Inside and Outside

This month, the weather in Portland has ranged from sunny and hot to rainy and cold. Being a fair-weather sketcher, I try to get out when the sun is out and settle for still lifes and poses when it's not. Here are some sketches of both.

Sketchbook Pages

Last Friday was a beautiful springlike day and some friends and I headed for SW Portland for sketching. We started with coffee at The Hof, a friendly and cozy cafe in Goose Hollow.

When the sun warmed up, we moved outside to sketch the flower shop. Here, the proprietor treated us to Valentine's Day chocolates while we sketched. What could be more perfect for a sketching outing than sunshine and chocolate?

A delightful young woman on roller blades posed for us while sitting in the sun....

Saturday, the Urban Sketchers Portland group met in NW Portland. The day was chilly and turned rainy, so I preferred to sketch in Kiva Tea shop.

Fellow sketchers are always fair game for sketching...

Another day this week, the shadows on the Greek Orthodox Church caught my eye, while I was driving home.  I stopped to make a quick sketch and  realized how hard it is (for me) to make straight lines in a tiny hand-held sketchbook, even if the car was parked.

Like most Portlanders, I'm really hoping for some more sunshine. With all our rain, we are especially appreciative of sunny weather.

April Sketches

This month, we took a trip to London to see the David Hockney show at the Royal Academy of the Arts. For me, it was a spectacular celebration of spring, nature, and beauty. Each room of paintings was more stunning than the one before and I felt drenched in the color or his huge paintings.

I had hoped to sketch quite a bit on this trip, but London and then Paris, were chilly and rainy, so we weren't out in cafes or parks as much as might have been otherwise.  

Here are a few sketches that I made.

This was done at tea at the The Original Maids of Honour, where we warmed up before visiting Kew Gardens.

In the back garden of our London hotel, I sat in a chair like this,

looked up, and drew this church.

We liked the polite sign: Please respect our shrubbery.

In Paris, I sketched this from a bench in Champs du Mars.

On Rue Cler, I bought a little potted rose for our hotel room. The young woman at the Au Nom de la Rose, wrapped it up like a gift with another rose tied on a rose pedal filled bag---a nice touch.

In April, my sketching group had a few themed sketching parties.

I was pleased to find that we were still having spring when we returned to Portland. Some of our tulips got ridiculously tall in their pots.

                  The backyard is still filled with tulips and azaleas, and Spanish bluebells...

and the David Hockney show still inspires me to try to capture the abundance of spring. Even if I'm way off the mark, it's still such a pleasure to try.

Scottish Still Life

A few days ago, one of my sketching groups came to my house and we set up a Scottish still life to honor one of our sketcher's birthday and ancestory. We had flags and jewelry, porcelain Scottie dogs, golf balls and tees, and of course scones, smoked salmon, shortbread and more. This drawing shows some of the leftover items.

I wouldn't call this one a sketch, since I spent much longer on it than I usually do and I drew most of it in pencil first. It's not my usual way of drawing, but I have to admit that I did like coloring in all the detail afterward.

More ODAD Sketches

The stockings are hung, the cookies are baked, the presents are wrapped...it's too late to start practicing Christmas carols on the piano, so I might as well post some sketches.

We used to light this at my parents'  house, now we light it  at ours

GlitterFest 2011 at Linda's, Plum Pudding ornament from Heather

Fun book with great pictures and then a magical movie

Some tiny blooms from the yard

Making omiyage (fabric origami)

Omiyage gifts, stuffed with lavendar

The other night, a few of the Portland Urban Sketchers went to Pioneer Square and sketched the line for Santa.

My fellow sketchers

                                                           Happy Holidays to all!!

One Drawing a Day

I've been trying to draw (or sketch) once each day for the month of December. It worked for November, so I thought I'd give it another try. I really just average one sketch a day since sometimes I get a few done and then slack off for a day or two. I can get the sketches done, but the scanning's taking longer. I could use a scanning elf.  Still, here are a few that I've done this month.

A group of us sketched at Gossamer, a shop that sells yarn and Waldorf School type items. It was a

feast of color and sketching there was a wonderful way to start the month. 

I took a few liberties with the front window, since I was sketching from the inside out and just guessed at what the banner said.

felt and yarn toys, and examples of things to make at Gossamer

Heather, sketching by a tower of yarn.

And here are a couple other sketches. December has been a pretty colorful month sketch-wise.

Well, it's back to the cookie baking. Maybe soon I'll have some cookies to sketch--or at least some remaining cookie crumbs.

Autumn around Portland

The circus, Cavalia, set up their giant tent in NW Portland last week. According to the Oregonian, the tent weighs 5,000 pounds, is 100 feet high, has 71,000 square feet of canvas, and has seating for 2,000. When I was drawing it, I noticed that there are rope ladders hanging from each of the tent tops. Yikes!

This week, the Compagnons des Esquisse went to Cornell Farms to sketch their fall displays. This is a terrific nursery with a very friendly and knowledgable staff. They have wonderful arrangements of flowers, scarecrows, pumpkins, statuary, stunning trees and everything related to the garden. They were very inviting and let us spend a chilly, but sunny morning sketching.

I really liked this skeletal flamigo in his burlap basket of plants and gourds.

Lots of pumpkins....

This yoga frog seemed very serene in a bent branch chair.

If you find yourself in NW Portland on Barnes Road, check out Cornell Farms.

Fall Sketches

My sketching group went to Lonesomeville Pottery to sketch the lovely grounds. It started raining while we were there, so our generous hosts invited us inside the house where they were starting to arrange for their big sale on October 28. I just had a short time, but one of our sketchers had already found a corner for me to focus on when I arrived. It was so nice not to have to choose!

Next, I sketched this little vignette of bottles and jackets. 

This Friday, they're having a sale of their northwest inspired and vintage-looking pottery. Here's a link http://lonesomeville.com/ , so take a look.

Last week, a couple of Portland Urban Sketchers and I did some sketching in northwest Portland.  The plan was to do an alogrithmic walk. (Go right one block and draw. Go right two blocks and draw. Again go right two blocks and draw and then repeat the whole sequence again. ) I started by drawing this scene from Starbucks. I confess that the dog was white and not black, but when you don't use pencil and then mess up, you sometimes end up with a black dog in your picture.

As I caught up with one of the sketchers, I noticed this porch which had a line of pots filled with end-of-season vegetables. Several tomato plants in the front yard were still producing.

Then I got a little distracted tracking down houses where I used to live back in the 70's when this part of town had cheap housing for college students.

One of these days, I'll go back and sketch these houses.

It was near time to meet and I hadn't sketched much, so I did a quick sketch of these pig statues on a sidewalk. I've always wondered, 'Why pigs?' and I still don't know.

And finally, here's another day's sketch, of another sketcher who is not sketching, but instead making a luminary for Halloween. I was so glad that she wore her beautiful fall jacket, that I had to include it in the sketch by putting it on a dressmaker form that was nearby.

Tomorrow, I'm planning to go out to practice drawing some more buildings, but who knows what might catch my eye instead?