From My Sketchbook:
It was a cool, cloudy mid-October day. There was a chilly constant breeze of varying strength coming in-shore from the ocean, but I was well bundled for the late afternoon against the cool temperature, had a thermos of coffee at hand, and was thankful that it wasn’t raining. All in all it was a good day, and this was the better of two drawings done at this beach location.
What the viewer of a work such as this might not be aware of is an artist’s experience when working. One of the challenges to working out-of-doors on a day like this involves the influence of the weather on materials and the body. In hot weather you can typically find some shade and wear lightweight non restricting clothing for comfort, but on a cold and windy day it is challenging to find comfort for any length of time.
It isn’t unusual to have your eyes tear-up, obscuring your vision while tears also run down your cheeks and become an inconvenience; or your nose, toes, and ears can start to hurt from the cold; and on this day my exposed fingers and hands were quickly getting cold and stiff, making it modestly difficult to comfortably hold the sketchbook and accurately use the pen (I have difficulty getting the same quality of control of tools while wearing gloves, plus they quickly become stained or painted). Occasionally low temperatures can cause art pigments and inks to jell, stiffen, not evaporate quickly, basically, to not function reliably. In this case, my ink pen was occasionally skipping and creating lines that were scratchy because the breeze was drying the ink on the pen nib whenever I would stop drawing to take a moment to study the landscape. In addition to this, unexpectedly from time to time there would be a sudden gust of buffeting wind which would push me about, forcing me to have to catch my hat or my balance. At other moments the wind would shift direction just enough so that the pages of my sketchbook would catch the breeze and flutter, or cause the sketchbook to lift from my hand like a kite.
Needless to say, interruptions like these add a bit of interest and sport to trying to control the pen when attempting to make intentional and inspired marks on the paper.