Tacoma central

Urban Sketchers Tacoma met in the central downtown area of Tacoma. It was a chilly, cloudy day that had some seeking the warmth indoors. Plenty of options for that. But there was also lots to sketch outdoors, which was my choice.  Though, just in case, I sat in spots undercover so I could continue sketching once the rain started. 

I’ve sketched the Bridge of Glass before.  Towers of huge glass pieces line the bridge with the Museum of Glass’s hot shop in the background.

All of the street lamps in this section of Tacoma are of this old fashioned style. This is on the campus of the University of Washington, Tacoma.

There were four sketches of the Union Station dome.  Three sketchers sketched inside the Washington History Museum. 

Historic Georgetown

Yesterday was a perfect day for location sketching. I didn’t have any particular place on my list so I went to one of my go-to’s, the old Georgetown neighborhood in Seattle.

This is one of the historic building on Airport way through the main part of the neighborhood. I know this building has a history but I couldn’t find anything. It wasn’t even on my historic sites card from Georgetown History.

The henge

Urban Sketchers Seattle started “International Urban Sketchers Week” in the Seattle Chinese Garden. I have been multiple times and wanted to find something different to sketch. My first time seems to have been 2015 and I’ve been about 3 times since. My favorite feature in the garden is the Dragon Seeker. I visited him but did not sketch this time.

The tiny “Stonehenge” was somewhat unremarkable by itself. But I found a view that situated it in its surroundings. There was no information about it either there or on the website.

There were a few Kwanzan cherry blossoms still on a tree in the courtyard. This will probably be the last cherry tree sketch for this year. I did write that 2 weeks ago, though.

The gardener in charge came to look at our sketches and made the above group photo for us. There are 4 sketchers missing from this photo.

He said that odd structure down the hill was from Astra Lumina. All the other settings were removed but this one was too large.

More photos

Back home

If you’ve been wondering where I’ve been…. to Southern California on a fast trip. We took 2 days each to drive down and then back. We left on April 17 and returned on the evening of April 25.

This was not a fun trip. It was for the funeral of himself’s brother, who died in early March. Long story about why it took so long but funeral was April 20. He had been ill for many years and in the past several months he had worsened quite a lot.

I didn’t do any location sketching while we were there. We had a lunch with some former coworkers and then an elegant dinner at an upscale restaurant with a close friend. That was the extent of visiting but there were many more people we would have liked to have seen.

I did create two pages from photos taken during the trip. This is a page from the trip down. I found it interesting that the California rest stops still have working pay phones. We ate at In n Out only twice. The one closest to our hotel was mobbed all the time!

This page I just made today.

Kwanzan Cherry

I noticed a couple days ago that there are Kwanzan Cherry Trees by the Vietnamese Catholic Church in Tukwila . With better weather today, I went over to sketch. I’d say they are at peak.

Kwanzan peak later than the Yoshino and are pinker. They are equally showy.

My sketch kit:

The church is still under construction. Note the workers on the lift high up on the right tower.

More photos here.

Total eclipse of the sun

Not. At best, here in the Seattle area, we were only going to see 20% of today’s total solar eclipse. But, nope. Nadda. Nothin’.

This was our view:

Clouds and drizzle. But there is a hummingbird in it’s usual morning spot!

Finally, more dogs

Last night I finally found the round toit to sketch more dogs from the Kitsap Humane Society’s Instagram page. I’d done this for years but haven’t done any in a year. The puppies on the right were done in March 2023. Now I’ll pack them all up and mail off to them.

Saturday at UPS

Not the UPS you might be more familiar with….Urban Sketchers Tacoma met at the University of Puget Sound this past Saturday.  There is a beautiful campus.

Most of us enjoyed the shelter provided by the Wheelock Student Center. It was chilly, windy, and had started to drizzle.  Fortunately, there were large windows with good views.

I chose the food court tables to sketch a bit of reportage…the banner hanging from the balcony.

Dragon with friends

The title has more than one meaning. I sketched one of Renton’s dragons today along with some of it’s friends. And I was sketching there with friends. I hosted a small, ad hoc, outing today in the glorious spring weather. I made a one page handout with the locations of the other dragons in town. Two sketchers went to find the dragon in a private yard.

As I’ve written before, Renton has 5 dragons but only 3 are open to the public. I’ve sketched 4 of them already but one is no longer on display. I decided to sketch this play structure in Jones Park along with it’s friends. When Himself looked at it, he thought it was a sea serpent. Could be, given the frog and fish.

I thought I would just stay in the park for the half hour before our throw-down so I sketched this flowering bush and part of the massive wisteria which covers a structure. I challenged myself to use pen with only watercolor pencils.

Throw down and group photos.

Blue skies at the ferry dock

 I think everyone enjoyed sketching the wide choice of subjects which could be seen from the relatively newly renovated Colman Ferry Dock.  

I liked this view from the north end of the large plaza next to the ferry terminal.  This is the fire boat “Leschi“. Two freighters are anchored out in the bay.  And the Olympic Mountains are glorious in the sun.

 I used the opportunity to explore a little further away. This is a newly opened pocket park on the beach next to the ferry terminal.  It is a small, delightful spot.  It’s not very quiet, though, as it’s next to a busy city street. It is Pioneer Square Habitat Beach.

I very much enjoyed meeting new sketchers and having some good chats with several others.

Lots more photos of the area.