Salmon Street Springs Fountain

It was a busy Saturday, so I only popped by the Urban Sketchers meetup for about an hour. But it was delightful meeting new people as well as seeing old friends! And I managed to fill up a page before I headed out to tackle the rest of the weekend. * ¡Que sábado más ocupado! Sólo pasé una hora en la reunión de Urban Sketchers, pero fue un gran placer conocer a gente nueva y ver a los amigos ya conocidos. También logré llenar una página con dibujitos antes de correr a mis otros quehaceres para el fin de semana.

Weekend Scavenging

Saturday morning was perfect weather for sketching with the Urban Sketchers.

I sat down low by the Ira Keller Fountain, close enough to feel the cool air from 

the falling water. The last time I sketched this was with Tia at the 2010 Symposium 

and I was reminded of her saying, "Add brown to those greens in the trees."

 Here's my latest attempt.

There was a Benson Bubbler right across the street, so that sketch knocked off another

 scavenger hunt item. I wish I had been quick enough to sketch the crow that dunked

 his bread in the water.

I started drawing the elk after lunch, but he looked like a cartoon, so I'll need to

 revisit him another day.

On Sunday, my husband and I rode the aerial tram up to OHSU. (Sunday is a good day 

to go because it isn't very busy.) The ride was quick, but fun and the views were great, 

even on a cloudy day. Drawing the tram is very tricky, because it's only still for a matter

 of moments. I drew the dock first and then raced to get the tram in before it disappeared.

Here's another view of the tram dock.

"Pill Hill" would be a terrific place to practice perspective drawing because you 

can see so many different views of buildings and passageways. Here's a one-point 

view that I took from the skybridge to the Veteran's Hospital. I'm glad it's not on the 

scavenger hunt list!

Scavenger Hunt Tally: bubbler, tram 14

Scavenger Hunt: Fountain

Keller Fountain, as visited with the sketchers during Saturday's sketchcrawl. I focused on trying to emphasize the square shapes and the light hitting the water.  Drawing this made me think about how it would be nice to spend some time with good drawings of trees, and maybe try out some new approaches.  These trees could have been portrayed in a much simpler style, but I flailed a bit and made them very complicated.

It was great seeing the sketchers in the sunshine, instead of huddled against the wind and rain, or hiding out in cafes!

:-

Keller Fountain

Biked downtown this morning to join the Urban Sketchers group. We met up at a cafe, talked travel and showed off new pens, then headed out into the city to draw.

Deb lead us to the Ira Keller Fountain--a spot that I had never been to, and it positively blew my mind!

The giant monolithic slabs of concrete had, on one hand, a strong feel of late 1960's architecture. But on the other hand, though clearly a man-made structure, it also worked as an astoundingly convincing representation of a roaring waterfall out in nature. The park ends up being this amazing maze of slabs and cliffs and water, which were almost as fun to explore as genuine boulder-hopping in the wilderness.

And then, there's the color. Yes, we should be seeing boring gray concrete here, but instead the monolithic masses are an amazing rusty orange color. I can only presume this is thanks to the work of algae and other critters--all the water-free bits of concrete still are gray around the park. It's pretty astounding to see. Not to mention noise and the movement...And oh man, water falls in so many ways, in so many patterns, it was fascinating and quite difficult to try to draw all the textures and light effects.

But when I had done as much as I could with the cascade, I rotated slightly to the right and was delighted in a totally different way by the interaction of the huge rectangular concrete "lily pads" that are perched low over the shallow and still parts of the water feature. Loved the contrast of the right angles against the sinuous fractal of the pine tree branches especially.

Again, the water color is astonishing and weird here. We're seeing the colors of the concrete and its funky imbedded cobblestones clearly through the clear, shallow pool. It felt so delightfully rebellious to be painting water with so much yellow ochre! 

Very satisfied with this adventure, thanks to Deb for organizing it. (And that's Scavenger Hunt Item #7, Any Fountain.)

Scavenger Hunt: Fountain (Check)

I see that Deb and I are both eager to start the scavenger hunt!

I was downtown today and had some time to wait, so I pulled out my sketchbook and scavenger list and decided to go for the fountain. As a retired teacher, it seemed appropriate to sketch the Teachers' Fountain in Director Square. I don't know that I've ever actually seen any teachers in the fountain.

The sun came out and I got a quick glance at some shadows before leaving. I added the color at home.

                                             One down and several more sketches to go.