Hammi - not a sketchcrawl

This was the third Saturday, our regular day for the PDXUSK sketchcrawl.  But we'd cancelled it, cause of delta.

And as it turned out, the weather was absolutely miserable this morning.  And I have to admit that I was relieved that I wouldn't be out tramping around in a park somewhere.

But I did do a bit of sketching in the morning, of my foster Hammi.

I was supposed to have hauled her up to the vet's this morning, for a meet and greet with her prospective furever mom.  But said mom woke up with a cough this morning, and decided to postpone the meeting, rather than risk infecting anyone else.  A sentiment I totally agree with.  Especially since the 'anyone else' happens to be the vet that will be doing Pippin's teeth next month.

Hammi

 

Summer

 

Available for adoption at the Oregon Humane Society

An outing to Maryhill

A few sketches, followed by a trip to the museum, to see this year's plein air exhibit.

Sketchcrawl at Cornell Farm Nursery

Planned before things got dicey again, and very nearly cancelled when they did.  But a largish crowd showed up, and we hung out outside and scattered to sketch.

I attempted some of the chickens

And then went back to a strawberry plant that I'd noticed on my first pass through the grounds.

I'm sure that it's the same one that has volunteered in my yard.  Which I'd assumed was F. virginiana.

Amtrak

Masked and, as far as possible, distanced.

Westside Shakespeare Festival

Ladies in Elizabethan dress at the insult contest

Pearl District Sketchcrawl

We gathered at the new pedestrian mall on NW 13th.  

And then I walked up to the new bridge at Flanders and sat down in the shade on a traffic island and did a one-point perspective looking down towards the river.

Oregon white oak, again

Another unsuccessful experiment.  This time dipping the watercolor pencils into water and then drawing with them.

White pine

Felt marker, continuous line.

Oregon white oak

An unsuccessful experiment of watercolor pencils on a wash.

Pin oak

Watercolor pencil again, but better quality.  Creatacolor rather then Crayola.

Sycamore maple

Watercolor pencil, using cyan, magenta and yellow primaries, with dark blue for shadows.

Red oak

Tablet again

Beech

 Pencil

Narrow-leafed ash

Dip pens and walnut ink

Vine maple

 Walnut ink, using iris and foxglove stalks for pens.

Iris pen

 Experiments with pen and ink, using dried iris stalks as pens.

Windfall pear

On a tablet

Catalpa twig and leaf

Pen and ink, then scanned, with color added on a tablet.

Thimbleberry plant, from above

 

Catalpa Tree, from below

 

Pippin

 Ink, continuous line

Shiny Geranium

Noxious weed, destroy on sight.

Gesture sketch, and ink and colored pencil.

Book group, on zoom

 

Broccoli leaf

Graphite

Violet leaf

In-class drawing, first day of PSU art class, pencil.

Get-together in the Rose Garden

Our second in-person sketchcrawl since last February, and a bunch of people showed up.  Except for the mass vaccination site at the convention center, more people than I've seen in one place in over a year.  A lot of old friends, but a lot of new faces too.  Some were long-time artists, out to be sociable after a year of isolation, while other were newbies, who'd taken up sketching as a covid project.

Balch Creek Trash Rack

This is the wood and metal structure that straddles the creek as it plunges into a culvert that will take it to the river.  Its purpose is to comb out any storm debris and keep it out of the underground system, to keep it from getting plugged up.  

The rack is falling apart.  They've repaired it several times since I've lived here, but it's reached the end of its rope.  They're going to tear it down and replace it in June.

Non-virtual Sketchcrawl!

At long long last, the Portland urban sketchers met in person, there being enough of us fully vaccinated (mostly the old farts, but the youngsters are hot on our heels) to feel safe out in the world.

We met on the esplanade, and, seeing that the Hawthorne Bridge was closed to auto traffic, I took the opportunity of planting my butt on the sidewalk and dangling my feet on the road bed and did a one-point perspective of the bridge, taking care not to drop a pen or pencil through the mesh and into the drink.

And then switched to my tablet and did a study of the trunk of a gnarly old willow by the fire station.

Cherry Bomb Blossoms

 

For this month's virtual sketchcrawl, with a challenge of using only three tools.  For me that was a pink pencil, a black pencil, and a black micron pen.  Not even a pencil underlay to sort it all out.  (Which meant that it didn't stay sorted.)

384 days of Covid

 

Easter Morning

My next-door neighbor used to have a camellia tree at the corner of her house, that towered over her roof line, splendid with red blossoms.

When the oak tree fell it smashed most of the plant.  It survived, but in a truncated (sorry) state, ending up as a sturdy shrub.

This spring, after a year of rest, it put out a single bud, a single blossom.  I'm taking that as a portent of hope and rebirth.

The last day

Actually, I got my second shot yesterday morning, so, by rights, that should have been the end.  But 383 is a prime number, while 384 has lots of factors, so this way I'll be able to assemble the lot into a nice rectangle. 

And did an older photo of a young Pearl.

Day 383