Travels to Northampton MA

Visiting with friends....got a chance to do some sketches of a fabulous church in the center of town that has been decommissioned. My friend says that it is lovely inside too but this is a view of the back from the street below. 

The other is of the Main Street looking up towards Smith College.

St. John's - 3rd Saturday Sketch Crawl - August 16

Next Sketchcrawl: Saturday, August 16. Let's crawl St. John's!

• 9:30 am: Meet at Proper Eats Cafe for coffee and snacks: 8638 N Lombard Avenue.
• 10 am: Stroll down to Cathedral Park, or wander around downtown St. John's.
• 12 noon: Meet at John Street Cafe - for sketchbook sharing and lunch: 8338 N Lombard Avenue.

Sellwood Park

I forgot my watercolors last Saturday, but I didn't mind too much, as the wonderfully tall oaks had such great shapes even without the color of their leaves and bark.

 I found a quiet corner of the park, and spent a lovely hour or so in the shade, listening to birds and trying to capture the wonderful movement of the trunk and branches.

 And I made it back to the main part of the park in time to do a quick sketch of this little one napping.

2nd annual west coast Sketchcrawl

I came into town to attend the Sketchcrawl just for a couple of hours (it had been nearly a year since I last joined the group!).

My husband took our son to the farmers market so I could sketch. 

I managed a few sketches, but this one was by far my favorite of the bunch!

Sellwood Park sketches

 It was a beautiful day to be in the park, with good company. Here's a quick watercolor sketch of the Sellwood pool. Lots of people moving about made it a tough study!

The small building in the trees looks like it was some sort of refreshment stand in the past, now seems to be unused.  Sketched it with pencil, ink & color pencil.

2nd Annual West Coast Urban Sketchers

Here are some sketches from the Friday night gathering at Ringlers along with my Saturday afternoon attempt to sketch the yoga in the Park Blocks with Teddy Roosevelt statue and Portland Art Museum in the background.

Saturday - Sellwood Park

The sketchcrawl started at Blue Kangaroo Coffee Shop.  Love the name and the coffee was good too.  This here is Ellie - it was a pleasure to meet you Ellie.

Next we walked over to Sellwood Park.  We all sought seating in the shade and luckily there was plenty of it.  This here is the building that goes with the swimming pool.

This here is a view of a couple of gigantic trees, a flagpole, a light post, sketchers, and tennis players.  Imagine a bouncy castle to the right of me, and Katura and a sweet baby making sweet baby sounds to the left. Oh I almost forgot to tell you how Kalina saved this drawing.  It was a chaotic mess until I added those swoopy black brush pen strokes that I always love in Kalina's drawings.

 We had lunch at Muddy Rudder.  Andrew was sitting across from me.  And this guy beyond our group had fun hair.

2nd Annual Sketch Crawl

The bottom sketch was done at the Friday night Portrait Party of Kutura and Magpie, the middle one was one at the Saturday Market, every time I looked up the still life changed, the cabbage and zucchini were flying off the table, the beets, not so much.  The top sketch is one of the Aristide Maillol sculpture outside the Portland Art Museum. 

Next Sketchcrawl: 7/19 at Sellwood Park

Next Sketchcrawl: Saturday, July 19. Let's explore Sellwood Park and the surrounding area!

• Meet 9:30 am at the Blue Kangaroo for coffee and snacks: 7901 SE 13th Ave, at Lexington.

• 10 am: Stroll three blocks east to the lush, shady paradise of Sellwood Park. Views over the river, sports fields, heck you could even pack your swimsuit for a post-sketching dip in the historic Sellwood Pool. Oaks Pioneer Church is nearby at the corner of SE Grand and Spokane. Folks can head down to the waterfront too if they like!
  
  
• 1 pm meet at The Muddy Rudder for sketchbook sharing and lunch: 8105 SE 7th Ave, at Tacoma.

The Sellwood Pool has open swim from 1-5 pm on Saturdays, $4 drop-in fee. Just so you know.

In August, we're planning to head to North Portland and explore the St. John's neighborhood. Stay tuned for more details!

New Mastheads, inspired by WCsketch

Big thanks to Melissa Binder at the Oregonian for giving us permission to use her photo of the sketchbook sharing table at the 2nd Annual West Coast Urban Sketchers Sketchcrawl! It's now gracing the headers of our blog, our Twitter account, and our Facebook page.

You can see her article and the full set of photos on the Oregonian website, here.