Mississippi Ave.

As Katura said, we had a good group for today's chilly, but sunny sketching event. Here are some photos of the sketchers who stayed for lunch and sketchbook sharing at Laughing Planet.

Notice the bright, glaring sunshine. But how did I leave out the precious, Baby Magpie?

Here's my sketchy sketch done on the patio of Muddy's, looking toward the ReBuilding center.

Thanks, everyone, for such a good turnout!

Shiny Things at the ReBuilding Center

Lovely sketchcrawl today, great meeting some new sketchers as well as hanging out with old buddies.

The fabulous forest facade of the ReBuilding Center was just too daunting for me today, so I ended up exploring light and shadow on the rows and rows of salvaged hardware inside the building.

A shelf full of globe-shaped lampshades...

A single lighting fixture in an intermediate state of disassembly...

And sinks, sinks, sinks!

I managed to get myself into such a "shiny thing" mindset that I ended up sketching one of the metal handrails on the bus on the way home. Good times! Glad we got to explore that amazing treasure-trove of building materials.

Sketchcrawl on Sat, Jan 18: Mississippi neighborhood

Join us on Saturday, Jan 18, to explore another corner of Portland! The Urban Sketchers will meet in North Portland's Mississippi neighborhood (near where N Mississippi Avenue intersects N Fremont Street.)

The entrance of the ReBuilding Center, which is sculpted like a 3-D forest, could be super fun to draw, and there are lots of neat little cafes and shops and cute houses all through that neighborhood in general. According to this article, It's a neighborhood that is "vibrant and full of young people...Mississippi Avenue in North Portland is one of those pockets of Portland that has gone from grungy to trendy in a relatively short time."

Gather at 10 am at Muddy's Coffeeshop, located at 3560 N. Mississippi, (http://muddyspdx.com/). and then share sketches at 12:30. (Weather looks promising so far--a nice eventually-sunny winter day!)


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OMSI, Lan Su Chinese Garden, and Dr. Sketchy

As you've been seeing in other posts, several of the Urban Sketchers joined a Drink & Draw gathering at OMSI.  I sketched a movie prop automobile from outside the exhibit proper, and then sketched from outside OMSI.

For this trip to the Lan Su Chinese Garden, I tried to keep my sketches small and mostly looked at tiny details.

 

   

Here's the group going through sketchbooks at Floyd's Coffee afterwards...

 My collection of Lan Su sketches from various trips is on Flickr.

Though not actually urban sketching, I also attended December's Dr. Sketchy session on the theme of "Old-Timey Circus Performer" and sat with two Urban Sketchers cohorts; that was great fun as always. (Last Sunday of the month, Crush Bar, $10 entry)

Friends from Dr. Sketchy and the Drink & Draw showed up for the Lan Su expedition, and Urban Sketchers are showing up for Dr. Sketchy and the Drink & Draw. I'm really enjoying all the crossover between these various groups, as it is starting to feel like one big community of creative people, all of which are busy organizing fun events for us all to attend. Way to go, Portland artists!

Lan Su (wtih bonus Samurai!)

Lan Su was very chilly when we visited last week. I picked a spot to sit that was sunny and then started looking for something to draw--the fabulous rockwork that made up the floor of the plaza was an excellent warm-up for my brain.

Grey and black brush pens can give a sense of depth quickly and efficiently.

Drawing other sketchers can make a scene more fancy!

Coincidentally, my friend Violeta happened to bring her kids to the garden that same morning. She took some snapshots of sketchers in action--and gave me permission to share them here.

The black brush pen has been super useful when out sketching with the baby, because I can get interesting lines down fast while standing, rocking, or bouncing with the darling little wiggler. Here are a few quick sketches from the Samurai exhibit at the Portland Art Museum as a little bonus!

This Weekend's Sketches

Saturday, at OMSI, I sketched one of the lines for the Sherlock Holmes exhibit.  Andrea has inspired me to look at ceilings, and this one was pretty interesting. Sometime, I'm going to go back and sketch those steps completely from that upside-down perspective.

This room, full of interactive displays, was frenetic, but I was in my own private sketching zone.

Sunday, several of us found a spot in the sunshine at the Chinese Gardens.

Can you identify which hat belongs to which sketcher?

I'm so proud of our sketching group for starting the new year with 2 sketch crawls!

A sktechy weekend

Saturday was spent at OMSI with the Drink and Draw group. Our intention was to sketch in the Sherlock Holmes exhibit but when we met at 1:00 OMSI had posted a sign that they were not taking tickets at that time due to high demand. So, we decided to just hangout there and do some sketching in and around the open areas of the museum.
Initially I was attracted to the 'Sherlock Holmes' vehicle behind the ticket counter but decided to hold off and take advantage of the sunny outside (although there was a slight breeze too).

Ink and Large Pitt pen

I had been wanting to draw this bridge construction and there was a perfect view of it from the walkway outside of OMSI.
Later I went back inside to tackle the auto driven by Robert Downey Jr. in the movie Sherlock Holmes; A Game of Shadows (2011). Loved the soft curves and accoutrements on the vehicle....old cars are the best!

Ink...two colors because my brown ink ran out

It was fun and there was a variety to draw but eventually we gave up on getting into the exhibit and retired to a local pub to share and eat.

On Sunday despite the cold temps there was a good crowd of sketchers gathered at the Lan Su Garden....it was again sunny and that made it bearable to sketch sitting in the sun.

Ink and large Pitt pen

Ink and large Pitt pen

I wasn't motivated to get out any color though (and I regret that based on the other sketchers stuff) so these don't really reflect the beautiful scenes so abundant in the garden. Several of the Camillas were in bloom and there was some fragrance from the Wintersweet to enjoy too.

Lan Su Chinese Garden

Another great turnout today at the Chinese Garden.  Many of us sat on a sunny path over the water.  I think more than one of us sketched this particular bush.

Afterwards we met up for conversation and sharing drawings at Floyd's.  I enjoyed seeing drawings from sketch crawls past.  Memories....

The sketch below is from OMSI yesterday.  This view had a lot of lines in it, including the long line to get into the museum.  Instead of standing in it, I drew it.

What New Years resolutions do I want to have for drawing?  ????????   Here's a start:

1. Keep trying out new materials, including the water color pencils I got for Christmas.

2. Work on developing a good color palette.

3. Blog every week.

On that note, I just added some sketches from the holidays to my blog - http://rrrollybag.wordpress.com

Mark your calendars!

Fun upcoming sketching events to have on your radar...

Lan Su Chinese Garden. Sketch by Katura.

• Sunday, Dec 29: Our friends at Dr. Sketchy's Anti-Art School are doing circus-themed figure sketching. 7 pm -10 pm, $10 charge. Event details: https://www.facebook.com/events/1439980602887573/
  
• Saturday, Jan 4: Our friends at Portland Drink & Draw will be sketching the Sherlock Holmes exhibit at OMSI! Museum charges admission (though you can sketch in the free public areas of the lobby if you're on a budget, of course.) Event details: http://www.meetup.com/Drink-and-Draw-in-Portland/events/144606152/
  
  
• Sunday, Jan 5: We, the Urban Sketchers of Portland, are meeting up to sketch at the Lan Su Chinese Garden! Bring a donation of non-perishable food to get the free admission. Meet near the entrance at 10:30 am, regroup to share sketches at 12 noon. Details on the eight free days that the garden offers to celebrate the new year: http://www.lansugarden.org/things-to-do/events/eight-free-days/ (Rumor has it that this can get quite crowded, be advised)
  
• Saturday, Jan 18: Our regularly scheduled Urban Sketchers meetup will be in the North Mississippi neighborhood near Fremont. The entrance of the ReBuilding Center, which is sculpted like a 3-D forest, could be super fun to draw, and there are lots of neat little cafes and shops all through that neighborhood in general. Gather at 10 am at Muddy's Coffeeshop (http://muddyspdx.com/) and then share sketches at 12:30.

Snapshot from Kennedy School outing

Cool panoramic photo of the group, courtesy of Karl!