I’m sad to report that one of my favorite holiday traditions came to an end this weekend. For the past thirty-plus years, the Pacific Northwest Ballet has staged a unique version of The Nutcracker—complete with unusual choreography, nontraditional storytelling, and incredible kinetic theatre sets by one of my illustration heroes, Maurice Sendak. I’ve seen the performance several times since I’ve lived here, and have even sketched from the audience before—but when I found out this would be the last season, I had to go one more time, pencil in hand.

As you can imagine, it’s pretty dim in there during the performance, so I sat there doing blind contour pencil drawings in the dark (hey! All those art school exercises had a purpose!). Then, as soon as the house lights came up for intermission, I looked at the (often hilarious) results and cleaned up the drawing in ink, from memory. Then when I got home, I filled in the color as best I could.

Sketching this way is never exactly ideal, but I have a feeling it’s going to help me remember that last performance for many years. And it’ll remind me of how grateful I am that the PNB has given Seattle such a wonderful Christmas gift for so long.