Out and About in Richland

Last week I had fun in the sun (well, mostly) in Richland.  On Wednesday, as noted in my previous post, I went off in search of sketching subjects.  Guess what I did on Thursday morning?

Having found good sketch material at Seattle cemeteries, I decided to give the Richland one a try.  It had some lovely landscaping -- and it also had some lovely birds.

WESTERN KINGBIRD

There were swans floating serenely in the pond.

Truman waited, as always, a tad impatiently as I drew.

It was getting warm, so I took Truman to the river for a dip.

We took a stroll there, and I found a wonderful tree on the bank to draw.

That was it for Thursday sketching.  Later that evening, after having a delicious Thai dinner with old friends, I drove back to my mother's house through a thunder and lightning storm of massive proportions -- over 400 lightning strikes in two hours, right over the city.  Goodness.

On Friday I awoke to the patter of rain.  While I often get excellent results by relying on the forecasts at weather.com, I must say they failed me that day.  At 7am, the forecast said "expect rain showers to end around 8am."  So I waited.

At 8am, the forecast had changed.  "Expect rain showers to end at 9am."  So I waited.
At 9am, it said, "Expect rain showers to end at 10am."
At 10am...well, I think you get the picture.  At 11am I gave up and just went out anyway, as the sky had cleared a bit and I figured I could try to find something to draw from inside the car if the rain returned.

I drove down to the Washington State University Extension campus, in search of interesting buildings or landscaping, but nothing inspired me there, so I continued on down a road that I knew would end by the U.S.S Triton submarine conning tower memorial.  I intended to sketch it, but when I arrived, the view across the sagebrush of the hills and river in the distance, with dramatic post-storm clouds, caught my attention instead.  Since I had already sketched the submarine on a previous trip, I painted the landscape view, and enjoyed it immensely.

Then Truman and I went to the river front park, but as we arrived, a downpour started, so we just sat there in the car while I ate my lunch and listened to a classic rock station.  Our Friday sketching was done.

On Saturday I explored an urban greenbelt trail -- or rather, I tried to explore it.  Stay tuned for that report tomorrow.