July 23 Sketchcrawl in North Portland

I joined a group of Portland Urban Sketches to take advantage of a rare sunny day and revisit the neighborhood near the White Eagle Saloon.



This neighborhood is sort of being gentrified but it's adjacent to freeway overpasses and rail yards that make it noisy and a brewery, which makes it smelly.





It was fun to see everyone and enjoy a day drawing in the sun.

Sketchcrawl in Old Town

Cold, soggy day for sketching. Sketchbook pages were damp and difficult to draw on. Hard to keep clean color. Most of the right hand page was done on location, most of the left was done at home. You can see that the color is less muddy on the left hand page.

Crack Press (NW 3rd and Glisan)

NW 3rd and Glisan, right at the Steel Bridge on-ramp. This is on the edge of Old Town and therefore has the red lamp posts that are used there.

I'm not sure if this building is still inhabited but, at one time it was the home of Crack Press.

RR Utility Sheds

7" x 10" watercolor and ink

This is at NW 9th Ave near the intersection of NW Naito Pkwy, which I still think of by it's old name, Front Ave. Centennial Mills and the Fremont Bridge are visible in the background.

Two Views from a Garage Rooftop

5" x 8" pages

This spread, on facing pages of a Moleskine Watercolor sketchbook, is of the views, looking in opposite directions, from the rooftop level of a parking garage on NW Station Way in the Pearl District of Portland.

The sketch on the left is looking west through the Pearl toward the West Hills and the other sketch is looking east toward the Wilamette River and includes the Broadway Bridge (undergoing construction upgrades) and the historic Albers Mill Building, which is now being leased as office space.

Although I've sketched and painted several times, at this location, these both started as absent-minded doodles, during meetings, from snapshot on my laptop.

Missing House

This is a site on North Knott Street between Interstate and Mississippi. I was drawn to it because it appears to be the site of a home that is no longer there. There are 2 overgrown cedars beside a concrete stairway that leads up from the street but no house at the top.
The Fremont Bridge looms behind it and the property is littered with dumpsters now. I wonder who built and lived in that missing house.

Wrong Way

Union Station from the corner of NW Hoyt and Broadway, at the foot of the ramp onto the Broadway Bridge.

Empty Grain Freighter

This is the first sketch I've done in this new sketchbook. The paper is handmade and seems to contain little sizing. It's almost like painting on a napkin.

NW Station Way

I found this little corner of the Pearl District with interesting views in every direction. It's a quiet little space near the train station that I didn't know about.

I thought the structure on top of this condo was interesting. Many of the buildings in the area have rooftop gardens. I'd love to do some drawing from up on one of these rooftops.

Whenever I see an image of a tall building with a plane, I automatically get a weird feeling in my gut.

I tried to resist drawing this truck but I just couldn't do it.



.

NW Couch and Broadway

Hawthorne Bridge

Hawthorne Bridge from East Side

Sketchers Gone Wild

I just had the time of my life, drawing til my pens ran dry, at the Urban Sketching Symposium in Portland last weekend. I met some of my drawing heroes and many of them to signed my sketchbook with their favorite drawing pen.

I learned how to draw with my pen upside down from Frank Ching and was reminded of the value of thumbnail sketches by Veronica Lawlor. Tia Boon Sim taught me a technique to pre-stain the page with random color before starting a sketch and Isabel Fiadeiro led us to Powells on a people drawing safari.

Being with people who are at least as addicted to drawing as I am was such fun. Everyone was drawing all the time. During the presentations, people were drawing, during dinner people were drawing. It was kind of ridiculous but I loved it.
Drawing on the paper table cloth at Eleni's after the last day of the symposium.

SE 23rd and Morrison

Funny little building across the street from the Lone Fir Cemetery.

Early Morning Garbage Truck

On an early morning walk, I came across our local Waste Removal crew stopping for coffee at 7 Eleven.

Sketchcrawl at the Portland International Rose Test Garden

A couple of sketches from the Portland Urban Sketchers sketchcrawl today. Above is the Frank Edwin Beach Memorial Fountain in the Rose Test Garden. Below is a view of the US Bank Tower (Big Pink) from the garden near the amphitheater.

Cowboy Up Cafe

I spent a few days driving around North Central Oregon last weekend. The sketch above was done in Condon Oregon. Condon is a tiny town of about 700 people in the wheat growing country and near the Painted Hills. The sketch is of the Cowboy Up Cafe and the Roundup Room Lounge. The Lounge closed for business early this year.

It's very beautiful country out there. I'd love to go back on a painting trip.

Here's a peak inside the cafe.

Cirque Du Soleil from OHSU

This is the view from OHSU hospital looking toward Downtown Portland. The tents, which may seem to be on the bridge but in fact lie between bridges, are the Cirque Du Soleil show Kooza.

N Mississippi and Graham

It has rained almost everyday this month so, although it was still cloudy, there wasn't any water falling on Sunday morning so I grabbed my sketch kit and headed out to North Portland where there are a lot of old buildings and views of industrial Portland.

I sat in my car for this one and was eventually questioned by a security guard, worried that I was loitering near some construction equipment. It bothered me that I was questioned about sitting in my car on a public street. I suppose I would have looked less suspicious if I'd not been in the car.

The building in the foreground is sheathed with corrugated metal and the overpass is part of the Fremont Bridge over the Willamette River

27th WW Sketchcrawl

I haven't made it to an official Sketchcrawl in quite a while. Thanks to Alanna of Portland Urban Sketchers for organizing this last event. It was a beautiful day and it was fun to meet up with a lovely group of sketchers. I did the sketch above while sitting on the Morrison Bridge.

I arrived a bit early and sat in the park pictured above and drew theBridge. The spot I sat in to draw the top drawing is pictured in the drawing below.

Day bed and guitar