Happy Birthday, USk Tacoma!

6/4/16 ink, colored pencils, watercolor

Urban Sketchers Tacoma celebrated its third birthday today in arguably one of the most picturesque and sketchable parts of town: the Museum of Glass near the waterfront. Sketching the magnificent glass art of Dale Chihuly and company inside the musuem and its hot shop would have been a great rain contingency option, but nothing could have brought me indoors today – high 70s, a cool breeze off the water and that bright blue sky!

6/4/16 inks, colored pencils

First up before the day got too warm was the museum’s glassy, asymmetrical conical structure that has become a Tacoma icon. I first sketched this thoroughly daunting subject four years ago when we held a regional sketchcrawl there. (I remember the day fondly because it was during lunch that I first learned about the Urban Sketchers Symposium from Kalina of Portland and decided I would be at the next one!)

See the blue thing just to the left of the cone? It’s one of the Dale Chihuly’s blue Crystal Towers, which I sketched in the cool shade from the Bridge of Glass (where you can see a bit of the cone to the right). It’s fun when I can find two compositions that show the same subjects from different places.

The celebration continued over lunch at The Rock Wood Fired Kitchen. Unlike some sketch groups where sketching over the post-sketch outing meal is part of the tradition, Seattle and Tacoma usually don’t. But today Kate and I decided to change that. Heck, I even sketched my pizza! (Well, after I’d eaten a few slices.)

6/4/16 ink, colored pencils