drawing people, one of my all-time favorite sketch subjects. Who knew that someday, for the sake of my own health and that of others, I would consciously avoid places where I might be in contact with people? I did not know how much I had taken them all for granted.

6/5/20 roofers

One day on my walk through the neighborhood, I spotted a gardener trimming a hedge, and I nearly jumped for joy! Another day, two roofers were at work. Both times, I stopped in my tracks to try to capture their gestures. Moving, breathing people going about their lives – how I miss them.