Travel Bits and Pieces

 

5/29/22 Maytown rest area in Washington, where we stopped for a 
picnic lunch.

Although we didn’t travel far, and the locations were not new to us, this was only our second trip since the Before Times (our first was last September to Ocean Shores), so it felt special. It was a relaxing, rejuvenating week. The beach was familiar, but we had new experiences on either end of Cannon Beach: Staying in two McMenamins hotels in historic buildings, one in Portland and one in Centralia, Wash. Nicely appointed with original antiques and reproductions, they are fun buildings to visit, but the interiors are dark and sometimes difficult to sketch. I did sketch a lamp in each, however, since fanciful, ornate lighting seems to be a McMenamins thing.

This last post is a catch-all of bits and pieces that didn’t fit into the previous posts. I don’t have many stories here, but I put a few comments in the cutlines (including my hotel recommendations). I also included a few photos from the two McMenamins hotels (which I had to brighten digitally quite a bit to compensate for the dim lighting everywhere).

5/30/22 lamp in our room at McMenamins
Kennedy School, Portland

5/30/22 Cannon Beach sunset

5/31 and 6/1/22 Cannon Beach sunsets

A variety of Cannon Beach bits sketched during the week

6/3/22 lamp in our room at McMenamins Olympic Club
Hotel, Centralia

6/4/22 view from our room at the Olympic Club

A haiku painted on the wall was part of the lovely decor in our Kennedy School Hotel room. We loved this hotel and highly recommend it!

Hallway art at Kennedy School

An original blackboard in our Kennedy School room
invites guests to write and doodle. How could I resist?

The chifferobe in our Kennedy School room.

Other McMenamins hotels offer basic Bic pens as room giveaways. The Kennedy School has a more appropriate souvenir that I was thrilled to take home!

Some of the many lamps decorating the Kennedy
School's Courtyard Restaurant.

Guest rooms in McMenamins Olympic Club Hotel
do not have bathrooms. Instead, guests use "shared
private" baths and WCs down the hall. Imagining
a bank of stalls like a public restroom, I was skeptical
of the "shared private" oxymoron, but they 
were actually fine. Each bathroom was, indeed, private,
 and cleaned and attended to very regularly.

Hallway on the Olympic Club guest floor.

Lamp in our Olympic Club room.

Our room was dedicated to Joe Robinson, a local entrepreneur who "gave material expression to his faith in the future of Centralia" by building the Olympic Club Hotel in 1913. Although the shared baths and toilets were down the hall, each room had its own sink. The Olympic Club Hotel is fun to visit, but I do NOT recommend staying here. The Amtrak and freight trains visible from the hotel run all night long, whistling loudly as they approach the nearby station. Kitchen, bar and billiard room noises from downstairs went late into the night, too. I heard it all through the earplugs that were conveniently but uselessly provided.

Beach People

 

5/31/22

In addition to Haystack Rock, my favorite sketching subject at Cannon Beach is, of course, people. Even though things are more “open” now, and I’m around more people than I was during the pre-vaccine period, I still haven’t been sketching people as much as I used to – and I still miss it. I may have sketched more people during this beach visit than I have during any other.

5/31/22

Although I sketched a few people while I was on the beach myself, I had more fun making tiny stick figures (as well as a few dogs and gulls) from our third-floor hotel window. From high above, I couldn’t see details well, so it was easy to stick to the basic gestures. The high perspective also made it easier to catch a variety of activities in rapid succession.

5/31/22

5/31/22

6/1/22

6/1/22

6/1/22

6/2/22

6/2/22

6/3/22

The last sketch below was not made at the beach but at the Centralia Farmers Market. Sketching musicians and other performers at farmers markets used to be a regular summertime activity in the Before Times. This one made me feel the most rusty and again reminded me of how much I have missed sketching people.

6/3/22 Performer at Centralia Farmers Market

Beach Reportage

 

6/1/22 City of Cannon Beach's Haystack Rock Awareness Program staff offering info and a peek through a scope at common murres.

Given that most of my sketching takes place in uneventful locations like my neighborhood, I don’t have many opportunities for sketch reportage (though when I search my blog for the “reportage” label, I’m surprised that I have as many as 48 posts). I certainly don’t expect such opportunities at the beach! Interestingly, I had two such occasions on this trip.

Every day during low tide, red-vested City of Cannon Beach staff arrive at Haystack Rock in their red truck to provide information about the wildlife living on the rock, post “do not climb” signs, and rope off sensitive areas. After making the sketch above, I went to ask the naturalist about the puffins, whose return each year is highly anticipated by local birders. She told me that the puffin population has been dropping significantly in recent years as rising temperatures have negatively affected nesting. We didn’t see any puffins on this trip, but we saw lots of common murres. The naturalist had set up a spotting scope for visitors to view a murre nest. They look almost like small penguins! 

The next day during our afternoon beach walk, my reportage experience was more urgent. With sirens blaring and lights flashing, a variety of emergency vehicles (a total of eight eventually) raced past us (below). Two were equipped with jet-ski-like vehicles, and others carried surf boards. A man walking in the surf was pointing and gesturing toward the Needles: A surfer, trapped near the Needles, was in danger of being thrown against the rocks. Unfortunately, I couldn’t see enough of what was going on to understand how the rescue was being executed. Thankfully, it was successful, and onlookers cheered. It was exciting to be in the right place at the right time to capture that moment.

6/2/22 Eight emergency vehicles arrive to rescue a trapped surfer.

Haystack, the Needles and the Beach

5/31/22 Haystack and the Needles from our hotel room

 

I have no shortage of sketches of Haystack Rock and its surrounding Needles; I’ve sketched them on every trip to Cannon Beach since I began sketching. Almost all have been the typical “postcard” view (like the ones above and below), which is easy to see from our hotel, so I can sketch in comfort and at my leisure at various times of day or in any weather.

5/31/22 Another "postcard" from our room, this time with a secondary triad palette and trying to be a bit looser.

5/30/22 My first few sketches of Haystack are 
just to become reacquainted with its shape and proportions. 

My current attention on composition, however, opened my eyes to wider exploration. You saw some of those ideas in yesterday’s post. I made fewer sketches from our comfy hotel room and instead made more thumbnails from other parts of the beach not visible from our windows. For example, from the south side of Haystack, the Needles look entirely different. I’m always surprised by how far apart they are; from our room’s view, all the rocks look clustered tightly together. In addition, the shapes of some rocks change when viewed from different perspectives.

5/30/22 The same "postcard" at different times of day: Morning, above... 

5/31/22 ... and early afternoon the next day.

6/1/22 This view of Haystack's base and the wet sand is unusual for me. It's one of my favorite sketches of the trip, and I credit the compositional studies I've been doing.

6/2/22 Three views (above and below) of the Needles from various perspectives.

With my back to Haystack, I also sketched the hillside view facing south toward Tolovana Beach. On a foggy morning, that view was especially ethereal.

5/31/22 

6/1/22 Foggy morning

In yesterday’s post, I mentioned that one of my 30-Day Challenge composition studies prompted me to try it as a larger, color sketch. I’ve included that thumbnail below along with the color sketch. I’m happy that the challenge pushed me to try something new.

6/1/22 Haystack

Study for color sketch above

The 30-Day Challenge is On

6/1/22 Cannon Beach

I was away last week, mostly in Cannon Beach, Oregon, and I have plenty of sketches to share. To start off, though, I’m posting the daily composition studies I did since June 1 for Ian Roberts’ 30-Day Challenge. The first three days are all compositions of Haystack Rock and its surrounding Needles. I have sketched those rocks many times during the multiple visits we have made to Cannon Beach, but I typically sketch the entire rock formation – the “postcard” view. The composition challenge pushed me to look at that same view in different ways to get away from the postcard, crop more tightly, and think more about the “design” of the composition. I enjoyed being nudged in this way, and I liked one study enough to make a larger sketch in color (you’ll see it later this week). I might even make others later based on my own studies and photos. (Imagine that – me using studies and photos to make “finished” pieces the way painters do! What is the world coming to!)

6/2/22 Cannon Beach

On Day 4 before heading home, I sketched through a window at the McMenamins Olympic Club Hotel, where we had spent the night in Centralia. I had hoped to sketch more in the town (which I had last visited in 2018 on a fun sketch excursion), but it rained most of the time. At least I could see power lines through the window!

6/3/22 Cannon Beach

6/4/22 Centralia

Rejuvenation at Cannon Beach

11/13/18 Cannon Beach from Ecola State Park

We’ve been returning to Cannon Beach, Oregon, nearly every year since we discovered it three decades ago. A small beach town that’s crowded in the summer, it’s deserted once the weather turns cold and stormy – which is our favorite time to go. February, May, October, November and even December are the months we choose, and the weather can change from sunny and chilly one moment to stormy and windy the next and back to sunny again. It’s best not to check the weather report – just pack a range of jackets and layers and see what you get.

11/13/18 The Needles through a rain-spattered window.

Last week we got the full range – sunshine, a little rain, a lot of rain, high winds, deep fog, overcast skies. During the pleasant weather, we walked on the beach for miles. During the less pleasant weather, we stayed in our hotel room, where Greg photographed from the deck and I sketched through the wide windows. That’s really all there is to do in Cannon Beach – and that’s all we need. A few days of that, and we return home with our spirits rejuvenated.

Sketching from our room, I pulled out the full arsenal of sketch supplies – even larger papers that I never take on location. When we walked on the beach, I stuck only a Field Notes and a couple of pens into my jacket pockets. It’s a nice balance between maximalism and minimalism.

11/14/18

 One goal for the trip was to make at least one 9-by-12-inch full-color sketch, possibly to frame if I liked it enough. A second goal was to take lots of photos to use for reference sometime during the long winter months. As you know, I’m not a fan of drawing from photos, but I would like to make one of Cannon Beach and practice the techniques I learned in class last year. 

I did make one sketch that might qualify for a frame, but it’s not my favorite of the visit. My favorite is the graphite-only sketch at the top of the post that I made in my usual DIY sketchbook signature. Because we always stay right on the beach in front of iconic Haystack Rock (and the smaller Needles surrounding it), I tend to focus on that up-close-and-personal view. But a mile or two north at Ecola State Park, the view of the same rocks takes on an entirely different dimension. From that distance, I realize that those ancient mammoth boulders are only tiny pebbles next to the mighty Pacific. And if we were walking next to Haystack, we would be smaller than grains of sand.

That’s how tiny we are in the grand picture. It’s reassuring.

11/13/18

11/15/18

11/15/18

11/13/18

11/15/18

11/15/18 On our last morning before we left for home, the sun was finally bright enough to make a full-color sketch with
plenty of light and shadows. I finished this hastily, even as housekeeping was knocking on our door (we were a bit late
for checkout).

11/14/18 sunset (9"x12" watercolor paper)

11/13/18 Sunset from Ecola State Park

11/14/18 beach dwellers

In the sunshine . . . 

. . . under overcast skies. . . 

. . . in the foggy cold. . . 

. . . Cannon Beach will always be one of our favorite places on earth.