Sketching at Cargo: Color Infusion

One of the sketchers in my sketching group arranged for us to visit and sketch at Cargo, an import store in the Pearl. They were very welcoming, even letting us use their stools for sketching. The store is a wonderful place to visit when you want to be surrounded by color, and this month they also have lots of decorations for Chinese New Year.

I liked the lotus lanterns, but the strings of firecrackers really appealed to me.

There was this great bed in the window, filled with colorful pillows. Matisse could have used this to paint his Odalisque in Red Trousers. 

I decided to add color, but just couldn't get the vibrancy with my watercolors:

See what I mean? Wow!

And finally, I sketched a Buddha:

When you can't travel to the tropics and the January gloom of Portland is getting you down, I highly recommend a trip to Cargo--and sketching, too, of course.

30th Worldwide Sketchcrawl

Saturday was the day of the 30th Worldwide Sketchcrawl and the Portland Urban Sketchers were out in the South Park blocks area. We gathered first at Boyd's Coffee, and did some warm-up sketches.

This was a good opportunity for me to go to the Art Museum to finish my pages in the group sketchbook. I did some sketching in the sculpture garden...

... and then headed into the Native American section inside.

I had to make a return trip the next day to get some of the colors right on the mask.

And then I sketched some pieces from my favorite exhibit of artifacts. (I'll have to look up the actual artist name and title.) I like the shadows that are cast on the wall, too. The colors are not accurate, since I added them later at home and just chose some colors for the ones I couldn't remember.

And now I'm caught up on blogging and won't be back until I've sketched some more!

Sketching Old Objects

A group of sketching friends and I went to Monticello Antique Marketplace for sketching. This had been arranged with the very generous and accommodating owner, Kelli.  After a coffee and pastry in Monti's cafe, we wandered throughout  the store to sketch some of the great displays. There were so many sketching possibilities!

An Audrey Hepburn look and an old lace dress

The clock face read: Time of your life...seems appropriate.

This old sewing machine is still in use at Taborspace. I was there looking for a sketching group, but instead met a group of polymer artists and one other sketcher.  The group was welcoming, so we joined them and sketched.

Sketching with the Portland Urban Sketchers

In January, the Portland Urban Sketchers had several sketching events in Old Town. It was pretty cold for outdoor sketching, so these were done through windows.

Pizza delivery bike drawn from  window inside Old Town Pizza

NW 4th and Davis, drawn from inside the car

On another day, we started at the Lovejoy Bakery, which was packed with people getting their pastries and coffees...and some who were sketching.

                   

A group of us went to the Canvas where we sketched a model and eachother.

The model was dressed as an aerobics instructor.

Sketches of Christmas Past

Since I don't like to take the time to scan sketches and I haven't been very pleased with the results, I tend to postpone it.   Last night, John was over and took pictures of my December and January sketches.  The pictures are brighter than I get with the scanner and he saved me hours of scanning.  Of course, now they'll be another big load of sketches coming to the blog.

Here are some miscellaneous sketches that were done around Christmas:

Linda's charming house.
Besides the lovely Christmas decorations, I wanted to include the delightful painting on the wall. The lady's face wasn't as morose as this appears.  After all, she's surrounded by lanterns, she's wearing a fortune cookie print outfit, and she's balancing a Chinese takeout box on her head. How could she not be happy?

Our dining room table

We had a LOT of cookies!

And here's a final page done partly at home and partly at a very cold sketchcrawl with the Portland Urban Sketchers.