Sunday, January 15, 2006

Drawing in the cold



Lately I´ve been feeling a bit frustrated because of the cold – I can´t go out to draw! Swedish winter is not good for drawing. I draw inside instead, of course, at home or sometimes at work, but I still miss the freedom to go out and draw wherever I happen to be. I miss the inspiration you get from just walking around and looking at your surroundings.

Today, though, the temperature isn´t that bad, around 0°C, so I decided to go out and give it a try. Went into town and ended up outside a parking house on a back street.
I drew this one with graphite pencil, since you can trust those no matter how cold it is. I didn´t stay long, I got cold really fast, but I ´m happy I did this. I´m going to try it when it gets colder too. Why should temperature stop me from doing what I love? I´m sure you can hold a pencil with mittens on your hands!

10 comments:

Lin said...

Nina, your sketches are ALL so well done!! I love this one! Such great perspective! I can't believe you can do this well sketching so fast! BRAVA!

Teri said...

It's beautiful and all the more beautiful knowing how cold it was!

I also wanted to say, welcome to EDM and the world of blogging. It's so much fun!

I look forward to seeing new sketches in those neat sketchbooks.

Karen Winters said...

Nina, I like your drawing - the perspective is wonderful - but I can't read the text at all. I think you might be better off with a white background on the page instead of the patterned one.

Nina Johansson said...

Thank you all for your warming words!
Karen! How interesting, and annoying, with the background pattern. I´ve set the background of the content area to white but I´ve just realized (thanks to your comment) that in Firefox it looks horrible! Have to check the code to see if I can fix that...

Nita Van Zandt said...

Ah, much better without the background crowding the drawing! I use Firefox and this is fine now! Good work on both software and drawing :-)

Terri said...

Well done Nina! Goodness 0 degrees "not too bad"??!! Aaarrgggh! I would think I was freezing to death at that temperature. We just don't know what cold really is here in Australia. What about a series of 'views from windows' during winter. This way you could still draw the environment outside, and be warm too. :o)

Lindsay said...

Nina, I love your city scape!. I also love to draw in the winter but keep my supplies REALLY simple. Usually a pencil or water soluable pen.
Can't wait to see more of your work

Hashi said...

Nina, I like this picture a lot -- the rising street adds an air of mystery for me. Lovely. As for drawing outside, what about sitting in your car, rather than out in the snow?

Felicity Grace said...

Lovely drawing. Looks like you choose quite a difficult perspective anc captured it perfectly. (Is that a Saab?!)

Nina Johansson said...

Thanks all for your comments! Terri - sure, I guess I could do some views from the windows, I may actually try that. But it couldn´t replace being out there walking around and drawing where I feel like it.
Hashi - sketching from the car is good, I tried that during the autumn. The only drawback if I want to do that in Stockholm is the toll fee you have to pay to bring your car into the city. Much easier to go by underground.
Felicity - no, it´s actually a Volvo. Cars are so impossible to draw, I never quite get them right. But hey - you saw that it was a car! :-)