June Sketchcrawl at Portland's International Rose Test Garden

We had a great turnout - everyone seemed very ready to be out among people and the weather was perfect.  

I focused on roses for most of the allotted time. Briefly I tried to capture some of the crowd but everyone besides the sketchers was moving fairly quickly. We sketchers did a good job of it, though; people need to remember to stop and smell the roses, even at the rose garden, and we sketchers set a good example.

Shoutout to everyone that joined us for their first time this month. A couple people mentioned having gotten interested in sketching during the pandemic year and waiting for the chance to get out and do it in a social context. Several sketchers had favorite artists that I had never heard of, and there was enthusiasm about new supplies that hadn't been tested yet.  I'm looking forward to getting to know more of these new Urban Sketchers over the coming months!

Get-together in the Rose Garden

Only 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.

June 2021sketchcrawl- my remote sketch and others of my temporary new home.

Bristol is a pretty typical small New England town. Here I am at the weekly farmers market held year round at Mount Hope Farm.

Since Curtis has joined me here we have been living in an apartment on tiny Cottage St. These are some sketches of the local color.

This town is known for its Fourth of July celebration and Parade....as a matter of fact it claims to be the longest running 4th of July parade in the US. And the residents take this seriously by putting out flags and bunting on almost every house and town building. This last sketch is a view out of our kitchen window showing some of the many Victorian homes here. The architecture is mostly 19th C. with a couple of 18th C. homes still in existence. The town of Bristol was incorporated in in 1681. Of course the area was well inhabited by the native tribes; Narragansett on the west shore and Wampanoag on the east shore.