Lines

I was inspired by Andrea's beautiful line drawings to use mostly line when I sketched at the art museum today. I bypassed the Body Beautiful exhibit and sketched in the Native American wing, where it was pretty peaceful and quiet, even with the Friday field trips. The sketches are of clay sculptures by Glenn La'Fontaine.  I added the color at home.

The next sketches are leftovers from our sketchcrawl at Stumptown Annex. The first I drew from the window, looking out at Jane, who was more adventurous than I was on that rainy day. 

And the last was done at Sunnyside Piazza, in one of the happiest neighborhoods in Portland.

 I painted on site, but went over the pencil lines and colors at home, in the comfort of my dry house.

Am I too early for the scavenger hunt?

Yay!  Okay, the scavenger hunt involves things I usually sketch anyway so that works pretty well for me :)  This is good motivation to keep it up and to start posting on here.

I just got laid off/put on furlough again :( so I'm devoting some free time to doing a sketch a day.

Maybe that one could count as someone drinking coffee - but you can't tell that's what they're doing.

This is Powell's bookstore, in the coffee shop.

This is Oaks Park roller skating rink.  I went roller skating, then sketched, then skated again. 

Here's a view from a window.  Blue Moon Mcmenamin's on NW 21st.  Also, trees with no leaves.

Another view through a window:  Goldrush Coffee Shop on NE MLK.

Coco's Donut Shop across from the Jeld Wen Field Max stop.  Note, donuts.

Courier Coffee Shop near Powell's City of Books.  Another view through a window.

Thanks for the motivation to post.  I will do more and join the official scavenger hunt at the appropriate time.  So excited!

Andrea

"Portland Caffeinated"

Here is an image from my new calendar that should have been attached to the invite!

Veterans Day Sketches

I joined the sketch crawlers at the Stumptown Annex on Veterans Day and did this sketch from the front of the shop looking across the street.



At lunch in a nearby cafe I sketched a few patrons. It's tricky sketching people without them noticing that you are staring at them. And then, of course, they change their position or get up and leave!


Earlier this month I visited the Art Museum to do some sketching of the Body Beautiful exhibit.


Sometimes at night my feet like to be sketched so I do them.


Katharine

Holiday Open Studio

Portland Urban Sketchers

You are invited to a Holiday Open Studio

Sunday, Dec.2, 1-5 PM

1830 NE 11th Ave. #1 (@Hancock)

Featuring "Portland Caffeinated 2013 Calendar"

Refreshments! Fun! Please come!

Cyclocross!

We had enough rain this weekend to ensure excellent mud at the cyclocross bicyle race at the Portland International Raceway. Luckily, there was only occasional light drizzle during the race itself, which make it possible to do some fun sketching.

 At first, I tried using a brown colored pencil on the sketches to emphasize how mud was building up on legs and gumming up the brakes of the bikes...

 But then I started just doing gesture sketches of the cyclists, since there were such great poses going on during (and around the edges of) the race.

 It took a lot of effort to push the bikes up the steep stretches of hill that were nothing but deep, slick mud!

 As you can imagine, there was a really long line to use the hoses to wash the bikes off, post-racing, throughout the day.

 Of course, the impatient folks could always wade into one of the larger puddles and wash the bikes off that way.

 The giant puddles worked for personal grooming, too!

When I finally make it out to see "The Body Beautiful" exhibit at the art museum, I am pretty sure I'm going to imagine all the fancy marble statues of athletes covered in mud...

Portland Art Museum: The Body Beautiful & Bacchanal Ballroom

Not too long ago, I joined fantastic local comics artist Lucy Bellwood for sketching at the Portland Art Museum. The current exhibit features body-focused Greek statues and ceramics. It's not a huge exhibit, but the works are gorgeous and well worth sketching from multiple angles.
 

Tonight I attended the museum's dance party event associated with this exhibit: Bacchanal Ballroom.
The evening started off with dancers posing in costume atop column-like platforms as living statues. Perfect for sketchers, right? Right, but the poses were often very fast and there was no knowing how long they'd last - going gestural was the only way!

  
 At some point in the evening, the dancers leapt down from the columns and assembled on the floor for a steamy dance number - which was, incidentally, choreographed by my friend Jessica Wallenfels! As soon as that piece finished, the crowd spilled forward and danced among the dancers. It was actually quite a sight, all the regular folks shimmying up next to these scantily clad paragons of beauty. And yes, eventually I put down the sketchbook and joined them as well.
Afterwards I used the photobooth as a means to display my great heroism in sketching in challenging scenarios...

 
I didn't take any photos, but there are some good ones available courtesy of Byron Beck on Flickr.

Kudos to the Portland Art Museum for putting on a truly unusual event that provided a lot of visual stimulation for me as a sketcher! Um, not to mention as a fan of beautiful bodies.

I'm planning to attend a second time, hopefully with some of my fellow Portland Urban Sketchers!

Olympia, Washington sketcher visits Portland

I'm sending along my sketch and photo of the lunch group. Thanks for the warm welcome and for organizing the event. Hope I get down there again. I love sketching Portland. -Jane Wingfield

Barcelona 2013 / Call for Submissions.

Urban Sketchers is excited to announce a “Call for Submissions of Workshop Proposals” to anyone interested in teaching at the 4th International Urban Sketching Symposium, to be held at Barcelona in the Summer of 2013. Due Date for Submissions: December 15th, 2012. Selection process* The proposals will be reviewed by the Urban Sketchers Workshop Program Committee, which includes Matthew Brehm, Gabi Campanario, Orling Domínguez, Virginia Hein, Veronica Lawlor, Fred Lynch, Melanie Reim, Swasky and Gail Wong. Selected proposals will be announced in January. Compensation The Symposium organization will pay for travel and four nights of accommodation for the selected instructors. Local instructors who will not need to travel will receive an honorarium. Workshop Proposal Form: The “Workshop Proposal Form” needs to be fill out completely and sent to Orling Domínguez at orling@urbansketchers.org before December 15th, 2012. Click here to view and download the "Workshop Proposal Form". For more info you can contact: Orling Domínguez Workshop Program Coordinator orling@urbansketchers.org *Workshops Committee members interested in submitting proposals will abstain themselves from evaluating and voting when their proposals are being reviewed. http://workshops.urbansketchers.org/2012/10/barcelona-2013-call-for-submissions.html

Sunday, Nov. 18: Sketch the Bike Races!

Join us this Sunday, November 18, for an expedition to sketch the cyclocross bicycle races at the Portland International Raceway!

Read more about this crazy sport at
http://bikeportland.org/cats/racing/cyclocross

What's cyclocross, you ask? Imagine folks on skinny-wheeled road bikes, racing on a steep and wriggly course that seems much more suited to mountain-bikes. Lots of mud and tree roots, and periodic jumping off the bike to carry it over obstacles. It takes place in the rainy season, specifically so that the mud is super plentiful.

Oh, and in case that sounds totally unlike your normal cup of tea...there are people cooking up piping-hot Belgian waffles in the tents around the racecourse. Yum!

(Note--this event will be taking the place of our normal 3rd-Saturday sketching meetup.)

Here's the scheme:

• 9:30 am: Meet at the Delta Park/Vanport MAX station (on the yellow line).
• Walk over to the Portland International Raceway, about a 20 minute stroll.
• Scope the scene, snack on Belgian waffles, watch bike people whoosh around, sketch!
• Wander back to the MAX train around 1:00? 

Rain is predicted, please dress for the weather.  There will likely be some pop-up tents for the event but I don't expect much in the way of more formal types of shelter.

Details on the race itself here:
http://www.crosscrusade.com/flyers/2012/november_18.html
(If you want to see the folks racing on unicycles, you'll have to get there earlier in the morning!)

Veterans Day sketching

Veterans Day is a work holiday for me, and I now have the tradition of sketching for a few hours to celebrate not being at work. This year, I invited folks to join me on southeast Belmont to sketch. A big group arrived! Pascale, Angelika, Deb, Vicky, Cynthia, Katharine, Linda, Louise, Sidne, and Jane, who came down from Olympia. Unfortunately, my lunch choice was too small a place for us all to sit, so we made do with the cafe across the street.

It being chilly out, I opted to trying to capture the likeness of the cafe people, including fellow sketchers.

East-coast adventures

Hello, sketchy friends! I went off to Washington DC earlier this month and had a lovely time museum-hopping. Wanted to share this doodle of the exterior of the National Museum of the American Indian with you...

...and invite you to swing by my blog and see more if you are in the mood. (I've posted on the Natural History Museum, the National Museum of the American Indian, the Library of Congress, and some transit system ephemera so far. Still to come: National Portrait Gallery, the Spy Museum, and some murals from the neighborhood we were staying in!)

Looking forward to the sketchcrawl here in town this weekend. Happy painting, y'all.

A Portland Afternoon

This past Tuesday, it being a relatively dry and mild fall Portland day, I decided to drag myself out of the apartment and into the world. I ended up heading out to Macleay Park on NW 29th and Upshur to do a a little sketching. It's got a great view of the Thurman St. Bridge and a fun hiking trail. I sat in the warm car with a friend and we tried our best to render the bridge and bright fall foliage. The longer I looked at the bridge, the more complex it seemed. There are so many little rivets, bolts, plates, connectors, notches, slots, and crossbars, that it boggles the mind. Of course, using watercolor, I just simplified all that into what you see below. A nice little outing on a nice Portland afternoon.

Macleay Park, view of the Thurman Street Bridge

The Body Beautiful...at PDX Art Museum

Talk about challenging......so here I am sitting among what is considered by all to be the epitome of beauty in art...and attempting to imitate that in a sketch! Or to at least sketch it to have the look of something recognizable. Does this seem reasonable? What was I thinking??

Anyway, here are my attempts. I eventually got to the point where it turned fun and the evening turned out pretty well overall.

A potpourri of images

The quintessential beautiful male body

I was intrigued by the simple line work of the Amphoras

I really liked this image of 'the body beautiful' from 2600-2400 BC ...I felt it put it all in place for the other works in the exhibit.

The information in the galleries was well presented but there was so much to take in.....it will need another session.