Northeast Sandy Sketchcrawl

We started off today's sketchcrawl at Voodoo Doughnut Too, where the screeching punk music was a perfect fit for a doughnut whose eye had been poked out by a pretzel.

The on-and-off sunlight lured us outside, where I caught some of the iconic building signs in the neighborhood.

Many of the sketchers ended up taking shelter from the cold in a delightful motorcycle coffee bar, which was remarkably cozy, comfortable, and welcoming (especially in comparison with Voodoo!) I was too chicken to draw any of the historic motorcycles, but I did try to tackle the Sandy Plaza building across the street.

Lunch at Pho Gia was super tasty, I'd happily go back there. And even more delicious was the passing around of everyone's sketchbooks, super-inspiring stuff. Thanks, sketchers, for a great morning!

Umbrella Man, 3 Groins, and some monkeys

I went to the zoo today, and the colubus monkeys caught my eye. On my way back, I paused downtown to finally sketch the Umbrella Man. Seeing the two pages side by side makes me giggle. * Visité el parque zoológico hoy, y los monos colubus me agarraron la atención. Al regresar al centro de la ciudad, finalmente dibujé la estatua del hombre con el paraguas. La yuxtaposición de las dos páginas en mi libro me hace reir. 

I also took a minute to sketch "The Quest," aka "Three Groins in a Fountain." Can you tell that I like the street tree better than the statue? * También aproveché la oportunidad de dibujar la estatua "The Quest" (que tambien se conoce como "tres entrepiernas"). Es obvio que me gustaba más el árbol que la estatua, ¿no?

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?