Gargoyles

7/12/17 ink, colored pencils

The other day when I visited the Northwest School to introduce a class to urban sketching, I arrived a few minutes early. The building, which is on the National Register of Historic Places, has an old lamp post topped by dragon-like gargoyles near the entryway. As I approached, I saw that building restoration was taking place, and an excavator next to the post caught my eye. Then I saw that workers were stabilizing and protecting the gargoyles so that the lamp could be removed. Within minutes, they had taken the post out of the ground, and by the time the kids arrived for class, the post and gargoyles were lying next to the building. 

When I gave my presentation to the class, it was fun to show them the sketch that I’d made just minutes earlier because they had all seen the lamp post lying on the ground. I thought it was a good example of an urban sketch capturing a moment of action.