A couple of weekends ago we held our latest Let’s Draw Davis meet of 2024, a small group in Central Park sketching at the Farmer’s Market. It had been a cold week and I was expecting a chilly morning, but the sun was out and the autumn colours were massive, and it was a really nice morning to be out with a sketchbook. I decided I’d sketch with my brown-ink fountain pen, it really creates a nice tone with the fall colours. There were a lot of people and stalls to draw; the flat earth people weren’t out this time, having probably fallen off the edge of the world. There was a banjo player making some nice tunes. As I sketched a young couple came up and tried to give me a flyer to some party with their church; no thank you, I said, but they were really insistent. I tried to politely make it clear I’m a little busy. They complemented my drawing but said “God gave you that gift”. I’m like, mate no, thousands and thousands of hours of practice gave me this gift, anyway see ya later, have a Merry Christmas. Still they held out the flyer, and then asked “Have you ever heard of Jesus?” I couldn’t help myself and said “No, never heard of him, who’s that?” As they started to actually tell me, and question me on how I celebrate Christmas, I had to say look mate you might try someone else, I’m not interested and obviously busy, and they finally left me to my sketch. Really not got a lot of time for religious converters, and don’t really have to explain why. One of the other sketchers later said they’d also been approached by the same insistent group, and instead had a long philosophical debate with them, and they eventually left him alone. At least it wasn’t the flat earth lot.

I drew more people about the market, I was going to colour them in but ended up leaving them as is, I like that brown ink. I wrote the colours next to them too, people were really out in lots of colourful clothing on this colourful Fall morning. Christmas is just around the corner. While I’ve no interest going to anyone’s Jesus party, I do absolutely love the Christmas carols at this time of year. One of my favourite festive moments since coming over here was attending the annual Christmas Concert at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, which I did on a couple of occasions about a decade ago, having illustrated the program and poster for the event. There is nothing like a cathedral for the incredible acoustics of a Christmas concert. (Also, did you know that ‘Away in a Manger’ has a different tune in America than it does in Britain? We learned that song every year in junior school for our nativity play, so it is strange hearing it with a different tune, a bit like hearing Yellow Submarine with the tune of a David Bowie song) (which I have done at karaoke by the way, replacing the lyrics of Modern Love with those of Yellow Submarine, which really worked; I remember as I was going up a woman said to me “I really love this song!” and I said, “Yeah, you’re gonna hate this version”, but actually it really worked. I had this theory years ago that you could shoehorn the words of Yellow Submarine into any song. You can even do it with ‘Away in a Manger’ – try it! Fun Christmas party game). Anyway I love a Christmas Carol. You don’t get carollers coming round to your door any more, at least we never have here. I used to do it as a kid, me and a few other kids on our street would go round knocking on the doors in the Orange Hill area of Burnt Oak singing basically two songs, “Jingle Bells” and “We WISH you a Merry Christmas”. And occasionally Away In A Manger if they wanted an encore. We would get some money each, 10p, 20p, 50p if you were lucky, but woe betide those who gave away a full quid because word would get around and every carol-singing kid from Deansbrook to Stag Lane would descend upon your doorstep singing the exact same rushed verse of “We WISSHHH you a Merry Christmas” and hold out their hands. Ah fun times.

Well there was a group of singers in the park this day giving a performance of festive songs (though it was much more the church hymns than your Jingle Bells), but they were really good and I enjoyed listening to the singing as I sketched, with the fall colours behind. Nobody tried to give me a flyer either. Still I was up against the clock as the sketchcrawl was ending soon and we always meet to look at each others’ sketchbooks and share sketching tips. That Lamy Safari fountain pen with the brown ink is good for the quick sketchy movements of drawing people. These singers mostly wore black or dark clothes so it really stood out against the autumnal trees. Catching this season while I can.