Monday, July 13, 2015

Urban Sketching in Tacoma

On Saturday there was a regional urban sketch outing hosted by the Tacoma group.  We met up at the amphitheater of the Washington history museum and spread out from there.  


Most folks seemed keen to draw the old Union Station building (which is now a courthouse) but I found its architecture daunting, and wandered across the street to the UW Tacoma site looking for something simpler.  I found this small garden plot:


Which was fine, though a lot like what I typically sketch, so I decided to go ahead and try the Union Station building after all from an angle where I at least wouldn't have to deal with the lettering.  It was going okay until I started adding the watercolor -- partway through it started to sprinkle and the raindrops turned things messy.  At least, that's my excuse!


I gave up on painting and went across the sky bridge to the Museum of Glass, the weirdly-shaped white structure in the pic below.  The arrow points to where I was sitting, and from there I drew the view back across the way -- just a small section of the glass museum showing.


Most of my efforts were directed at the sky bridge, which I drew in three shades of brown colored pencils.  The Union Station cupola juts up behind.


I felt it was slightly more successful than my earlier sketches, but overall I was not that pleased with my artistic efforts that day.

We all met back at the amphitheater to share our work.  It was a good crowd though not overwhelming, maybe 30 people, some from as far away as Vancouver BC.


When I got back home around 2pm, I felt a need to rectify my dissatisfaction with sketching that day, so I took Truman for a walk in Hamlin Park in Shoreline, and paused near a fallen tree to draw.  I'm glad I did, as I liked how this sketch turned out and it made me feel much happier:


Back at the house, I decided that Truman needed to be in every post, if possible.  So I snapped a pic of him begging for treats -- he looks a little concerned, as if I'm taunting him with the treat and maybe won't give it to him after all.  Silly dog -- of course he got the treat!


Coming tomorrow:  Another sketch day, this time in Georgetown.

2 comments:

  1. I must be weird because I liked the stairs better than the building. I loved your tree sketch and Truman is super cute as per usual.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'm glad Truman is going to feature more, he used to and then he faded away and I was missing him.

    ReplyDelete