Rainy Sunday morning waterbrush work

We had a rainy morning, so I pulled out the waterbrush and did some small paintings of the view from the living room.

A few summer-day sketches

We've actually had a few summer days in a row.  Here's one from last weekend - this is sitting on kite hill looking at some folks who are downhill from me.

A few days ago was a barbecue at Gage - hot dogs, beer and hula hoops!  And a good time sitting the lawn at St. Marks with friends.

Today it was over to the Fremont Canal where some folks were playing in the water...

...and some leaves were drifting downstream

After sketching this I rode back toward Gasworks and ran into Gary Faigin - who had also biked down to the canal to do some sketching!

Look Ma, no pen!

Actually pretty warm out - pushing 80 - which I realize is nothing compared to the rest of the country, but that's OK with me.  I thought I'd try sketching with the brush and skip the pen drawing.  Some pretty decent results (and some other results).  A few along the Fremont Canal:

Then over to Gasworks Park:

 For the last one I went back to the pen:

All in all, a productive day!

Oil Sketches

A few oil sketches that I'm working on, from two totally different places.  One is a beach near here, and the other is Geyser - as in Iceland.

Wicked clouds

Ballard Seafood Fest

Time to pillage and plunder folks, it's a Ballard Seafood fest.  I biked over and met Ruth and Mel in an odd little coffee shop that sells bamboo furniture in addition to coffee and tea.  Then we did our rounds of the  booths.  Despite how small the street fair portion is, there were at least two people selling soy candles.  There was also the requisite chiropractor, a lot of jewelry, and some Southwest Indian arts.  If I wasn't on my bike I might have gotten a katchina doll for my collection, but instead I got a t-shirt featuring a steampunk robot destroying Seattle.  Cool.  There is of course a Viking ship on display.

Well, maybe not a genuine Viking Ship, but it's cool anyway.  There were also a few street musicians, and this guy was playing the kazoo with his guitar:

Of course the focus is the food booths, including a fish taco truck:

Scallops on the grill:

and the requisite desserts:

I got the crab cake plate with Caesar salad and bread:

And Ruth got the strawberry shortcake (although in reality she looked much happier than this):

After dessert we pretty much found a nice table and became barnacles and watched everyone go by, including the buck-toothed tiger:

May the Norse be with you.

Art Walkin'

It's First Thursday and that means Art Walk. I started with a caprese and tea at Caffe Vita

Then I got down to business and checked out some artists' studios and headed over to a condemned building where some friends of mine from Gage had some work in a group show.  Great work by Tamara, Deborah, Pamela, Aron and Mark - and Tamara even had fake oil dripping off her painting.  There was also some cool metal work by a guy named Brandon Bowman - very cool sculptures - and a lot of encaustic work and some, er, interesting things that were, shall we say, overtly Freudian and not the sort of thing that I would put in my living room!  I only hung out for an hour or so, but it was time well spent.

Fireworks shots

Some more shots from last night's show.  These are the official show, not the pre- and post-show put on by my neighbors (that one went on past midnight).

My neighbors are pyros

And still going strong.  But the official show was great and this is the view from my patio.

Preparing for the 4th

The barge for the fireworks has arrived...

And crews work into the night while the moon sets...

Beach sketches

Here's the sketches from yesterday's trip to the beach.  Two different sketchbooks and some experiments with media - sometimes ballpoint pen, sometimes micron - and a new sketchbook that doesn't seem to play nicely with watercolor but is a dream for pen.

There were a number of folks taking advantage of the low tide to collect I'm not sure what, I think crabs - not sure if that's legal and I'm positive that I wouldn't eat them since they are hanging out next to a busy marina.

I was checking out the goodies that had washed on shore...

While a family reflected on the beach.

A day at the beach

-2 low tide today.  Sketches coming soon...

Canada Day sunset

Damn I love my view.  Happy Canada Day!

The Floating Head of Liberty

They're setting up for the 4th of July: