Hammi - not a sketchcrawl

As it turns 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, hearkening back to our virtual sketchcrawls, I did do a bit of sketching today.

This is Hammi, whom I'm fostering.  She has a prospective furever mom lined up.  We just have to get them together to see if they click.  And then Pippin will have her house to herself again.

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.

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.

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.

Virtual Sketchcrawl #13 - Light

Done during the Portland Winter Light [non]Festival (on its first weekend, the one before the snow and ice).  This is Twinkle Trees, on Northrup.  Which was the installation closest to me.

Virtual Sketchcrawl #12 - Winter - Empress Tree

I'd been thinking of sketching my own catalpa, because winter exposes its true nature, with branches chaotically strewing themselves every which way.  But from my windows on the first floor I can only really see its massive trunk, which doesn't change through the seasons.

So, when I realized that it wasn't going to be raining this morning, I decided to bundle up and walk to the MLC school grounds to do their empress tree instead.

Virtual sketchcrawl - Trees dressed up for the holidays

I did this one last Saturday, in an unexpected sunbreak.  

It's a tree in my neighbor's front yard, which he dolled up something special for the season.  I stood on his parking strip, and we had a long-distance conversation between the street and his porch.  (And then he waited patiently until I'd finished, so he could come out and rake up his leaves.)

While I was there a hummingbird - a male Anna's - came to investigate the tree, probing every single ornament, in hopes it was a flower or a feeder.  And then flew away in a huff.

Then, this morning I braved the iffy weather, dodging both rain and other people, and walked down to Pioneer Courthouse Square to sketch the tree. 

I haven't been downtown in ages.  The number of empty storefronts is scary.  And these colorful circles are painted in the square and on the surrounding sidewalks.  I assume that they're social distancing markers.

Virtual Sketchcrawl #10 - food prep or aftermath

I'm not cooking ahead for Thanksgiving, but I did have some parsnips and a carrot that needed to get eaten up.  So I decided to roast them.  I laid them out (artistically) and did a quick sketch while cooking some bacon in the preheating oven.

And then, while those were roasting, I opened and cleaned an acorn squash, to bake for later.

Virtual Sketchcrawl #9 - Nature preparing for winter

I walked up the street this morning to see if the cedar waxwings were still busily stuffing themselves on my neighbor's crabapple trees.  But no, they'd pretty much stripped the trees and moved on to greener pastures.  So I resorted to looking for tinges of fall color in the trees I can see from my backyard.  

And then, I sketched the tinges of orange creeping into my persimmons in the front yard.

Virtual Sketchcrawl - sketching in a grid.

 

Back in the spring, I sketched the view out my bedroom window, newly replanted after the oak disaster this winter.  I salvaged some chunks of the pine trunks to set up a seating area, thinking it would a good place to sit and have tea on summer afternoons.

But it turned out to be Aramis' most favorite spot in the yard, and he demand to go out to visit it several times each day.  I'd sit and read, while he lounged, basking his old bones in the the sun.  I transplanted one of his catmint plants there to make it smell good for him, and planted some oat grass to give him something to nibble on.

Sadly, I lost him in August, and buried him under his catmint.  He'd lived with me for over 21 years and was an extraordinary cat, so I've got no complaints.  But I do miss him.

Postcards from the Industrial Refuge

I managed to find my old sketching kit yesterday, and measured off some 4x6 rectangles in the sketchbook (last used in 2014).  Then I wandered off into the Industrial Refuge this morning.  There's hardly anyone there on a Saturday morning, just a few runners and bikers, and people camping in their vehicles.  It wasn't too awfully hot yet, but hot enough that I only sketched from spots in the shade.

First off, I did a water tower on top of a building near Montgomery Park.  I've gazed at in for years while waiting for a bus, but never had time to sketch it.  Because, well, buses.

Then I walked down to the ESCO office building and did a bit of 'art' in their parking lot.  It could pretend to be sculpture, but I suspect what it really is is an old rusted drill bit.

And then, just a bit further to capture the last remaining bit of ESCO's old No. 1 foundry.

Virtual sketchcrawl - change up your process

I decided to do random color, with marker pen and airbrush. 

And it came out virtually unrecognizable.  That's my TV, surrounded by piles of books and DVDs that are waiting to go back to the library, streaming a virtual version of this year's Bach Festival in Leipzig.  

Some performances are still happening in Leipzig, while the groups that intended to come taped performances and sent them in to be broadcast.

The different groups used different ways to record their pieces.  Some did solo works.  Some had all the musicians record themselves at home, and stitched the parts together.  One used a church, with the string section on one side, all wearing masks, and the soprano way over across on the other side.  In Germany, things seemed to be the loosest, with an actual live audience (albeit 2 meters apart and masked).  The musicians were unmasked, and keeping a 2 meter separation.  Even the singers.  Which was a bit unnerving.  (At Trinity Cathedral, singers must keep a 15' separation.)

And this is my (gray) cat, who came to sit on my lap.

Virtual sketchcrawl - Embody the art you love

Today's challenge was to be inspired by and emulate some piece of artwork that you love.  I'd picked Hokusai's Great Wave.  



I used a limited palette and no blending to try to emulate a woodblock print, portraying a few leaves of the shrub beside my front porch.

Construction

I thought that I should document all the construction that going on within sight of my house.  Cause someday, God willing, it'll all be done and quiet on the street again.



The green dumpster is for my next door neighbor.  The structural work is all done now, and the electrical system and plumbing have been repaired.  They still have to re-assemble her kitchen, and repair the plaster and repaint in of the rest of the house.

The brown dumpster is for the triplex across the street, which has been vacant for years.  The original plan was to turn it into a five-story building containing three luxury condominiums.  That, thankfully, was scrapped.  It's either going to come back to life as a modest triplex, or have the apartments merged to become a single-family house.

And behind that, where the alternator rebuild shop used to be, a new condo building is going up. 

Virtual sketchcrawl - new media

I'd bought a cheap kid's set of watercolor pencils, months ago, at Freddy's, but had never tried them.  So, with today's theme of trying a different media than you usually use, I dragged them out.


Obviously, I couldn't sketch the pencils themselves, not in their true colors at least, so I let other pencils stand in.  And the highlights didn't work very well.  There was a white pencil in the box, but, wet or dry, it didn't seem to end up in the drawing.

For my second sketch, I dragged everything outside, and huddled under my eaves to do one of the dogwood blossoms.  To make the white stand out, I cut apart one of the multitude of paper grocery sacks that I've brought home during the pandemic.

And, again, the white was pretty pathetic.

Continuous line

OK, I tried a continuous line drawing. Actually, I tried it twice, and then reverted to standard (virtual) brush strokes.

And I decided to document activities that I used to do often, but have let slip of late, and have now taken up again during the pandemic.

Firstly, sewing.  Specifically, sewing face-masks.

I found the continuous line business difficult to do on a tablet, because I couldn't zoom in.  Which meant that I couldn't see exactly where the line was going down under my finger.

But I tried it again to show that I've started baking bread again.

This one was difficult too, because that bread was right out of the oven and just smelled so good. So, as soon as the sketch was finished, I cut it open to eat a quarter of it.  And then another quarter, with butter.

Sketching at home, together

Our regular monthly sketchcrawl, all done separately.

This is the view from my bedroom window.  The new dogwood, now dressed in a watering bag, is leaving out nicely. Behind that, the remnant of my neighbor's camellia is blooming like anything.  I'm hoping that it survives.

And here is Aramis, my 22-year-old, sleeping with his stuffed rabbit.

And Pippin, the 'kitten', who just turned 11.

More carpenters

Half the city is shut down, but workers are still coming round to work on my neighbor's house.  For which she's extremely grateful, hoping to be able to get back into it soon.

The other camellia

A few buds and flowers from the second of my new camellias.

I went outside for this one, and sat in the sun on the wall between my yard and my neighbor's.

New plantings

I'd planned the locations of the new plants specifically so that I'd be able to see them from my bedroom windows.  Which worked out nicely when I now want to be able to sketch something from my window.


This is the part of the yard where most of the oak tree landed.  So between that, and the chimney fall and the equipment used to get the oak tree out, there wasn't much of my old landscaping left.

That's a camellia on the left, and a dogwood on the right, and random rounds of pine tree trunk set up in between, as a sitting area.