February 17 apart from being my dad's
birthday was this year a snowy day. Because we have had so little
snow this year there has been almost no time to do any drawing in the
snow. That's why I found myself sitting on the road into the Teen
Challenge property with this view of the vintage stone house on the
corner just south of me at the entrance to O'Connell Youth Ranch.
This is not the first drawing I have done of this house, or
the area, from all directions, but the dusting of snow made the scene
more luminous than normal; and this view sitting there was for me a
fresh one with more flow from side to side than earlier sketches.
I had been sitting near a small
culvert on the one lane entrance road for about 20 minutes when a
“duelly” crew cab pulled into the gate with a 16' trailer in tow
loaded a good 5' high with firewood. No problem, huh, I can just
back up 100 yards to the yard and avoid getting stuck in the shallow
ditch on the slick grass... But my truck would not start. I had
left the lights on when earlier the snow and the overcast sky were
making it a little dark to see. So I had to bum a jump from the
fellow driving the duelly. He had a couple teens with him one of
which helped me hook up the cables. The driver seemed a little
frustrated, as he well might be; it was not early and they had a lot
of wood to unload at the house. They may well have spent a good part
of the day splitting and loading it. Turns out after the truck started I was actually able to
drive around him w/o getting stuck. Then I was able to go one street
north where there was a dead end east of the round-about so I could
sit & finish the drawing enough to stop and head for home. Although after finishing this drawing I decided the view to the north would
be better if done right then than later in the year, so I started another
drawing before the flurries totally stopped.
This drawing is done in a 9” x 12”
format totally in pencil. This is one of my favorite recent drawings,
and my favorite of the old place.
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