Menaced by Chickens

On Monday, Nicole and I went to the Bothell Country Village for a short sketch outing.  This shopping spot has lots of quaint buildings jumbled together, some old, some new (but that look old) on the site of an old chicken farm.  In addition to the shops, there is a duck pond, a boat (with a shop inside), and a train car.  And there are chickens.

Chickens roam freely on the grounds.  This particular pair of roosters followed me and Truman around while I searched for a good sketching vantage point.

After I parked myself by the pond, with a view of the boat and train car, those chickens came right up to see if we had any food, and when I set my watercolor palette on the ground at one point, they were ready to peck at it until I shooed them away.  Truman was worried.

I let him out of the stroller to walk around, and he steered clear of those menacing roosters.  I don't blame him -- they looked pretty intimidating, and they made a lot of noise.

I had time for just one sketch, in which I used watercolor for the background and the train car, and tried out gouache paint (opaque watercolor) on the boat.  It was okay, but if I did it again, I would tone down the background colors more (or heighten the foreground more).

Lastly, because I have nowhere else to put them, here are two pics of new garden blooms -- gladiolus and cosmos.

Coming tomorrow:  Dragonflies!