Stumptown Comics Fest: Fashion Notes

Spent a lovely Saturday afternoon browsing the incredible piles of talent on display at the Stumptown Comics Fest this past weekend. Part of the fun is always seeing what people are wearing! While waiting to meet up with some friends, I did these quick fashion sketches of folks purchasing tickets to the show.

Quite a lot of vintage-inspired outfits, bordering on historical costume pieces, but plenty of punk rock black leather jackets and good reliable trench coats with Batman patches to balance out the tweedy vibe. 

My friend Isabel was in the spirit of fancy hats with a twist of Victoriana that day, so I'll share this fast (but more detailed) sketch I did of her at breakfast before the event.

Cirque de Soleil tent

This tent had such as nice soft, organic form....although my drawing doesn't show any color, when I was drawing I was conscious of the contrast of the white tent against the background of the sky and freeway above. For the other drawing I swivelled 180 degrees to look toward the river front. These buildings must be old warehouses or factories...the one on the right has a great water tower on it which I wanted to include but didn't!...just poor composition planning.

Cavalia

Last week, Deb and I sketched the Cavalia tent from an empty lot near NW 12th and Marshall.

When I sketched it, I noticed that there were rope ladders hanging from each of the tent peaks. The peaks are more than 100 feet tall. No sign of the 50 horses or acrobats, but maybe someone else will see them another day.

Now I'd like to see Deb's sketches and some from the Peculiarium.

Tigard's Balloon Festival

Going to a Balloon Festival to see the balloons launch means getting there at 5:30 am. I felt like quite the dedicated sketcher when my alarm went off at 4:45am. Armed with strong coffee, my camp chair and my sketching gear, I tried my best to capture these beautiful balloons.

Here's one sketch.

 Maybe I should have shown the sketches first THEN the beautiful photos!













I sketched these on pages of my Flexi Sketch sketchbook that in some cases I had already added splashes of watercolor and even pasted on some random scraps of paper. I've had fun playing with water color paint while I watch movies. I'm finding that I sketch a little more freely on these pages that aren't glaringly white, which is a nice bonus!

Sketches also were posted on my blog

Drawing in the Dark and to the beat of Drums

Today, some of the Portland Urban Sketchers sketched at the Horse Brass Pub. Here is my contribution, which is really an example of not knowing when to quit. My first mistake was putting a column almost dead-center in the sketch. I used pen and ink, then added watercolor, and when I got home, I decided to try to add a brown wash to everything except the kitchen window (center) to try to convey the dark interior. Didn't really work, so I added more ink (both black and white) until finally, I decided to stop. If you want to see a good example of dark pub drawing, look at Pete Scully's work instead. Still, I tried lots of things and I know I got some new knowledge from the experience.

Next, Alanna and I carried on to TaborSpace and I drew some comfy chairs.

And then, the best part: Alanna asked if we could draw the drum circle that was practicing there. That was fantastic! With the pounding drums, it's easy to just get into the rhythm of gesture drawing and somehow the ink just flows. They were very a very welcoming group and it was a great way to end the day's sketching.

Thanks to my sketching buddies for another fun day!