SketchCrawl in Portland, OR

I was in Portland with a large group of students for a field trip, and managed to do a few sketches. The 24th Worldwide SketchCrawl was happening on Saturday, but the Portland folks on the SketchCrawl Forum weren't planning on a get-together until Sunday and I was leaving before then. So a sketched a bit on Thursday and Friday. The first one here is a building at 12th and Alder, by Skylab Design Group - it's a retrofit of a 1905 building, and it won an AIA Honor Award when it was completed in 2006.



The second sketch is of the Blitz-Weinhard Brewery from 1908. This was part of a major real estate deal in 2002 that contributed to the development of the south edge of the Pearl District, a newly redeveloped area of condos, shops, restaurants, etc.

On Friday morning, we gathered at our design studio site in north Portland. The students will be designing a courtyard housing proposal along a light rail line just off Interstate 5. A couple blocks north of their project site is Patton Park, with a small historic fire station and a more recent water tower. It was a beautiful morning, sunny and a little chilly, and this view really caught my eye.








One of our final stops, after quite a lot of walking tours, was the Chinese Classical Garden (the main photo on their home page is roughly the same view as this sketch). It took some time to get this one set up and painted, but it was wonderfully peaceful and easily one of the finest sketching experiences I've had in some time.

Moscow Aquatic Center

This was the final weekend of the season at the Hamilton-Lowe Aquatic Center here in Moscow. Saturday was the Palouse Sprint Triathlon, and my 8-year-old son, Sam, competed in his age group. It was a beautiful day, a little hot in the sun, and it would have been nice to just spend the day swimming. Today, Sunday, they let people bring their dogs (ours included) for a canine free-for-all. It was a dog-lover's paradise, and while it might have been a good challenge to sketch the action, it was enough for me to shoot some video and enjoy the scene.

Back on campus again ...

School has been back in session for a couple weeks now, and I finally had enough breathing room to get out for a quick sketch. I was also inspired by a few books I received from Amazon yesterday: An Illustrated Life, The Venice Chronicles, and Drawn to Life. All three are fantastic, and I look forward to spending more time reading and being inspired about drawing. But for now, it's most important to just start drawing again! This sketch is of a building called Brink Hall, which used to be the Faculty Office Building ... some faculty still have their offices here, but it has become more of a mixed bag of department offices and other stuff. I hope the weather holds out for at least another few weeks, now that I have the bug to draw again.