Fueled by Clouds & Coffee: The Impulse to Capture

1/23/23 Green Lake

Though it’s tough on cold, windy, drizzly days (I draw the line at hard rain), my walk-sketching fitness program continues. My carrot on the stick is always an opportunity to sketch something, anything, in the neighborhood. Even when I feel too cold to pull the tops off my convertible mittens long enough to sketch, I’m always happy afterwards that I did. Because any sketch on location is better than no sketch on location.

One day I wanted to make a postcard for someone, but the weather had been inhospitable, and I wasn’t sure when it would improve long enough to make one. The solution was simple: I grabbed a Hahnemühle postcard on my way out the door for my fitness walk (below). I knew that I probably wouldn’t find anything “special” to sketch, but then, when do I ever? The subject matter is never as important as the impulse to capture it or the desire to say, “I thought about you as I made this sketch.”