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

"The Old Hotel Art Gallery" and "Sandhill Crane Festival" March 26th

When we arrived at the Old Hotel Gallery this morning, they were actually waiting for us. They had a room set up for us to use, if we wanted, which we didn't because we planned to be outside with our sketchbooks.

Heidi took us on a great tour of the 99 year-old building and told us about it's somewhat sordid past; then she invited us to the wine tasting later in the afternoon and gave us a map showing where to go to find the Sandhill cranes. We drove out into the pothole area and marveled at the beauty of the scablands with all the basalt outcroppings and other geographical features. We found a large flock of the birds, but we weren't allowed to get close enough to do any sketching of them. We did a little sketching of some of the basalt, took some photos, and drove back into Othello around 2pm.

On our way back to the Old Hotel Gallery, which we had planned to sketch when we got there, we decided to stop into a local tavern to try out Othello's version of "tav food." While there Nancy received a call from one of her sisters in Nebraska telling her that her father had experienced a brain aneurysm and was in ICU. Since Greg drove up in his truck and Nancy rode up with me, she and I immediately headed for Pasco.

On the way, she got another call - her father had passed away.

She was scheduled to leave this coming Friday morning for three weeks in China to visit her daughter. I just got news from her a few minutes ago that she's off to Omaha tomorrow and will return on the 20th, so I am assuming she will leave Omaha in a few days and head on to China.

Greg stayed a while and after showing them that nifty portfolio of his work he carries with him, he was invited to be their featured artist this coming May. Congratulations, Greg! After the stories we heard about the Old Hotel today, we had already commented that his work is particularly well suited to the place!

We send our prayers and condolences to Nancy.

"Lampson Yards" Feb 26th

On this date we drove across the river to the Pasco side and went to Lampson Yards to draw/sketch/paint whatever we could find there.

This oil painting features Rattlesnake Mountain in the far distance from the yard. This beauty was painted by Pat Fleming.

Click the picture to be whisked away to our flickr site where more pictures are posted.

February 12, 2011 - Clover Island Sketching

Urban sketching involves sketching anything and everything one finds of interest in and around the communnity. Today we went to Clover Island, a manmade island that is surrounded by the waters of the Columbia River at Kennewick, Washington, USA.

Afterwards we found a local pub for lunch and sharing of our drawings. While there, Jim sketched a couple also enjoying lunch at the table next to ours.

Click here to travel to our flickr site where some photos of our outing can be viewed, or click the image.

"30th World Wide Sketchcrawl" january 22

On January 22, 2011, the "509 Urban Sketchers and Painters" participated in the 30th World Wide Sketchcrawl. Sketchcrawls were originated by Enrico Casarosa in San Francisco a few years ago and the phenomenon has grown world-wide since. There are three or four World-Wide Sketchcrawls held each year.

Click the image to go to our corresponding flickr account where more pictures from our Sketchcrawl day are posted.

This image was created by Nancy Thurston.