Urban Sketcher

Posted on Jan 5, 2014 in Tucson | 0 comments

This Christmas holiday, I’ve been amusing myself by drawing quick portraits of family and friends, after Australian urban sketcher Evelyn Yee introduced me to the idea, and we gave it a test run at our Vancouver urban sketchers session at the 33 Acres Brewery. I am not showing them because I am proud of them — I am not, but it doesn’t really matter. I just like the idea of the quick portrait and am planning to get more practice. Maybe in a year I will be able to show more competent portraits. These are just a few examples; I managed to draw about 13 people. It’s addictive. Try it!

Also, I had way more fun than the victims models.

Posted on Jan 5, 2014 in Tucson | 0 comments

We visited my inlaws in Tucson over the holidays. Our nieces and nephews, as well as some of their parents, are a performing bunch. On our first day in town there were no less than three Christmas concerts to attend that involved several family members. I skipped the first concert of the day to sleep in, but it still felt like a busy day being out from 11 am to 8 pm to fit in meals and the other two concerts. It was all very impressive though.

It was too dark in the hall to draw during my youngest nephew’s choir performance with the Tucson Symphony, but his mom and older brother’s concert at the Antiochian Orthodox church they attend was in a well-lit, new building with vaulted ceilings, shown here. It was a choir concert of Christmas songs from a variety of cultures, performed in about ten different languages. I enjoyed it, even though I do not attend this kind of church nor subscribe to their belief system.

Jeff, my husband, sings as well, as a tenor in the Vancouver Bach Choir. It really hit home on this trip that he comes from a very musical family.