Sketching St John's area in Portland

On our latest sketchcrawl to the St John's area and Cathedral Park I opted to stay up in the town and forgo sketching the beautiful St John's Bridge.
In the past I had taken on the challenge of the bridge and so had skipped over the street scene of the St John's area.
It was a vibrant scene on this day.....a farmer's market and a good crowd of people enjoying the day. A little way down Lombard St was this interesting building with a fantastic neon sign. Not really sure what a palm tree has to do with a wishing well though I enjoyed sketching it.

The Wishing Well restaurant and bar- watercolor and ink

a street scene- watercolor and ink

I was trying something a little different than my usual technique here using a waterproof ink in my Hero M86 pen to which I then added watercolor.

Later after our sketch sharing at Cathedral Park I joined Vicky and Donna to sketch the Jazz Festival going on there under the bridge.

Jazz Festival at Cathedral Park- watercolor and ink

Last Saturday's Sketchcrawl

We had a good turn-out at our sketchcrawl last Saturday. Here are some of the sketchers who stayed around for the sharing and lunch.

Here's a sketch from the Farmers Market.  If you look closely, you'll see a couple of sketchers.

Here are a few other sketchers from our lunchtime sketch.

A few of us sketched until the market closed. I tried to capture some of the remaining people.

It was a great day to be at the market and at PSU and mostly with the always enjoyable sketchers.

A Bit of Fall Color

I thought I'd add a little fall color to our blog...

I've been out enjoying the beautiful changing of Portland's many trees...

and I'm hoping that Deb will give us a little tree lesson at our next sketch crawl at Reed.

When I sketched this 2nd sketch, I was greeted by a superhero dressed dad and his two children. His young son was also a superhero in disguise and his daughter was a princess. They were interested in my sketch. When I asked the (eight year old?) princess if she knew what I had sketched, she pointed to the correct view of Art Museum and told me, "You really captured it." I was impressed!

Pettygrove Park Sketchcrawl

We had an excellent turnout for our sketch crawl on Saturday, in spite of the rainy forecast. Several new people joined us and along with some regulars, we headed for Pettygrove Park or Keller fountain. The rain held off until noon when we shared our sketches under an overhang of a nearby building. It was great to see so many different styles and techniques. Here are our results. I hope my fellow sketchers will post their sketches here, for a much better look.

I started by doing a sketch with a lot of crosshatching (the lower one) and then a close up...

After all that detail, I went right to watercolor and then threw on some watercolor pencil. Then the rain started. I wish I had moved closer to Manual Izquierdo's sculpture to listened to it. Apparently, it is filled with foam so when the rain hits it, it sounds like a kettledrum. A missed opportunity!

We had a tasty lunch at Laughing Planet with about a dozen sketchers, getting to know each other a bit more, catching up, and sometimes sharing sketchbooks. A few of us weren't ready to quit, so we headed over to the PSU Farmers Market, where I did some quick people sketches, adding the color later.

It was a really enjoyable sketch crawl with very friendly people. I'm already  looking forward to the next one!

Just a few minutes at the Farmer's Market in Oregon City. And then it started to rain so I folded up.

St Patricks and Scavenger Hunt (Farmers Market)

Well, being inspired by Deb's blog on St Patricks and adding another to the Scavenger Hunt, I did some watercolor sketching this weekend.  I went down to St Pat's today and set up in the parking lot with 405 roaring overhead and started painting.  I learned quite a bit about the church since I got there just after mass and a few people came by and chatted for a bit.  I'm still having a rough time with how fast you have to work in plein air sketching.  I also went down to the Farmer's Market yesterday because it's so perfect down there during the summer (which I discovered during Marc and Shari's workshop) and tried to paint the masses again with a little bit of success - again the pace is difficult for me - everyone kept moving and I wanted to tell them all to stand still - please. At any rate it really is great to get out and immerse myself in the event I'm trying to capture - it's quite rewarding but I'm sure you already knew that ;-).  I'm going to do a studio piece of St Patrick's and give it to them....it's such a beautiful church it's just too bad the thing got trapped in between all that concrete - just look at how that church downtown we painted during the workshop can breath again after having the space next to it opened up.  Anyway summer is waning, I've started to rediscover plein air work and am very glad I have all of you to share work and ideas with - that's what it's all about for me......The pic of St Patricks seems to have gotten a shadow in it somehow but you get the idea.  

Cheers, Don

Portland Workshop with Marc and Shari

I thought I would share my work with everyone and hope others will do the same - I had a great time the past 3 days with Shari, Marc and all the Urban Sketchers - quite a talented group.  Thanks to everyone for sharing and especially Linda for helping orchestrate the visit with our friends from Montreal.  I learned quite a lot, made some friends along the way and saw wonderful Portland in a completely new way. I also have a new found appreciation for the demands of plein-air work in hot weather and look forward to making art with all of you in the future. Cheers, Don

This and That

I thought I'd better post some of these before we load up a bunch of Bastille Day sketches tomorrow.
This is my William Temple House from a couple of weeks ago.

Here are a few more scavenger hunt items:

The Farmer's Market at PSU, last weekend...

  a foodcart (not nearly as lovely as Linda's in our banner)...

another sketcher, in stripes...

and if you look very closely, you'll see a couple of little brown birds on the sunflower leaves, sketched at Edgefield last week....

That is that, for now.

#21

Scavenger Hunt Item 29: Farmer's Market

After our adventure at the fountain today, many of us wandered over to the big farmer's market in the Park Blocks on the PSU campus. I sketched this while in the extra-long line for tamales. Very busy day--combo of sunny day, and end of school year with lots of the students' families in town? It was clearly easier to focus on the pop-up canopies than the bustling crowd scene!

Mid Week Farmers Market

     Wednesdays Farmers Market is on in the South Park Blocks close to the Portland Art Museum.  I saw the sign yesterday while I went to see Rothko. Decided to come back this morning to do my first Scavenger Sketch.  One down and a bunch to go!

Carrie

Portland Farmers Market-PSU

South Park blocks at Portland Sate University hosts the Farmers Market twice a week during the growing season - Saturdays till two and Wednesdays around the lunch hours.  I missed my fellow sketch mates (Alana and Kalina) but it was so crowded Saturday. The sun was so welcome, found a bench close to the little music stage and sketched along to acoustic tunes for an hour and a half.  Need to get there much earlier next time. Such a pleasant day in Portland, Oregon!

Carrie

Today...

Today, I met up with fellow Portland Sketchcrawler, Kalina, and sketched at the PSU farmer's market. It was so crowded and hard to focus on drawing rather than just people watching. In February we met for a sketchcrawl at the Ecotrust building downtown. Here are a couple of sketches...

I am excited to be an official part of Urban Sketchers! The Portland Sketchcrawl group will be joining me on here. We tend to get together monthly, and of course, we often sketch on our own, too, so we should have lots to share!