June 2018: Rose Festival Season

Coffee and sketching on the waterfront...

Fierce dragon boats...

Reed College

A stunningly beautiful day in the Portland Rose Test Gardens of Washington Park. Everybody seems happy and the flowers are exquisite. Even the bees are happy.

Sketching the Japanese Garden in Lithia Park, Ashland. Unfortunately, this is the scene of where K lost her art supplies.

January 2018

I was making patterns in circles...

and I drew on toned paper.

A family at the Portland Art Museum

Behind the Museum Cafe

The Japanese Garden, from the Tea House

In the NW Hostel

View of the NW Hostel from World Cup Coffee.  

My friend, Nancy used to live on the second floor of this building. Now it's part of the hostel  

It's surprising that the tree is already in bloom--a hopeful sign!

Hither and Yon, Sketching Outdoors in Portland

Crystal Springs Rhododendron Gardens are gorgeous now, with the rhodies in full bloom. I sketched there last week on an 86 degree day. There's an abundance of trees and bushes in all their spring glory and plenty of birds and other waterfowl. Although I only sketched a duck and a couple of geese,  I heard bird calls from a number of different birds--even one that sounded like a Whippoorwill!



The Japanese Gardens are serene and beautiful, but it's always a disappointment not to be able to use watercolor there. Colored pencils are just so slow to me now and pen and ink doesn't show all the saturated greens against the blue sky.

On a new building across from Tanner Springs, I tried to capture the reflections of the buildings and sky. This is far trickier than I expected!

The shadows are what caught my eye on the YWCA. This was sketched from Behind the Museum Cafe on a chilly day before the leaves were out.

I sketched the top of the First Congregations Church from the sculpture court at the Portland Art Museum.

Closer to home, the Urban Sketchers of Portland had a sketchcrawl near my neighborhood. I took the opportunity to try to draw a car outside the Hollywood Vintage store. I don't like to draw cars, but thought I might like drawing an old design. I still don't like to draw cars.

This was sketched from my porch when the lilacs were just in bud and the camellias were still loading the branches nextdoor.

Stone, Plants, and Water

Last Friday, a beautiful day in Portland, I visited the Japanese Garden with friends. As I sketched in the 'Dry Garden', I overheard two different tour groups. One of the tour guides said that a Zen garden always has the three elements of stone, plants, and water. Here the water was represented by the raked stones that formed concentric circles around the larger stones.

Paints aren't allowed at our Japanese Garden, so that may have been what drew my eye to the more monochromatic  and linear stone patterns in the pathways.

On Sunday, I went to our family cabin and saw those same elements of stone, plants, and water repeated in the natural setting.

From my spot on the bank of the river, I could see at least three kinds of stone...

the smooth faced, broken rocks,

worn, rounded rocks,

and rough, gravelly rocks.

..........

The summer is ending and the leaves are especially dry.

I tried something I don't usually do: I attempted a sketch of underwater rocks with six larger stones peeking above the waterline. Clearly, this needs more study next summer.

Stones, plants, and water

Elements of a Zen garden

And also, of here.

Noguchi and the Japanese Garden

Portland is lucky to have several Noguchi sculptures on loan at the  Portland Japanese Garden.  A few weeks ago, a sketching friend and I spent the morning sketching some of them. Portland's Japanese Garden doesn't allow any paints, so we just drew in pencil or pen and I added the color at home. As often happens when drawing, I gained an additional appreciation for Noguchi's shapes and textures while trying to capture the look on paper. It was such a temptation to touch them all--but I behaved.

Isamu Noguchi made sculptures of marble, paper, metal, stone and bronze, among other things.

 

Some of his sculptures were outside in the garden. Portland's Big Pink is in the background and had it been a clearer day, there would have been Mt. Hood, too.

We took a break for lunch and ate in the Garden Room at Elephant's. The hanging lanterns seemed to fit the theme of the day.

Back at the Japanese Garden, we sketched some more...

before visiting the gift shop. This peaceful little stone figure wanted to come home with me, as a souvenir of the day.

Before the visit, I had watched the movie, Leonie. It is the story of Isamu Noguchi's mother and shows some of how he got his artistic start in life. I highly recommend both the movie and the show of his sculptures and the Japanese Garden.

LEAVES

I'm enthralled with the leaves this fall and can't seem to get enough of them. Each time we go for a walk, I pick up a few more. I've been keeping some of them in a bag in the refrigerator and they keep pretty well. My husband, however, thought he was reaching for salad ingredients and was a bit disappointed to find maple leaves instead of butter lettuce.

These are pretty much like the leaves in the last post, but this time I added shadows.

The non-refrigerated leaves are starting to curl up.

Yesterday, the Portland Urban Sketchers went to the Japanese Gardens to sketch. The leaves, along with the sketchers were very refrigerated and the colors were spectacular. With frozen fingers and so much glorious scenery all around, I was a bit overwhelmed and went mostly for an impression of the landscape. I would need some extra intense pigments to get anywhere near the actual colors.

There were dozens of people taking photos yesterday and this woman was in my line of sight for quite awhile. Of course, soon after I decided to include her, she walked away, so I had to crop my picture at waist level. I tried to get my friend, Katharine, to model for me, but she was involved in her own sketch.

Here are a couple more scenes that I'd like to draw next time I go to the Japanese Gardens. I love those curly branches and the contrast of dark and light.

If you look closely, you may see some very cold Koi.