Crusty and Rusty at Earthwise

It was an intrepid group of sketchers who braved the occasional down pour to sketch at Earthwise Architectural Salvage. Those who know him agreed that this is Steve Reddy sketching heaven. The staff were very cordial and joined our throw down to look at the sketches.

 

Caroline's daughter, Cassie, was a visiting artist from Arizona (she's kneeling in the middle). 

I composed a montage of subjects on one page. I was amused by the door of this shed, which had a banner stating "Crusty & Rusty". Then I admit I rather coveted the heraldic dolphin faucet set but it doesn't really fit my bathroom decor. I included the interesting juxtaposition of the old fashioned lion roundel and the heavy machinery.






 


By Kate Buike

The Station and the Library

As we arrived early, we sought a warm beverage at Anthem Coffee. I decided to try out the new Field Notes Signature sketchbook. This is an ink drawing with Lamy Joy (Platinum Carbon black) and a Pentalic brush pen. It ghosted a little on the back of the paper but didn't bleed through. The ghosting didn't show up in the scan so I haven't posted an image.



It was a cold and blustery morning as Urban Sketchers Tacoma gathered in the shelter of the rotunda of Union Station, which is now a Federal Court House. We spread out all over the building. There were views out the windows and Chuhuly glass sculptures.
Sharing sketches and our group photo, with Chuhuly in the background.





My first sketch was from the main floor, looking up to the walkway with an old clock and the large window with Chuhuly's installation, Monarch Window.

 

Next, I went down to what would have been "track level" when it was a train station. There I sketched a view of the Bridge of Glass that leads over to the Museum of Glass.



After lunch together, many of us went to the Tacoma Main Library to see the USk Tacoma show there. Beverly did a wonderful job installing it.




More photos of sketchers and avant-weird ones of the glass:
https://redharp.smugmug.com/SketchOutings/2018-0221-Union-Station/

--Kate Buike

Wright Park

Sketch done at Wright Park in Tacoma. Ink and watercolor wash in a Moleskine watercolor book.

Mama Duck

Upon our arrival at the site for our sketch outing to the Festival of Sail, I was disappointed that the Mamma Duck was no where to be seen. Upon more exploration, I could just see the tip of her yellow head far down the Foss Waterway. Later another sketcher said she was across from Johnny's Dock, so we resolved to have lunch there in order to sketch the World's Largest Rubber Duck.

Though there was a chilly wind off the Foss Waterway, it didn't rain while we sketched the Tall Ships docked across the way from the Center for Urban Waters.  Urban Sketchers Tacoma played host to a few members of Urban Sketchers Seattle who came down to join us.  We had an excellent view of several ships with classic Tacoma buildings on the hill behind.   The ship I sketched is the Hawaiian Chieftain
 


After sharing and the group photo....




most of us decamped for lunch at Johnny's Dock. We could definitely see the big duck from there. Mamma Duck is 61 feet tall and weighs 11 tons!



More Photos: https://redharp.smugmug.com/SketchOutings/2017-0616-Festival-of-Sail/

Port of Tacoma - Les Davis Pier

Participated in the June get together at Les Davis Pier.

Les Davis became famous for inventing the 'Herring Dodger' (an attachment to your fishing line that makes your lure dance) in the early '30s.

Pen, ink and wash in a Moleskine watercolor book.

Freighthouse Square - Tacoma

Going loose at the monthly Tacoma Urban Sketchers Gathering. Construction site at Freighthouse Square, man did it feel good to sketch outside in the sunshine.

Pen, ink, and watercolor wash in a Moleskine watercolor book.

Parking Day

We participated in Parking Day in Tacoma.  "What's Parking Day" was one of the frequent questions.  "PARK(ing) Day is an annual worldwide event where artists, designers and citizens transform metered parking spots into temporary public parks".  Frances did the work to get us a spot and brought all the stuff for our park... fake grass, tables, chairs, sun umbrellas, etc. We even had art supplies to give away... left over from the West Coast Sketch Crawl. 





We were there in our red shirts.  Marjorie came all the way from Kingston after learning about us from our blog but she had to leave early.  I had a really good time talking to all our park visitors about Urban Sketching.  There were several people who seemed quite interested in joining us in the future. 
I started a sketch of the view down the street but then a huge, white, SUV pulled into the parking space right next to us.  Well, that's what happens to Urban Sketchers!  I didn't finish that sketch as it stayed over 2 hours but I did sketch what I could see over its roof! 



I only got one sketch done as there was a lot of interacting with our visitors. 

More photos here:  https://redharp.smugmug.com/2016-0916-Parking-Day/

West Coast Sketch Crawl

Urban Sketchers Tacoma hosted the 4th Annual Urban Sketchers West Coast Sketch Crawl over this past weekend, 19-21 August 2016.  The team was led by Frances Buckmaster.  Kate Buike,  Mark Ryan,Rom LaVerdiere, and Darsie Beck made up the rest of the main team.  Leading up to and during the event many of the Tacoma sketchers were volunteers.  The event could not have run so smoothly without so many pitching in to help.

The planning started in earnest about 9 months ago.  In the final week leading up to the event there were several tasks to do and several Tacoma sketchers helped.  We stuffed 200 goody bags on Monday.  Then on Thursday we set up our venues for Friday night and Saturday morning. 

The team stuffed 200 goody bags in Frances' studio on Monday: Mark, Alison, Jane, Frances, Feather, Beverly (and me, behind the camera!)  These are about half of them.

Alison & Jane do the flower arranging for the Friday evening Meet & Greet dinner.

By the numbers:  There were 153 sketchers and guests who came to dinner.  About 150 were sketching on Saturday.  They traveled from all up and down the west coast, Vancouver BC to San Diego, CA.  There were also a few from much further away:  Arizona and Missouri.

The event started with dinner at the Picasso's.  It was the ice breaker and a chance to meet people informally. After a delicious meal, we did 5 minute portrait sketches of each other.  Frances had gone above and beyond to obtain donations from sponsors for door prizes and goody bags.  After the drawing came the drawing!

The founder of the West Coast Sketch Crawl, Jim Bumgarner, welcomes the sketchers and guests.

5 minute portrait sketches

Eric won the door prize grand prize, donated by Daniel Smith Art Supplies, which was a set of all their watercolor sticks.

More photos of the Friday evening Meet & Greet
https://redharp.smugmug.com/SketchOutings/2016-0819-Meet-Greet/

The next morning our event began in earnest at 9 am.  Sketchers poured into the auditorium of the Washington State History Museum after picking up their goody bags filled with art supplies... also wrangled by Frances.

Jim's opening remarks included the hashtag for the event.

We sketched until 11:30 am when we met on the plaza near the Museum of Glass for sketch sharing and a group photo.  There were about 150 sketchers there that day.

Sketching views of the history museum and Union Station (now a court house).

Becky and others sketching on the Tacoma campus of the University of Washington (UW).

The Headquarters information table was inside the cool, air conditioned, Museum Lobby and was staffed by Tacoma volunteers.  All the locals wore red shirts.

morning sketch sharing

The 11:30 am group photo, with the Museum of Glass "hot shop" tower in the background.

We broke for lunch.  Tacoma sketchers played host and led groups of out of town sketchers to various lunch venues.  The day was very hot, by Washington standards, hitting a high of 95 degrees.  Some sketchers spent at least part of the afternoon sketching the view from inside an air conditioned location.

We met again at 4pm for more sharing, in the shade, and another group photo.



More photos of Saturday Sketching
https://redharp.smugmug.com/SketchOutings/2016-0820-Saturday-Sketch/

Sunday brought another early start with a meeting at 9 am outside the Tacoma Museum of Art.  A few announcements were followed by the founder of Urban Sketchers, Gabi Campanario (at left), joining us.

Gabi, Frances and Jim; photo by Pam Jenkins

We dispersed to sketch around the area.  This day was unseasonably chilly.  Many were not prepared for 58 degrees in the morning after yesterday's scorcher!  Again, there was sketching from inside but in this case in order to stay warm. Today I took a break from photographing the event to do one sketch.




We met at 11am at Tollefson Plaza, directly across the street from the Tacoma Art Museum.  It was announced that the 5th Annual Urban Sketchers West Coast
Sketch Crawl will be held in Vancouver, BC.  A date has not yet been set.

Becky (left), Jim and Astor announce Vancouver BC as the location for the 5th Annual West Coast Sketch Crawl!

More photos of Sunday
https://redharp.smugmug.com/2016-0821-Sunday-Sketch-Crawl/

Many accounts of the event and sketches are shared in the Facebook group:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/609852259154110/  and in our flickr group:
https://www.flickr.com/groups/usktac4/

We were covered by the local newspaper:
http://www.thenewstribune.com/entertainment/arts-culture/article95466897.html
http://www.thenewstribune.com/entertainment/arts-culture/article95938312.html
http://www.thenewstribune.com/news/local/article97029992.html

Hashtag is #usktac4

See you next year, in Vancouver BC!! 

Our Third Anniversary!

My husband has recovered enough from his big surgery that I can be gone for several hours.  So I've returned to one of my favorite activities... sketching with Urban Sketchers (USk).  I've been away for 7 weeks. 

It was a good day to return as today USk Tacoma celebrated our 3rd anniversary!  I made up some signs which we held, along with our sketches, as we also raised 3 fingers.



It was about 80 degrees by the end of the outing, which is very hot by PNW standards.  Hats were the order of the day.



I sat in the sun with my back to the marina.  I had my hat, too.  It was early, so not yet quite so hot and I had the cool breeze off the water.   This percussive instrument is one of several similar ones.  I thought this made a good composition, with the hot shop tower in the back ground.  The Museum of Glass "hot shop" is where they produce blown glass objects in several very hot ovens.

For my second sketch, I chose a spot in the sun on some stone steps. I wanted to sketch the large instrument with the bridge in the background.  However, I quickly decided I would fry if I sat there for a half hour.



I abandoned that location in favor of the shade and another view of the Museum.   I liked the bright red umbrellas.

We shared sketches.  The two people in bicycle helmets on the right just happened by and were interested.  He's from Wales!  And some one of the guys working at the Marina behind us were very interested.  One took info for his room mate.



A few of us went to The Rock for lunch.  I had enough time before my meal came to do a very quick sketch of the family at the next table.

More photos are here:  https://redharp.smugmug.com/SketchOutings/2016-0604-Tacoma-outing-to-the/

The Swiss in Tacoma

To create this sketch of the indian statue at the Swiss in Tacoma I referred back to my early use of the graphite pencil for drawing. I used Kimberly pencils, 2B, 4B and 6B. The H's drive me crazy but I do use and HB for preliminary sketching before getting into the real stuff with those B's. I also draw a lot with my eraser by laying down a value and then doing a reduction with the eraser to create textures. I added the ATM machine to show a relative size comparison to the subject matter.
Rom LaVerdiere

Outdoor World

Several people came to our regular 3rd Wednesday sketch outing at Outdoor World (Bass Pro Shops) in Tacoma today.  I was not expecting as many as we'd had very bad storms yesterday with many people still without power and having big messes to clean up.  In fact, I learned after I got home that the governor has declared a state-wide disaster.

The storms had passed and it was actually sunny as we arrived.  Normally, I'm a bit annoyed when Christmas decorations are up before Thanksgiving.  But I chose Santa's village as my first sketch.  Santa doesn't arrive until 3pm.  So I sketched a side of the village with the animals.



My intended sketch of the day was the unique bowling ball returns in the Fish Bowl!  The entire bowling alley was made to seem like it was underwater.






We shared sketches on the coffee table in front of a huge roaring fire. 





A few of us had lunch together in the adjacent restaurant.  Even there, a frighteningly large shark "swam" over us, high up near the ceiling! 




Lots more photos here.