Tuesday Spill: Personal History…Drawing Snow

Drawing Snow

In these parts, a hundred miles north of Times Square, we’ve finally received some snow in the past few days. It’s a reasonable amount — not enough to cause “problems.” Standing outside this morning looking at the woods, I noticed our stone rabbit had a nice little hat of the white stuff. Seeing this reminded me of what fun it is — what an amusing challenge it is — to draw a cartoon featuring snow. 

I’ve done plenty over the years, always enjoying the situation that presented itself (I suppose you could argue I made it present itself). I’ll show a few that came to mind this morning, beginning with this one published in The New Yorker January 25, 2010. Even though this was done 13 years ago, I do remember enjoying the experience of letting snow be the star. Perhaps most challenging was showing the recently heave-hoed shovels-ful of snow — those mounds on the ground close by the shovel. One small thing I love to do on nearly every rooftop, and I did it here, was add a shadow next to the chimney. Years before I began publishing in The New Yorker I visited a teacher in New Paltz, New York, who specialized in architectural sketches — renderings I guess you’d call them. On the way out of his home, I noticed a pencil drawing of a house on his drawing board. The only thing I focused on was how he placed a shadow next to the chimney. Being the nascent cartoonist I was, I remembered the shadow, and have used it numerous times ever since.    

Here’s a drawing from Mother Jones, way back in the late 1970s (possibly early 1980s). A chance to go overboard drawing snowballs, and a lot of bare branches:

From The New Yorker, December 16, 1985, perhaps the easiest instance (for me) of suggesting a lot of snow without drawing much snow at all:

And finally, my personal favorite of my own snow attempts, this one from The New Yorker, February 28, 1983. When this one was OKed (bought) by the magazine it was accompanied by a note from then art editor, Lee Lorenz saying something to the effect of, “This is as crazy as we’re prepared to get.”