Urban Sketching, Alaska Style

On a recent trip to Fairbanks, Alaska, I went out for dinner at the Silver Gulch Brewery, which is the furthest north of all the breweries in North America. * La mes pasada, viajé a Fairbanks, Alaska y cené en Silver Gulch Brewery, lo que es la cervecería más al norte de toda America del norte.

Colored pencil on toned paper * Lápices de color en papel color café

The shot-glass sized sample of fancy-flavored beer made a nice splash of color in the composition. 
Here's to staying warm this winter, and plenty of fun sketching adventures in the year to come!  * El vasito de chupito, con una muestra de cerveza de sabor especial, añade un poquito de color al bosquejo. Les deseo un invierno cómodo y contento, ¡con muchas aventuras artísticas en el año nuevo!

Across the street from the Lumberyard...

The meetup at the Lumberyard was super cool--loved seeing the little kiddos riding their bikes all around the ramps (especially the ~4 year old girl in the red tutu!) But little Magpie was impatient to go outside and take advantage of the sunshine, so we ended up across the street at Glenhaven Park where--who knew?--there is a little skate park full of kids riding trick bikes, skateboards, and razor scooters.

It was a nice day for bright highlights and crisp shadows. We sat in the sun and ate crackers and applesauce, and my pencils got dipped into the applesauce more than once, but hey--that's all part of the joy of autumn.

Walk of the Heroines

What a great turnout for the sketchcrawl on Oct 18! Loved meeting all the new folks, including travelers from afar, as well as seeing old sketching buddies. Plus breakfast tamales, wow.

I mostly drew at the Walk of the Heroines at the PSU campus. Was glad for (mostly) dry weather and also very glad that there were puddles of rainwater in one of the carved stone monument thingies for the kiddo to splash in!

I was once again blown away by the sketchbook sharing at the end--such beautiful, creative, and unique ways of capturing the world around us. Thanks to everyone for being so fun and inspiring!

Sketches from Apple Fest

I had never been to the big apple tasting festival at Portland Nursery before. What a great community party! Steady flow of families pouring in for apples, pears, pumpkins, cider, streudel, music, all of the fun.

Giant apple balloon over the festival tent

Once the baby finally tuckered herself out (thumping on hay bales, chasing puppies, and trying to climb onto all the garden carts), I joined the little trio of urban sketching friends and whipped out a few small sketches during her nap.

It was the actual crates of apples, the large wooden boxes that are moved in by nimble forklifts, full of sweet colorful crunchy goodness, that most caught my eye.

The grain of the wood, the cracks from long use, the tough metal hardware that reinforces each corner. How many years apple festivals have each of these crates seen? Such unique character in each individual box.

#WCSKETCH--Round one of my doodles

Well, at first it didn't feel like I got much sketching done during the gloriously fun 2nd Annual West Coast Urban Sketchers Sketchcrawl on July 11 and 12. But now that I'm sitting down to scan my sketchbook, there's kind of a lot of stuff in there!

Here's a cleaner version of my pre-crawl doodle of Teddy on his horse...

And these are the erratic scribbles I pulled off during the Friday portrait party at the pub.

Not bad, considering that squirmy baby in my lap! It was great fun meeting so many new people, wish there had been time to chat with everyone much longer.