Leaves

Thinking of Andy Goldsworthy today.

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?

Seattle Sketchcrawl

Last weekend, some of the Portland Urban Sketchers rode the train to Seattle to join urban sketchers there for the 33rd Worldwide Sketchcrawl. Seattle has a big, welcoming group, some of whom were familiar from the symposium in Portland two years ago. When we passed sketchbooks around, it was very impressive seeing so much talent in their group. To see more of their work, you can go to their blog Seattle Urban Sketchers

On the train ride north, we talked and sketched eachother, (as well as an agreeable young woman who offered to model for us).

After arriving in Seattle and posing for a large group photo, we split into two groups, one going to the international district and the other (mine) to Pioneer Square. Unlike Portland's Pioneer Square (which is failry new and called "our livingroom"), Seattle's is an area of some of the oldest buildings in the city, housing galleries, coffee houses, and boutiques.

The first sketch I did was of Merchants Cafe, Seattle's oldest restaurant. It still seems to be pretty busy.

Then I sketched in the park. Lots of tour groups left from here. There was an artist who was displaying his work in hopes of sales. 

Windows and signs... It's pretty hard to imagine that rooms were once that cheap.

 After the group sharing of sketchbooks, we went down by the ferries which were unloading huge numbers of soccer fans. I sketched the viaduct which was covered in ivy, changing into fall colors.

This man, all in purple head to toe, was smoking near the garbage can.

 This family seemed to be waiting silently for a ferry to come in.  Maybe they were entranced by the gorgeous bay and mountains.

It was a beautiful fall day in Seattle and it was very fun to meet the other sketchers and to sketch in a different place. We're already thinking about and looking forward to another group sketchcrawl together.

Cloudy with a Chance of Sketching

Altostratus, Altocumulus, Nimbostratus, Stratocumulus, Cumulonimbus...

I didn't see any bows and flows of angel hair, or ice cream castles in the air, but there were plenty of clouds this week. Between rainstorms, I sketched the last of a community garden. Even though sunflowers are spectacular in August, I really prefer them in the fall when they're bedraggled and worn.

Today, I went to the Teahouse at Lan Su Chinese Garden to sketch (and eat) with friends.

On the way out of the garden, I did some gesture drawings of a lovely woman doing Tai Chi in the puddles.

So many things I would have sketched...but clouds (with rain) got in the way.

(with apologies to Joni Mitchell)

Another Portland Food Cart

Today, I visited another Portland food cart pod: D Street Noshery on SE Division Street.  It was a beautiful fall day and my sketching friends and I were surrounded by good smells.  The atmosphere was conducive to sketching today.

Besides pie, the owner of this cart had fresh, delicious looking chocolate chip cookies tempting those who came to the window. After eating a lunch from the Mac and Cheese cart, I didn't have room for dessert, but I'll be back another day to get a treat from the Pie Spot.

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?