Dogs and Art, As Usual

Last Thursday I had Winston and Chloe all day, and Truman and Pippa both approved.

On Friday Tru and Pippa visited the local library, where we were saddened to learn that our favorite librarian, who always comes out to greet the hounds, will be retiring in early November.  Sniff.

I just learned today that Pippa has a new home lined up!!!  Next Sunday the rescue organization person will transport her to Vancouver Island, where she will get to live with an active retired woman who is very dachshund savvy (hm...sounds familiar).  I hope she'll be happy there.

On Saturday we visited the Shoreline Farmer's Market, where we were thwarted in our efforts to buy dog treats, as the dog treat vendor wasn't there this time.  Dang.

So we moved on to Mud Bay in Lake Forest Park to get dog treats, and met a lovely 15-year-old dachshund there.

Then I took the hounds across the street to Lyons Creek park, where Truman could wade in the lake.

On Sunday, Tina and I went to Sky Nursery to check out the annual koi show and to do a little sketching.  I found this lovely Barn Owl statue and resisted buying it ($189!).

I also resisted these statues.

Nor did I bring home any koi.

Next we headed up the road a ways to the Kruckeberg Garden in Shoreline for more sketching.

It's a small garden, mostly trees, but it has a lovely rock garden with a pond and stream.

I don't have any exciting plans for the week ahead other than the regular dental cleaning, a flu shot, dog walks, and back yard lounging.   Maybe I need to work more on the "active" part of "active retirement"!

Monday Monday

The gray skies and the rains have returned, and that means I won't be getting out and about as much, and so unless something amazing happens (like a Swallow-tailed Gull), my plan is to post just once a week.  And if, like this coming week, the forecast calls for showers every single day, I may not even post that often!  There are only so many cute dachshund photos one can post to fill up space.

And indeed, the only thing I have to report on for today is one outing with Tina to the Capitol Hill neighborhood.  Some of the oldest and grandest homes in Seattle are found here, and we drove around until we found some we liked (well, actually, we liked them all and just drove around until we found a parking spot).

However, when it came to sketching, I found the grand homes overwhelming.  Architecture is not my strong suit.  So I walked around until something less daunting caught my eye -- and it turned out to be a front porch with wicker furniture.

The weather turned breezy and cool, so we decided to go to the nice, warm conservatory nearby to draw plants.

Plants can be overwhelming too, but I just focused on one small section and that seemed to be a bit more manageable.

That's all for this week -- Happy Monday!

Cute Dogs

Because I have nothing else to post this week, here are cute dachshund photos from yesterday, when we had Winston and Chloe visiting all day.  Pippa, by the way (our foster dog) came through her dental cleaning with no problems whatsoever and her adoption posting will go up soon on the rescue site.  Hope she finds a great forever home soon!

Not A Lot Happening Here

My weekend roundup consists of three sketches and three pics of cute dachshunds -- as the post title says, there wasn't a lot happening here.  At least it cooled off a bit (we even had sprinkles of rain!).

On Friday I joined the Seattle Urban Sketcher group at Meadowbrook Pond Park just one neighborhood over.  It's a small, lovely spot that not a lot of people know about, and I enjoyed drawing there.

On Saturday, Tina and I headed to West Seattle to visit a friend, and we stopped first at  Terminal 107 Park which overlooks the Duwamish Waterway and the harbor with its barges and off-loaded containers, and the downtown Seattle skyline in the distance.  Quite a challenging subject!

As for the cute dachshunds, we had a visit from Winston, who Pippa was suspicious of at first but she quickly warmed up to him.

Pippa goes in for her dental cleaning this Wednesday, and after she's recovered, she'll be ready for adoption.  Yay!

Why I Haven't Done Anything Lately

This is what the sun has looked like the past two mornings:

This is from wildfire haze.  We also had tiny flakes of ash falling all over Seattle.

Things should improve today and I have plans to get out sketching on the weekend.

Sketch Outing Roundup

I've been out sketching three times over the past week.  First I went to the University district to check out the fraternity houses before the students return.  I found the buildings were too big and too complex, so I focused just on the entryways.

My next outing was with Tina to Magnuson Park, where we checked out an art installation titled Soundgarden -- it makes eerie noises when the wind blows.

It was getting too hot, so next we tootled a short ways down the road to the Laurelhurst Community Center park, which has tons of shade and some magnificent trees.

The third outing (also with Tina) was to the Bellevue Botanical Gardens, which I'd never been to before.

It's a lovely spot.

My first sketch got rushed at the end after I discovered the mosquitoes were biting, despite my liberal application of insect repellent.

I moved off in search of a less watery area.

This caught my eye, but it was too close to a pond.

I left the river/pond area and went to the sunny, non-watery rock garden area.   Unfortunately, the shady spot by a building that I chose turned out to be inhabited by large ants.  Sigh.  The resulting sketch was also quite rushed.

I wandered around some more, finding more fun stuff.

I returned to the rock garden and found a different shady spot where there weren't any ants.

However, by now it was 85 degrees, and even in the shade, not all that comfortable, so again I hurried my drawing.

Oh, well.  Some other day when it's cooler, this would be a fine place to revisit for more sketching.

As it is supposed to reach the low 90s today and upper 80s tomorrow, there will be no outings either day.