The Tailor and I took a little overnight trip to southern Oregon this weekend, blaring Christmas music the whole way down and back. It might seem odd when I tell you that the music fit in perfectly with the scenery in this sketch—but in this part of the world, the holidays mean brilliant greens, rather than bright whites.
Just like the neighboring town of Manitou Springs, Colorado Springs is filled with midcentury neon signs and fabulous Googie lettering. This sign is one of my very favorites. It’s been altered a bit over the years, but the fact that a relic like this still exists in a town that’s changing and expanding at a rapid pace—well, it feels like a bit of a miracle to me.
Speaking of indigo, I think I go through more blue paint when I’m in the San Juans than I do anywhere else. I don’t think I’ve been anywhere that has so many different shades and hues of blue in one place. Capturing anything that comes remotely close to what I see there is a big challenge.
Good thing there are plenty of rainy days up there—which makes the landscape flatten out a little, and give my brain a break.
It’s on my list today to refill the pans in my paintbox—starting with indigo, which is most in need of it. Before I moved to Washington, I didn’t use indigo—it just wasn’t a color I needed often, and if I did, I could mix a reasonable facsimile. But now that I live here, and the hillsides in the distance look like the above sketch for so much of the year… Well, indigo might just be the color I use most often.
(When I travel in the desert, though, I stock up on my reds and ochres…)
A lot of people are going to be up early today to participate in holiday craziness—but for me, this time of year has a completely different incentive to be out before the sun. Because if you live in the South Sound area and you’re very, very lucky, you might catch that rare phenomenon where the sun rises behind Mt. Rainier and casts a massive shadow on the clouds above.
The moment doesn’t last long—about the same amount of seconds as alpenglow does. And the conditions have to be absolutely perfect for it to happen: clear enough for the mountain and sun to be visible (which almost never happens in winter), but with just enough mid-level cloud cover to give the shadow a reflecting surface. And you can only see it from certain areas where the sunrise is perfectly aligned behind the mountain (like the solstice sunrises with which places like Stonehenge and Mission San Juan Bautista are intentionally aligned). All of this makes it so uncommon that we’re lucky if conditions are right once a year.
In my six-plus years here, I’ve only seen it in person twice—and on Monday, I was finally lying in wait with my sketchbook. It felt like winning the lottery.
For the first time in many years, we’re not hosting Thanksgiving this time. But we are continuing our tradition of spending the holiday with friends. So when the turkey’s been eaten and all the plates cleared, I’m sure the scene won’t be so different than this one—just in a different location. To me, that sounds just about perfect.
Wishing a wonderful Thanksgiving tomorrow to all my U.S. readers!
I pulled over and started sketching this little farm, with the idea of doing some sort of pre-Turkey Day post today. And then this guy wandered right up to the fence—and into my drawing.
I guess it’s a good thing (for him) that emu isn’t traditional Thanksgiving fare…
There are lots of ways to get me to pull over and make an impromptu detour to a town I know nothing about. The best one I can think of?
Name the place something that sounds like a Spaghetti Western. I’ll be there before you can yell “Draw!“
Of course, if you really want the feeling of sketching a cathedral…you could just go sketch a cathedral. I figure that’s just as valid a way to go about it. And considering that I scored an absolutely rock star parking space on a busy thoroughfare in the middle of San Francisco to do this sketch (stopping along your way to draw is hard in a place where a car is a burden)—well, I was feeling pretty blessed that morning!
Cathedral Park is one of my favorite spots in Portland. It’s pretty far off the beaten path, so I don’t know how many non-locals make it out that way, but it’s well worth the effort to get there. The park is named for the effect created by the gothic arches under the span. The long row of arches acts like a kind of barrel vault, while the diffuse Northwest light filters in at an angle—which feels a whole lot like you’re standing in the nave of the airiest cathedral you can imagine. The whole effect is as inspiring (for me) as visiting Notre Dame in Paris or St. Patrick’s in New York—only with a distinctly Northwestern spin on the experience.