Sketching in 1890

On Saturday Tina and I joined the Tacoma Urban Sketchers for a special visit to the Meeker Mansion in Puyallup.  This historic (1890) home was built by Ezra Meeker,"The Hop King", whose main passion (other than making piles of money growing hops) was the history of the Oregon Trail.  He wrote 12 books on this topic. Busy guy.

While open to the public the rest of the year, the mansion is open by appointment only during the Winter months.  The group arranged for a private sketch viewing so we had the place just for us.

The drive down turned quite foggy:

There were fifteen rooms we could check out on two floors:

I drew a view of this room (see sketch farther down):

There was cool stuff to look at everywhere, even on the ceilings:

Many sketchers were attracted to this stove:

And lots of people drew this case of children's shoes:

We gathered around an antique pool table in the games room to share our work:

Here is the first view I drew:

The rooms and their furnishings were rather complex, so I searched out a simpler scene -- these dresses were in the master bedroom closet:

I also did several small ink sketches in the pantry, which are not that exciting and are not appearing here.

Finally, we managed to all pose on the staircase for the group photo (for anyone who doesn't know me, I'm second row right behind the woman in the red hat):

Great outing in a fabulous location.

Because we drove for an hour to get there, we decided to make the most of our outing by going to another spot on our own afterwards.  Stay tuned tomorrow for the Bass Pro sporting goods store (yes, it's a good place to draw stuff...wait and see why!).