A Beautiful Saturday at Cameron Market

 

our group

Saturday was warm and sunny. A perfect day for an indoor/outdoor location. That's what Cameron Market, on the site of the original Cameron Ironworks, turned out to be. Here's a picture of our happy group indoors. But many folks chose to sketch outdoors.

Richard was a good sport about having his picture taken next to the port-o-potty. I guess this is what they mean when they say artists 'suffer' for their art. LOL

He was very patient and did a very nice, large watercolor and ink sketch of the exterior of the building. His vantage point shows the original brick structure on the left and the 1940's addition on the right.

Richard

Michael Jap had a similar vantage point, but his sketch has a much different tone and feel with the cool blues and reds.

Michael J

Fran drew only the exterior of the original brick structure.

Fran

Joel started to draw the front of the 1940's building, but got discouraged by perspective. I know a few sketchers who give buildings the fish-eye lens treatment. Looks fine to me.

Joel

Susan did a pen and ink vignette of the original building.

Susan

People who walked around the corner noticed a very large industrial building next door full of pipes and tanks and towers. It looked pretty intimidating to draw, but that didn't stop our group. You can see Joel's version in the header. He went for simple shapes and color.

Carlos

Carlos went almost monochrome, with big shapes and big blocks of tone.

Michael M

Michael M kept his color simple as well, but picked out detail in pen and ink.

Marcos

Marcos, who was visiting from Brazil, used only pencil. But he captured all the detail quite well.

The sketchers at work

A couple of us were fascinated by the downtown skyline from this vantage point. It was also a challenge: a long narrow railroad line running to a far vanishing point.

Xiao (Shaw)

Xiao kept it simple in watercolor. She even managed to capture Carlos at work.

Cathy B

Cathy Brun simplified the composition and the colors.

Susan

Susan simplified all those building shapes and established a strong foreground. She caught a traveler in her sketch.

Chris

I did a full page spread and kept it pretty colorful. It called for patience.

A few people worked outside and chose NOT to do buildings.

Martha

Martha liked the challenge of the earth mover in bright, hot yellow.

Jenniffer

Jenniffer arrived late, but had time to catch this guy outside.

Then there were the people working indoors. I listened to an interview with the developer of the marketplace. He explained that since it was a historic building, he was charged with preserving some of the look of the original interior. So to divide the retail spaces, he used freight containers. You can see that in the two drawings below.

Michael M

Michael M's sketch shows the view down one of the hallways.

Michael J

Michael Jap's sketch gives you a feel for how the containers have been arranged and stacked.

Another group hung out around the Segundo Coffee Lab in the front of the building drawing people.

Susan had cleverly collaged her page with different papers and some paint in advance.

Susan

Judith told us that she started in the bottom right corner with her coffee cup and worked her way up and around the page. Of course, she had an ear out for conversation.

Judith

Both Bruce and Carlos worked in black and white.

Bruce

Carlos

Veronika worked just in ink.

Veronika

Brett added a little watercolor.

Brett

Here are a couple more sketches from around the building.

Michael M

Cathy Bruhn

 We had the throwdown.

throwdown

Lunch was at the Moontower Inn where we looked at sketchbooks and compared sketching materials.

lunch

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Sketching at the Museum of Natural Science

T

The Group

There was a nice turnout for a rare Tuesday evening sketchout at the Museum of Natural Science. It was billed as a chance to draw dinosaurs and that was the focus for many sketchers, but as you can see from Susan De Courcy's sketch in the header, there were other things to draw.

Richard Scruggs

Richard chose the T-Rex pursuing the Allosaurus.

Matthew

New participant, Matthew, chose graphite to do any unusual view of the Triceratops. (who for some reason was wearing booties- repairs maybe?)

Veronika

Veronika did two dinosaurs in pen and ink.

Bruce

Bruce did a full page spread for this very tall guy. I believe Bruce was experimenting with the water-soluable graphite.

Michael

Michael's color sketches show how the colored lighting on the exhibits really brought the creatures to life.

Jenniffer

Jenniffer dubbed the Deinonychus the "kickboxing dinosaur".  Chances are the poor guy was 

defending himself.

Chris

My dinosaur was also bathed in interesting lighting. I was just busy trying to get all those bones in the right place.

Judith

Judith used markers to capture the T Rex in color, but of course she was a fly on the wall for all the interesting conversations going on around her.

Francisco

Francisco had time for a sort of logo for the evening.

Here are some of the other things people drew:

Veronika

Some ancestors: both ours and our friend the armadillo.

Susan

The head of the huge Mastadon and some overheard comments.

Judith

Judith at the very mind-boggling Cabinet of Curiosities.

Considering we were there for a rather abbreviated sketchout, the sketchers got a lot done.

Here's the throwdown.

The throwdown

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