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

Vista Bridge and Plein Air painting

While most of our Portland usk members were out and about last weekend doing the watercolor workshop with Marc and Shari (and having a terrific time based on Mike's photos) Jill, Marianne and I staked ourselves out to sketch the Vista Bridge from SW Jefferson.

View east down SW Jefferson to downtown Portland

 I had been thinking about sketching the bridge for sometime now and thought it would be interesting. After several attempts (many others not shown....) I found in each sketch that I kept losing my place in the structure....this was incredibly challenging!

Afterward I headed to the South Park blocks to see the Plein Air artists at work. It was a wonderful to walk around and see (and smell the oil paint) so many painters out there working at the most amazing views. I tried to do some people sketching and it was really nice to see a crowd enjoying the scene too.