Summer Sketches

 I'm trying to bring this blog up-to-date. These are miscellaneous sketches done last summer.

One day, sketching near PSU, we met a lot of people. One of them was a visiting professor from China who showed me how to draw shrimp.

This was sketched at a nursery in NE Portland.

These two sketches were made on 28th, on the edge of our neighborhood.

On the waterfront...

The top of the Congregational Church from the Portland Art Museum

A stein from the cabin mantle

Tilikum Crossing with the Urban Sketchers of Portland

Kennedy School Patio on a hot morning

March Branches and Blossoms

Capricious Spring

With our changeable spring weather, you have to be willing to sketch inside...

and to reschedule everything to be outside when the sun appears....

 The Portland Waterfront was lovely when the first cherry blossoms came out...

but when they were in their glory last weekend, all the crowds came out, too. That sent me to a quieter corner of the city....

I thought I could show those delicate white blossoms by leaving the paper white, but then I resorted to the old elementary school technique of using a piece of sponge (and gouache).

When I sketched the rock from our sister city in Suzhou, China, the blossoming trees were behind me, but the bamboo was a fresh spring green. The rare stone is said to 'call forth the spirit' and that seems like a good thing, too.

Bridgetown

Summer is ending and the trees along the Portland waterfront are starting to change colors. One day last week, I got a little sunburn drawing the Marquam Bridge...

and the next day, the blue sky was obscured by some very unusual clouds...

If I had painted those clouds, it would have just looked like I had no idea how to paint clouds--which is basically true.

Luckily, the sky cleared somewhat when I added the paint to my sketch of the Hawthorne Bridge...

and by the time I left, even the geese were enjoying the day.