Out and About with the Urban Sketchers

This month's outing for the urban sketching group was to Bothell Country Village, a collection of older buildings (and newer ones made to look old) that house gift shops and eateries.  It's a large place with lots of paths, stone bridges, plants, and a duck pond.

There were so many potential scenes to sketch that it was a bit overwhelming.

I went with Nicole.  There were around twenty sketchers who turned up, I think.

Nicole and I were both attracted by the pond, where there was a boat (which is also a shop) and a train car.

The spot I chose had a slightly different view, and I wasn't able to get everything in to one sketch, so I wound up dividing the page in half, more or less.

I did a second sketch of a complex garden shop storefront but did not have time to color it in, so am planning to work on that at home.  Then I got distracted by a juvenile House Sparrow, as one does:

With just another fifteen minutes left, I wandered around snapping photos which I hope to work up into paintings later.  Then we gathered at the central plaza to share our work -- the variety of styles is always fun to see (click on a photo for a larger view):

One of the organizers then gathered us up for the group photo -- you can go to the urban sketchers blog post here:  http://seattle.urbansketchers.org/2015/05/i-wanted-to-sketch-everything.html and scroll down to the bottom to see it.

As you can see, a good time was had by all!