Open Mic

It was at a small place, and was filled with sketchers, with a band and flowers on the tables.  (It may have been organized by the owners, just to get people in the door.  Or it may have been people who follow the band.)

PAM

The challenge was to not faithfully reproduce what we saw (as cameras can now do that much better than we can), but to instill some sort of artist license.  I headed upstairs, and found myself drawn to a statue in the mesoamerican room.  So I did him twice, once as I saw him, and again richly colored, and with a coiffure.

Sketchcrawl in Woodlawn

I headed north from the meeting point, starting out by wandering through Woodlawn Park.  I sat down on the bridge and did a quick (of necessity) sketch of a mother and child on the slides.  They were gone before I'd finished, so half of the sketch was done from memory.













On to Woodlawn school, where I did a giant pottery urn, collecting rain-water for the adjoining gardens.

I'd been hearing trains to the north, so I headed to the edge of the school grounds to take a peek down the hill.  And saw looming over the industrial buildings on the flats, the OHS.  I hadn't realized that you could get to it from here.










Well, you can sort of get to it.  I headed down the hill and got across Lombard at a light.  But I'm way too old to try sprinting across Columbia.  So I leaned against a fence on the corner and sketched, first a massive old cherry tree on the grounds, and then the building itself.

First Hill in Seattle

I was up for a concert on Thursday, and stuck around for a sketchcrawl on Friday morning.  It was raining lightly for most of the morning, so I wandered around looking for places that were out of the rain and had a view of something interesting.  I circled the area for a bit until I ended up at the top of First Hill, tucked into the entrance of the Polyclinic, and sketching First Baptist (where the concert had been).  It's actually even more baroque than this.  I left out about half of the twiddly bits.

Then I headed back down to Pike and found a spot where I could see the dome of First Covenant (the body was hidden behind a building with a parking lot on its roof) with the buildings of downtown rising behind it.

By this time the rain had finally stopped, so I walked down to do the Plymouth Columns, which were still dark with the morning's rain.  The trees in the park have grown significantly since I left town.

Yet more cats

This might work for Pippin.

A furrowed brow, and worried, green eyes, cause her faint tabby lines always make her look anxious.  And a big bushy tail to show that she's a girl.

A couple of poses from a cat mannequin, done fairly realistically, and then as Jade.

More cats

Doodles to come up with a cartoon likeness of Jade.

PAM

Yet another sketching group.  (Which might fold into the local chapter of urban sketchers)  We met at the art museum.  We were going to meet outside, and then switched to meeting inside, in the face of the predicted monster storm.

But the day started out sunny and warm, so I started out outside, doing one of the sculptures in front of the museum.  But from the back, so it was difficult to make out exactly what the shapes were.

It was still dry when I finished that, but the wind had picked up, so I shifted to the sculpture garden.  I bought a coffee and a scone and then sat down at one of the outside tables and sketched a couple of flower pots, playing around with different brushes to add splotches of color.

Then, from the same spot,  I started a study in shading.  That quickly turned into a study on reflections, and how rain runs down a vertical surface.