Portland's Food Carts

Portland has so many food carts and some are very creatively decorated, making them fun to sketch. This week, I sketched food carts at 43rd and Belmont and also at Mississippi and Skidmore.

This sketch isn't done yet. It needs some sort of background or maybe people. The cart is called Lucille's Balls and serves organic meatballs.  It's a very cheerful yellow cart, decorated with giant poppies. The retro table along with the fresh flowers make it look very inviting even to someone who rarely eats meat.

This delightfully named food cart (Euro Trash) is located at 43rd and Belmont in SE Portland. I didn't try any of their food this time, but I loved the name "Oregon Donor" of one of the menu items.

The Ruby Dragon is a food cart on Mississippi Avenue. Several sketchers converged on this site today to draw and paint the colorful carts and eat the yummy food. I tasted a friend's delicious sandwich from here and then ordered a giant bowl of Miso soup which was tasty and big enough for several people to share. Sprout and the other man who were working here today were very friendly and obliging when we wanted to include them in our drawings. I'm sure glad to live in Portland.

The Canvas: Model in a Feather Hat

This week at the Canvas, there was one model who wore an enormous black feather hat.

The tables at the Canvas have little armatures, which make for good warm-ups.

With this, I decided to ignore the hat color.
(Maybe the model will look like this when she's much older.)

A pencil sketch of the model.

This pose was tricky for me to make interesting.

Some Symposium Instructors

Ever since the Urban Sketching Symposium, in July, I've been much more interested in sketching instead of scanning, but I've decided to start posting some of my sketches from those incredible three days. Here are some quick sketches of some of the wonderful instructors. (Sorry to Jason for having words in his hair, but I drew it in the dark during his flickr lecture.)

Gabi

JasonIsabel and LapinVeronica, whose foot was outside the thumbnail sketch.

This Week's Sketches

Several Portland Urban Sketchers sketched the White Eagle, a place that is now owned by the McMenamin brothers. It's a lot different than it was in the 70's when we danced on the peanut shells that littered the floor. I think the shadows and the perspective are questionable, but I like the power lines.

These were quick sketches of things inside the saloon. I didn't finish this while I was there, so I decided to fill up the empty space with text.

I had a delightful time sketching, eating, and chatting and laughing with friends at Pambiche.

These sketches were done at The Canvas, a terrific art bistro in NW Portland where you can sketch, drink, and eat in the company of other artistically-inclined people. There were two different models.

This was done in Louise's dining room. Matisse would have had a good time here.