An Owlish Corner of Reed College

Wonderful big group, including many new folks, came out to Reed College on Saturday to sketch in the glorious sunshine! I had never been to the campus before and was charmed by the architecture. Someone said how it felt like a set for Harry Potter, and that totally rang true for me. In fact, I spent most of my time drawing three little owls carved over a the east entrance to Eliot Hall--hard to get more Potterish than that!

(The ladybug wandered across my sketchbook as I was snacking on a burrito afterwards, and I couldn't help painting the tiny visitor it in to the composition as well.)

Black and White and Red All Over

I have such a backlog of urban sketches that I want to share... I'll start with a little lesson I am learning about working on toned paper. Very often I only pack a dark pencil (black or brown) and a light pencil (white or cream), leaving the middle tone of the paper to do the rest of the work. But every now and then a splash of additional color is so helpful!

Example #1:
Raindrops on maple twigs, sketched in Poulsbo, Washington. My brother-in-law loaned me his red editing pencil for the color detail and I was so glad to have it.

Example #2:
Took the Bolt Bus to Bellingham a few weeks back, and got these doodles during our layover in the International District of Seattle.

As you might guess from the red lanterns in the tree, it was right about the time of the lunar new year. I had only packed two pencils--a black and a white. Luckily my husband had a red ballpoint pen with him, because that little scene really needed its splash of color!

Putting the "Crawl" into SketchCrawl: Taylor Electric Supply

On Saturday we met at the Coava Coffee Bar, and after we chatted and soaked up the amazing woodwork of that space, we went over to the location where the Taylor Electric Supply company building had been before the big fire in 2006. * El sábado nos juntamos en el café Coava, y después de charlar y admirar la madera elegante del café, fuimos al sito donde la compania Taylor Electric estaba antes del incedio de 2006.

The graffiti on the remaining walls was what first caught my attention, since it was so colorful. It was fun trying to capture the effects of spray paint in watercolor. * El graffiti en las paredes restantes es muy coloroso, y es lo que primero me agarró la atención. Es divertido tratar de replicar el efecto de pintura en aerosol con la humilde acuarela. 

A lot of the windows clearly showed warping from the heat of the fire. The rust colors was a rather lovely compliment against the blue sky. * En muchas de las ventanas, todavía se puede ver cómo el calor del incedio deformó las ventanas. El color de la oxidación del metal sirvió como un complemento bonito para el azúl del cielo.

 

 

My attention wandered back to the graffiti again. The message "Don't f*** up" was making me want to paint this one extra-carefully, hee hee. * Otra vez me enfocé en el grafiti. El frase “Don’t f*** up” me dio ánimo a pintar un poco mejor, je je.

 

 

Angelika and I went back after lunch, and I painted this portrait of a burnt telephone pole. I noticed during the time I was painting that a whole lot of photographers and their models kept dragging themselves under the fence. It's a popular place for portraits! We use the term "sketchcrawl" a lot, but for this adventure, crawling was a genuine option. *  Angelika y yo regresamos al sitio despues de comer, y hize este retrato de un poste de teléfono quemado. Noté que, durante el tiempo en que había estado pintando, un montón de fotographos y sus modelos se habían arrastrado debajo de la cerca—¡es un lugar muy popular para retratos!  Decimos “sketchcrawl” para describir nuestros adventuras, pero esta vez, tuvimos la opción de gatear de veras.

 

Scavenger Hunt: Item 28, "Hung Far Low" sign

Quick-ish watercolor squeezed into a gap in the day. Not quick enough to be loose and free, but not long enough to have all the detail that I was dreaming of putting into it...

The clouds were messing with the light, I think I would like the result better if I had been able to really count on some cast shadows to give things more form. But it was certainly fun looking at all the colors of the old buildings.

If I were to start this one again, I'd do a super-close-up of just the top blue & gold section of the sign against a background of stormy gray clouds. That's the part of the scene that appealed to me most, the vivid colors and interesting geometric shapes superimposed on gray washy chaos.

PS: In the spirit of egging everyone on, I just noticed that I've posted 14 of the 30 scavenger hunt items. Almost halfway there! How y'all doing on your lists?

Scavenger Hunt, Item No. 30: Any McMenamin's

My sweetie and I went to the Science Pub at the Bagdad Theater last night. Figured I should sketch the inside of the lobby and theater area, since the venue is run by the McMenamin's chain. (And a lovely example of keeping a historic landmark relevant and thriving, too!)

It occurs to me that I haven't busted out my watercolor kit in many months...indeed, it might almost be a year since I've used them. Very strange. I found it comforting to be doing these sketches in a very dark building, where I couldn't even tell for sure what color paint I was dipping the brush into--it was largely just navigating by lights and darks, come what may. A pleasant exercise in not clutching the reigns too tightly!

To further throw caution to the wind, I whacked the top sketch with a few blasts of blue glitter spray, and dug out the stinky gold paint pen for more bling on the second one. (Neither are actually approaches that I'd recommend in a crowded theater!) But it seemed a good way to keep from taking my return to watercolor too seriously.