Sketching in the rain and other news

Including the OneWeek100People challenge and a bonus video on composition

Sketching in the rain

It was a wintery Tuesday morning. My head was too full with unwanted thoughts, and I was struggling to tap into that creative place inside. The realisation dawned on me that going for a walk would probably solve the problem, and as the weather man had predicted that it would be one of the only rain free days of that week, I decided to take myself up on the offer. Cycling to the National Park was chilly but not cold. Thanks to the thick cloud cover, most of the sun’s heat from the previous day remained trapped even though the night was cool. Ten degrees celsius. My thin gloves would suffice.

I decided on a 5km route that I have done many times before. Less than a kilometre in I came to a spot where most of the trees have been slain by a particularly violent storm from the previous year. Storm Poly, with wind gusts of up to 145km/h. It wasn’t the only storm that we have had recently, but it is one that have stayed with me. Houses and cars were destroyed and people have lost their lives from trees that fell over onto them. The National Parks were closed for weeks because of safety hazards from falling trees and branches. Once the park rangers declared the pathways safe and I could finally go for a walk again I was struck with the amount of havoc that the storm has left in it’s wake. There were areas where you previously looked up into a canopy of leaves, that were now open to the drifting clouds. Beloved trees that were now lying face down with their roots for all the world to see. This particular spot where I stopped looked like a giant took a baseball bat and started swinging at imaginary balls. One thing that struck me during the months directly after the storm was how quiet it was. Eerily so. I don’t know whether the birds left or were still just in hiding, but I found the lack of birdsong disturbing and sad at the same time.

Back to my 5km walk and the giant-slain trees. Previously I would just rush past that spot with averted eyes, trying to not see how bad the destruction was. However, the thing that made me stop there this time, was obviously not visual beauty, but the birdsong. In that spot where the storm had rained down destruction, was now an abundance of life. In their wisdom the forest rangers had left all the fallen branches and trees right there where they had landed. And now birds were flitting about, singing happily, feeling safe within the multitude of broken off branches.

I decided to stop there to make this sketch. It was a moment that I wanted to remember and therefore it had to be captured in my sketchbook. When a fine misty drizzle started to come down just a few minutes into my sketch, it didn’t bother me at all. It made the birds sing with even more gusto.

Afterwards, as I walked away with a thoroughly drenched sketchbook, I couldn’t help but ponder the beauty of life springing up in the wake of all that destruction. The beauty of finding hope in those places where one would least expect it.

Next time I will share the making-of video of this sketch, including the art and experiments that flowed from this rainy hike and sketch session.

A sketch I made during a meetup with the Haarlem Urban Sketchers at the local Ikea. And believe it or not, all the people loved the sketches we made of them while they were having breakfast.

OneWeek100People challenge

This year’s annual OneWeek100People challenge will be running from 11-15 March. I will be doing this challenge and would love for you to join me. The challenge: to draw a 100 people in just 5 days. The aim: to get more comfortable with drawing people.

Get in touch with me if you find yourself in Haarlem, the Netherlands, during this week and would like to spend an hour on of one of the weekday mornings sketching people with me. You can either send me a direct message through substack or reply to this email.

Suhita Shirodkar wrote two posts with great tips and info about this challenge and will be hosting some online people sketching sessions which I am also planning on joining.

Buy me a pencil

The last couple of years there have been a couple of artists that have inspired me to keep on creating and not give up when the going gets tough. I like to show my appreciation and support for what they are doing either through subscribing to their substack or patreon or by ‘buying them a coffee’. Whichever option they have available. Each time I do this, I know that the chances of them being able to continue to make art grows. Which in turn increases my chances of being inspired by them at a future date.

With this in mind… If any of my newsletters have inspired you to get up and create; or you simply feel that being a patron of the arts shouldn’t only be reserved for royalty and the super rich, there is now the option to “buy me a pencil”. It is a way to show your support in a tangible way, and a way for me to keep on making art.

Bonus composition video

And last, but not least, because this also happens to be my birthday month, I have decided to include a little video about composition. Hope you enjoy it!

Thank you for reading and thank you for watching!

May your eyes be open to the wonders around you,

Nino