A Couple of Sunny Days

As usual, you have to look at the art first before you get to the adorable dachshund pics.  Them's the rules.

Tina, Nicole and I ventured out to Bothell to sketch at a hotel/restaurant complex called McMenamin's.  We started out at the North Shore Lagoon restaurant & bar, which has a Tiki theme.

The bar overlooks a swimming pool.

Then we moved on to the main restaurant, where we ate lunch and sketched part of the lobby area.

The next day Tina and I went to the UW campus to try drawing the complex architecture inside Suzzallo library, a neo-Gothic building.  My attempt to draw the grand staircase failed miserably, so I gave up and wandered around until I spied a view out a window that I found attractive.  That went much better.

I also tried drawing people today.  There's an Urban Sketcher challenge going on called "One Week, 100 People" which started today, in which, as one might surmise, you try to sketch 100 people this week--either from life, or photos, doesn't matter.  I sketched 17 people from photos this morning, and I hated every minute of it.  And then I accepted the fact that people just fail to inspire me, and it's probably better to stick to what gets me excited instead--nature, dogs, old buildings--basically, anything without people.  So that's the end of that little experiment!

Okay, on to the dogs.  We ventured out to the Montlake Fill on Wednesday, where we had brilliant sunshine, though there were a lot of muddy puddles left over from all the rainy days.

This eagle seemed interested in Pippin.

The views, as always, were lovely.

The wigeons, who winter here, are still hanging around.

The hounds braved the puddles, though not entirely with enthusiasm.

We returned to the Fill on Saturday morning, with more brilliant sunshine.

I managed to snap a pic of a Ruby-crowned Kinglet (they flit around from second to second ceaselessly, making it hard to keep them in the viewfinder).

We ran into Connie, and had a delightful catch-up walk'n'talk, and sit'n'talk.

She doesn't read my blog, so I'm sure she won't mind my posting this pic of her.

After a two-hour trip around the Loop Trail (which is only 1 mile, but we stopped an awful lot, and talked an awful lot, and even looked at birds a bit), we headed home.

I think I wore out at least one of the hounds.

You can't wear out Pippin--not for very long, anyway.  He's good company, and good entertainment, too.