Of birds and buildings

Working at a university should be great for Urban Sketching practice -- lots of buildings from different eras, plenty of gathering spots for those pesky people, and acres of varied landscapes.

So what caught my eye when I wandered out at lunch time earlier this week? You guessed it:  birds.

These Canada Geese were hanging out on a grassy lawn called Rainier Vista, resting, feeding, preening -- how could I resist?  Well, I couldn't:

I did try to find non-birdy things to sketch, such as buildings -- but it turns out that I find buildings boring to draw.  I've tried several times of late, and about halfway through, my interest fizzles out, as you can see from this sketch of a building behind the one I work in.  The viewpoint is from the glassed-in stairway of my building, looking down.

It's really quite a lovely building, but by the time I got to the right-hand side, I was so tired of it that I just scribbled that part in and wandered back outside in search of more interesting material.  Guess what I found?

Maybe some more birds....

These Mallards were snoozing on the edge of Drumheller Fountain.  They were clearly asking to be sketched by being so nice and quiet and motionless.

Guess I wasn't very much of an "urban" sketcher this time.  Although the birds were in an urban environment, which surely counts for something, right?