Sunshine and Shades on Capitol Hill

4/8/16 brush pen, inks, watercolor, colored pencils 

4/8/16 inks

Urban Sketchers Seattle’s Friday group had planned to meet at Elliott Bay Books this morning, just in case the weather turned out bad. As much as I like the book shop, it couldn’t compete with our lucky weather – 73 and sunny with a breeze as gentle as June. As most of us did, I opted to sketch outdoors.

On a day like today, I could be sketching dog poo (as at least one of us did!) and be happy. You can imagine my near-ecstasy to finally sketch a Seattle streetcar, which I’d been wanting to do for quite a while now. Having ridden one just last week, I knew the trolley stopped for less than a minute at each stop, so I had to have a strategy. I took my time drawing the shelter and power lines and even painted the sky. When the next streetcar pulled up, I grabbed a fat brush pen to roughly capture its shape and a few details, then splashed on some paint after it was long gone.

4/8/16 brush pen

Next I walked over to Cal Anderson Park, where the conical fountain caught several sketchers’ eyes (though we all wondered why we’ve never seen it with water). Since I was nearly looking into the sun, I decided to keep this sketch monochrome, but I couldn’t resist another opportunity to point out that blue, blue sky.

With just those two sketches, I would have gone home happy, but my favorite sketch of the day? This guy I caught on the light rail wearing awesome flip-up shades!