Last weekend I attended the 2nd Annual West Coast Urban Sketchers Sketchcrawl in Portland,OR which coincided with the 44th Worldwide Sketchcrawl Day. I was super lucky because I got to stay at a really cool house in the Sunnyside neighborhood of Portland, so arty! My hosts grilled seafood on their deck Thursday night, we talked art and camping and food, so delightful! Friday morning, on a tip, I walked over to the Bagdad Theatre for a sketch.
It was pretty hot and sunny out so I visited the food trucks for lunch then headed over to Deschutes Brewery for some air conditioning and a cold beer before my meet&greet with the sketcher group.
The meet&greet was at McMenamin's Ringler's Pub. I heard someone say there were 85 of us at one point, we were doing 5 minute portraits and then moving round for new victims...the waitstaff , i'm sure, was a little perturbed by our activity!
Saturday morning I began by doing a sketch behind barriers that were being erected for some event later in the day, it kind of set the tone for me the rest of the day in that I tried to keep it loose and not get caught up with my colors. This is The Southpark Seafood Restaurant at the corner of SW Salmon&SW Park. It has this gigantic metal fish bricked into the corner of the building above their awning.
I walked thru the Farmers Market, it was huge and very busy with people, produce, meat, food carts and music! This guy had a very unique instrument called a Kora _West African Harp, his name was Will and he really liked this little quick sketch.
I really do love the buildings! I left my chair out of this excursion on purpose because I was certain I could find a bench somewhere to sit on in this area......I ended up using a city map of Portland that I had purchased the day before, to sit in the wet grass and make this sketch of a church. Thanks to awesome Portlander's it was really the only time that map came in handy!
next a view from the parkside corner of Antoinette-Hatfield Hall, the lines were calling me
I finished my sketching day sitting on the porch in Sunnyside, sketching and waiting for the night to cool off.
