More October Sketches

Portland State Farmers Market

Giant Trees by the PSU Walk of Heroines

South Waterfront

Tanner Springs

Cormell Farms Pumpkins

NW Portland, view from Ken's Bakery

Sketching with the Urban Sketchers at Rocking Frog on a very rainy day.

Summer in the City

We've been in several cities this summer: Amsterdam, Paris, Barcelona, and home in Portland. These sketches are from Portland, hopefully showing some of the looser style I practiced at the Urban Sketching Symposium.

On this quick car sketch, I started in the middle of the page and worked outward. The advantage to this approach (rather than starting at a side and working across the page) is that whenever you have to quit, the sketch still has a main focus and looks relatively complete. It's also good when the focus of your sketch is likely to move or gets blocked by something else.

The next sketches were made on a sketchcrawl with the Urban Sketchers from Portland. It was a cool, cloudy morning and it took quite awhile before there were some children brave enough to go in the Salmon Springs fountain.

In Inma Serrano's workshop at the Symposium, I learned to draw buildings very quickly, without worrying about straight lines, perspective or local color.  I've got to admit, this is way more fun than my usual, slower, controlled way or drawing buildings...

especially when the building is one like the Simon Benson House which can be overwhelming with all its detail.

Lastly, here are a couple vignettes from last Saturday when we went to the Farmers' Market in the Park Blocks by PSU.

Portland's Lush Greenery

Portland is known for being rainy and all that rain makes it a very green city. This spring, everything seems to be growing rapidly. At home, we keep pruning and pruning and still the shrubbery gets thicker and taller. Here's some of the greenery from around town.

This was sketched beneath the trees at the PSU Farmers Market

 The next two, were sketched while on a sketchcrawl with the Urban Sketchers of Portland. I made these in the alleys, surrounded by shrubbery and compost bins--probably with prunings inside.

I'm not complaining. I'm very happy to live in such a green city.

Unfinished Summer Dilemna

I don't know if it's just me or if other people have lots of unfinished pages in their sketchbooks, too. I buy pretty nice sketchbooks that are light and easy to carry and that take watercolor, ink, or pencils well.  When I don't finish a page, I feel like I'm wasting the good paper. Still, there are many pages that I don't finish.

Portland Farmers Market, South Park Blocks

Lots of things can get in the way of a finished sketch: a car parks and blocks the view, I see someone I know and we get into a good conversation, the weather changes and I flee the scene, or most often, my subjects just walk away or I run out of time. In one case, the person who was going to receive the bouquet we had for her arrived before I was done with the sketch of her flowers.

My dilemna is deciding what to do with the unfinished pages.

on the cabin deck with an i-pad

Sometimes at home, I'll add color to them...

Elizabethan Theater, Lithia Park, Ashland

or words...

Portland Urban Sketchers

Portland Farmers Market, South Park Blocks

or I'll glue things on to fill the page.

Hood River Hotel from Celilo restaurant

Sometimes I have no desire to work on a sketch anymore.

North Park Lofts

Other times, I'm really stumped about how to finish a sketch later...What did the dappled sunlight look like? What was in the background? What colors were those flowers?

 Cabin

Beach by the river

Probably taking a picture would help, but usually  when I draw or paint from a photo, it just feels like I'm finishing a job, or doing work. For me, the spontaneity is gone along with my connection to it or my interest in it.

Lunch at Celilo, Hood River

Sometimes the solution is to return to the scene at the same time of day and hope for similar weather and light.

Laurelhurst Park over two days

 Looking at my sketchbook, I'd need to return to most of the places I've been this summer...and the light is fading and the leaves are turning and the records of the moments that passed will remain incomplete.  I'm sure there's some metaphor for life here.

Well, here are some sketches that I did finish--or at least, I stopped.

Paul Bunyan statue, Kenton Neighborhood, Portland

Room at the Winchester Inn, Ashland

Fatigued Shopper at Farmers Market

Lilies from the yard

Does anyone else have a solution to the dilemna of many unfinished sketches...or better yet, to an unfinished summer?