Sketchin' at the River

Past few months have been kind of crazy between several jobs, freelance work, and family stuff. Sometimes life requires that drawing has to take a back seat to other responsibilities. It's cool though, because everything in life ebbs and flows. It's just the way it is.

So a couple Sundays ago, I found myself awake super early to run an errand. I could have went back to bed, because I had a couple hours to kill before running more errands that would last all day.

Instead I decided to take a moment for myself, so I grabbed a coffee at sunrise and went over to the old Greenberg piers on the Delaware River in my neighborhood. The tide was pretty high, but it looked like it was going out.

I sat at the edge of the pier listening to my Ipod, sketching away, and this is what came out on a two-page spread in the sketchbook:

I really like drawing old tymie deep sea divers for some reason. This guy is escaping. The words came from an E.L.O. song on my Ipod (at least that's what the lyrics sound like to me). Because I was tired, lost in the drawing and my Ipod was so loud, I didn't notice that the murky green water of the Dirty Del was rising to the edge of the pier. A tugboat cruised by on the channel and gave way to a residual wave that splashed over the edge of the pier, spitting onto my shoulder and head. I came out of a daze and realized that my feet were partly submerged. The tide was coming in, not going out.

I laughed out loud. It was one of the best drawing times I had in a while.

I picked away at the black lines in the background with a 01 Micron pen over a week or so on my lunch breaks. I could have used a brush or brush pen, but sometimes it feels good just to make little lines and get lost in a drawing. Afterwards, I did a scan and some quick and dirty Photoshop colors. This was the end of it...

I hope I have more awesome drawing mornings like this in the near future.