Surprise Sketches

Suhita Shirodkar in San Jose, California

Sometimes the unplanned stuff is the best. Early at school to pickup my kids today (that almost never happens) and what do I see? Our local middle school’s Chamber Orchestra playing under the redwood trees. They were there to give the little kids a peek at the exciting stuff they get to do in middle school.

I dug out a piece of taupe-colored, accordion-folded paper and sketched on it. Since I didn’t know how long they’d play (they ended up being around a good 15 minutes) I added things as I went along: Black ink in a brushpen went in first. Then some white gel pen. They hung around and played some more, so out came a few colored pencils and a white wax crayon. Some of it, stuff that I carry around in my bag but haven’t used in a long time. So much fun. Here are a couple of closeups from the image.

The conductor is the teacher. He was fantastic and animated and I had  way too much fun sketching this group. Can you tell?