"The Richland Farmers' Market"

In our area there are three Farmers' Markets, one in each of the Tri-Cities:  Kennewick, Pasco, and Richland. 

This past Friday we met at 9 am at the Richland Farmers' Market on the Parkway.  The weather was absolutely gorgeous: all blue sky and shirtsleeve temps.

This market has grown considerably this year.  We were there at opening, sketched and visited, had lunch at Cheese Louise, right there on the parkway, and departed when the vendors were taking down their tents:  the place was packed with people throughout!

We had six people today:  Dave, Jean, Jim, Nancy, Fred, and Patrick.  Super turn-out!

Thanks to Dave for this spectacular sketch!  Click on it find the others.

We're heading for Walla Walla next Friday.  Hope you can join us!!

Lisbon, Portugal: "II International Urban Sketchers Symposium"

Urban Sketchers in Lisbon (day 1) from Patrícia Pedrosa on Vimeo.

Check out this video, produced by Patricia Pedrosa of Lisbon, of the 2nd International Urban Sketchers Symposium held in Lisbon on July 21st - 23rd of this year, 2011. She says she is still editing and will have an english subtitled version soon. This is fabulous. (Be sure to enlarge to fill your screen.)

Friday Sketchcrawl at the Richland Farmer's Market

Join us this coming Friday morning at 9am in front of the Richland Theatre for a sketchcrawl of the Richland Farmer's Market.

At the Farmer's Market you will find everything from people, to tents, to onions, watermelons, raspberries, corn and maybe even a busker or two, to sketch and add to your growing collection of urban sketches. And who knows, maybe you'll capture a new idea for something larger from your studio?

See you there.

"Sketching at the County Fair"

There may have been only two of us sketching today, but we still had a good time drawing, painting, and talking art.

Most of the conversation centered around the art scene in the tri-cities and how difficult it seems to motivate others to come out and sketch with us, in public.
Of course, it is summer. People are busy with family and vacations; and the heat these past few weeks has been in the upper nineties. One's home air-conditioner is similar to a nice cold popsickle to a kid in summer. That cool air is just way too nice to go outside, even for something fun!

Posted here is a little watercolor Nancy did with her new Koi Watercolor kit. Spectacular, don't you think?

Click on the pic to see the other images we created at this fun spot!

Featured Artist: Gary Yeung of Hong Kong

Waiting and Chatting Away 一路等一路傾

We found Gary Yeung, an Urban Sketcher, on flickr. Gary has a terrific eye for his city, Hong Kong, and he possesses all the requisite skills required to present that city in a fashion that would make any Hongkonger proud.

Check out his bio below, and if you haven't already, click on the image, then click on "slideshow."

"As a local born Hongkonger, Gary Yeung always held an intense passion towards drawing. After being awarded the diploma in Fine Arts at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (SCPS), he continues to hone his skills by taking oil painting lessons from Russian painter Anastassia Katafygiotis, who opened her studio in the picturesque Sai Kung Old Town, away from the bustle of urban Hong Kong.

Ever evolving as an artist, Gary was strongly influenced by his training background which tends to make the oil and acrylic paintings impressionistic in style. He was also active in doing live and studio sketches, capturing the Hong Kong local scenes. As for content, his paintings exemplify the mystic charm of Hong Kong’s past, present and future. Drawn with vivid and intricate details, they feature objects and people that Gary found relevant, if not profound. These works often represent the demure yet visceral feelings he possess as a proud local born."

Stay tuned for more "Featured Artists," and please feel free to leave us a comment.

"509 Urban Sketchers and Painters"

"Downtown Kennewick"

The "509 Urban Sketchers and Painters" travelled to downtown Kennewick, WA., today to enjoy of few hours of arting-about-town. As usual, we had a lot of fun and when our drawing time was up, we convened at Willingham's Diner on Columbia Drive (Avenue C, for the old-timers), for lunch and comraderie.

The only "downer" was when we learned the diner, Willingham's, only open for a few months, will close its doors tomorrow, Sunday!

My crab sandwich was massively delicious!! Shucks.

Click on the pic to be whisked away to our flickr account where you will enjoy the other images that were created by this inglorious bunch of artistes.

sketch: Bob Irwin

REPORT: "The II Urban Sketching Symposium Lisbon 2011"

The Urban Sketching movement started with Gabi Campanario, Seattle PI sketcher/journalist.

Gabi began with a flickr account, "urban sketchers," where he monitored the sketches posted by the ever growing numbers of members; then not long afterwards a blog appeared entitled, "Urban Sketchers."

In July of 2010 the Urban Sketchers held their first symposium in Portland, Oregon. We missed it!

This summer, 2011, the second symposium, "II International Urban Sketchers Symposium," was held in Lisbon, Portugal, July 21 - 23 (we missed this one too...). Click on the link, then click on "Photo Updates" to see their sketches.

sketch by Pete Scully

"32nd World Wide Sketchcrawl"

This morning at 9am we met in the parking lot at the "509 Artspace" without much of a plan as to where we go sketch. After some discussion, we decided we liked Jan's idea of heading out north of town to her friend Dennis Wise's farm.

Once there we found, in addition to some cows, horses, turkeys and goats, this marvelous old 1928 Chevy truck, flat tires and all, sitting in the middle of his driveway. Soon all four of the guys were sketching it.

It was rather hot today as the summer sun was blazing high in the sky (check the shadows in the pic), and firing off some rather severe rays.

Jan found a nice shady spot near the fence and worked on her pastoral scene. Greg also found some shade near the barn and ended up producing a sketch of the truck from an interesting perspective.

Dave, Bob, and Jim braved the summer sun in the dusty driveway.

Afterwards we drove back into town to the Ice Harbor Brewery where we had lunch, a few libations and some great conversation. (L to R: Jim, Dave, Greg, Jan, and Bob.)

Hope you can join us next time.

"Pasco Train Yards"

A small group of us, three, drove over to the railroad yards in Pasco to do some sketching. It was a good day for sketching as the sky was blue, the sun was comfortably warm, and there was no wind.

We found a line of about five cars sitting quietly on a side-rail, so we pulled out our folding chairs, sketchbooks, easels, pen, pencils, and paints and began sketching (Nancy and Jim), and painting (Pat).

We talked about how the numbers to both our figure drawing sessions and urban sketching sessions are dwindling down, and decided it is either due to the summer months and people having more things to do than art, or maybe we're just unfun people. And maybe, I think, it's because we are so open with our work - posting online. Maybe.

We're not sure yet if there will be a session this coming Saturday. Speaking for myself, I need a break from Saturday sessions, so I'm going to visit the Farmer's Markets this Saturday, and enjoy a family outing.

'Hangin' at the Phatty Caddy Coffee Lounge"

A big "Thank You" to Tammy Furth down at the "Phatty Caddy Coffee Lounge," in downtown Kennewick for helping the "sketchers and painters" launch their first, I'm sure of many, many, many, shows!

We met there this morning to hang our show, and just like when we go out into the world to sketch, we had a great time.

And thanks to the following folks for bringing in something to hang: Laura G., Jan W., Pat F., Greg. A, Nancy T., Dave P., and Jim B.

To see the rest of the "hang," click on the picture.

Columbia Park Outing

We met in Columbia Park this morning at 10am under sunny skies and warm temperatures, in the parking lot near the sno-cone vendor. After some "art-talk" we laid out our plans and went right to work sketching the trees, the river, some of the people, and the sno-cone vendor.

What fun it is to meet up with people with common interests to share ideas, thoughts, and our work together.

Today it was Greg, Dave, Jan (from Connell), and Jim. Pat was with us for a while as he brought his oil painting from our outing at Lampson Yards a few months back so it can be hung with the others in the show at the "Phatty Caddy Coffee Lounge" next week.

Stay tuned for our June outings when, tentatively, we are planning trips to both Maryhill Museum and Walla Walla. Hope to see you then!

The image is Jan's lovely little sketch of one of the big tree clumps.

"Phatty Caddy Coffee Lounge" Show

Tammy Furth, owner of the "Phatty Caddy Coffee Lounge" in Kennewick has opened her walls to the "509 Urban Sketchers and Painters" for the "First Thursday Art Walk." This means our work will hang there during the month of June.

The hanging will take place on Tuesday, May 31st, at 10 am.

Anyone who has been out sketching/painting with us is welcome to bring down 3 or 4 of their sketches/paintings and have them hung that day.

This isn't fine art, so no one is expecting expensive frame-jobs. Cheap is the only way to go, some of us are using $3 frames from Wal-Mart, and other are using frames purchased from St. Vinny's; or don't frame at all. It doesn't really matter.

Click pic for map to the "Phatty Caddy Coffee Lounge."

"Sketching the Old Naval Air Control Tower"

We awoke this morning to gray skies, cool temperatures, and rain (see Nancy's comment below).

Thinking no one would show up, but knowing that if only one did, someone should be there to meet and greet, Jim drove over thinking he would meet with host, Malin Bergstrom, and reschedule the event. As soon as he pulled into the parking lot, Greg approached him, and within a few minutes, five more people were there.

The skies stayed gray, but the air-temp warmed up and the rain stopped, so we ended up having another great outing.

"Thank you" to Malin Bergstrom, president of Bergstrom Aircraft, who provided escort into the flight-line side of the grounds for us to sketch the "Old Naval Air Control Tower" from an angle not open to the general public.

In the picture above, Malin is getting us caught up on not only the old tower, but also on some very interesting local aviation history of the area. Did you know that United Airlines was born right here in the Tri-Cities? We didn't either!!

Hopefully our efforts will in some small, or large, way help Malin and her committee to "Save the Tower" for future generations.

Click on the picture to see some photos. As more arrive in our inbox, we'll be posting more.

"Sketching Kennewick's Methodist Church, and One Other Place"

Jan (from Kahlotus), Greg, and Jim met this morning in downtown Kennewick to sketch, draw, paint the Methodist church on Dayton and Kennewick Avenue.

This church, first dedicated in 1906 and rebuilt in 1923, was orginally constructed on land donated by Howard Amon in 1902-3. It has witnessed the development and evolution of Kennewick from its infancy to its present day, near megalopolis standing - the stories it could tell!!

Before we started sketching, we were able to go inside the church and view it's many old, and gradiose, features. When we entered the sanctuary the stained-glass windows popped right out us, especially this morning with the light of the sun streaming through them.

A bit chilly outside to begin, but as the breeze abated some, temps warmed and we had another great outing. We do wonder sometimes where all of you are, but as Jan said, "they don't know what they're missing." These sessions really are so much fun.

"31st World-Wide Sketchcrawl" april 16th

We had a great time yesterday during the "31st World Wide SketchCrawl"!

We started off in Howard Amon park in Richland where the wind was blowing so hard we could hardly keep all our materials on the table, and basically sketched each other; then we moved up to the Park Way and sketched a bit more, had lunch at "Cheese Louise,"; then on to the Uptown where we went into a few antique malls and sketched some of the interesting items there.

At 3pm, as scheduled, we converged on the Spudnut Shop (sorry, we are all out of spudnuts), where we shared our work and took a few pics. Find this outing posted on the forums at the SketchCrawl.com site, linked here.

And, by the way, if you missed the first one, you can see the drawings here.

Sketch by Lapoynte