Climbing holds, e-bikes, and then
things got a little weird
What a crazy busy few days it has been. We are getting ready to go on a climbing trip (fingers crossed the smoke from the forest fires and a forecast of extreme heat followed by rain and possible thunderstorms don’t conspire to keep us hold up in the Airbnb all week…), I was madly studying for my residential real estate license exam (wrote today - passed), the house (exterior) was being painted, and I’ve been beavering away on the screenplay for a new short film (there’s a partially complete newsletter about that lurking somewhere in my drafts… ).
Between critical tasks, I was also working on more drawings. We’ve managed to squeeze in a few cragging sessions and I thought I’d try to capture some of what makes climbing such a compelling (if a bit weird) sport.
Starting with the holds. In that first drawing above, you’ll see the holy grail of chillaxing holds - the jug. Lots there to grab hold of, which is comforting when you are many feet above the nearest bit of semi-flat ground.
Right away, though, I realized that drawing climbing holds would also require me to draw hands in weird positions. Yuck. Go ahead and chuckle at that withered limb and hook-hand in the top left corner - it is pretty ridiculous.
**Note to self: See if you can take some reference photos of actual hands holding onto actual rock while you are on your trip…***
Many holds don’t come close to jugginess - in which case we take what we can get. Small holds big enough for two or three fingertips are sometimes called crimps, which could also refer to the weird straining pain felt when your fingertips cramp as you try to move up the wall with little more to hold onto than something a couple of credit cards thick.
Even worse are the teeny-weeny, barely visible holds that you sort of pinch between thumb and forefinger, hoping that your feet might be able to find some way to support your weight and keep you moving upward…
In fact, it is your feet and legs that do a lot of the heavy lifting in climbing, so jamming your toe into a good hold means you don’t actually need too much for your hands in order to stay on the wall. It’s amazing how narrow a lip of rock can prove to be immensely reassuring when you can get the edge of your climbing shoe properly placed.
Some climbs have handy cracks into which you can shove fingers, fists, toes, your whole foot and then sort of lever your way up. My biggest fear on those is that I’ll fall but will leave some bit of an extremity firmly jammed in somewhere and then dislocate something farther up the skeletal chain.
By the time you are lucky enough to reach a LEDGE!! (even if your heels are hanging off), it’s time for a no-hands rest and a chance to wipe the sweat and sunscreen from your eyes.
All that to say, I’ll take a small sketchbook and a pen along with me each day and try to capture some actual moments from our trip (we leave tomorrow and hope to be climbing by Thursday). Not quite sure how much time (or strength) I’ll have at the end of the day for posting, but we are away for a week, so I am hoping this will be a good chance to experiment a bit with on-the-fly drawing documentation of our adventures.
Aaaand… the screenplay. As I mentioned, I’m working on a newsletter about the process of working on the script and I was going to do a series of drawings of things you might spot in the film when it is eventually viewable.
I thought it would be fun for viewers to be able to do a sort of 'hidden object’ scavenger hunt while watching. Though, if the film is as gripping and compelling as we all hope it will be, who would want to be distracted by ticking boxes as you spot the items?
It makes more sense to just add a few more drawings of things you may one day see in the film to spice up what would otherwise be deadly dull writing about writing.
And, finally, even when I have been dead tired and really didn’t want to draw anything, I have been trying hard to stick to my self-imposed ‘at-least-one-drawing-a-day’ challenge. At the end of a particularly long day, I was too bagged to come up with even a simple plan/idea, and the following weirdness emerged from the end of the pen…
And, no, I have nothing more to say about that…
OK, I need to finish packing and get some sleep, but hope to check in from the end of a rope sometime soon.
I love your drawing of the bike!! I can’t afford much but I like to collect art from people I know (or sort of know) what kind of price would you ask for that?
And hands!! Yes, unless you are drawing them all the time they can be quite vexing! I have a healthy fear of heights so your drawings of holds was enough to send shivers through me as well.
My daughter just passed through your part of the world on her way to Juneau. Such a gorgeous area.
My husband's family has a phrase they use for a particular feeling of fear--"bum-shivers." That's what happened when I saw the drawing of the toes lodged in a crack, and the possibility of falling while they're still lodged. Aiiiieeeeee!!
I admire your determination--in climbing, but also in drawing Every Single Day, even when you're already exhausted. I hope the trip helps refill your creativity bucket. (And that the smoke dissipates.)