A Visit to the Ismaili Center

The Group

Our March sketchout was at the lovely new Ismaili Center in Montrose. The architecture and landscaping are stunning, so it was a great place to sketch. Here is our group standing out front.

You will see several sketches of the building from the front entrance in this post. But Jeff Whitley, whose sketch appears in the header, went to the back garden which slopes down towards Allen Parkway.  This is his view of the back garden and the deck  that overlooks the Allen Parkway greenspace.

Susan went to the end of the reflecting pool at the front of the building and drew the view back towards the entrance.

Susan

Sandy and Heather had a similar idea. One shows the complete building and one is a slighter tighter perspective.

Sandy

Heather

I was interested in the raked shadow on one side of the building and the intricate patterns in the concrete.

Chris

Several sketchers were interested in the gardens. In Monica's sketch you can just see the building through the trees.

Monica

Lisa drew a small pond with benches.

Lisa

Tanya drew part of the cactus garden.

Tanya

Paul went up to the deck on the upper floors and drew the view back toward the city skyline.

Paul

There was plenty to draw inside the building as well. First, there was Fran, who found a spot where there were all sorts of interesting angles to draw. She kept at it and was able to finish the drawing at home. 

Fran

Rita Wilbur lay on the floor and drew the very interesting patterns on the ceiling.

Rita

Decha found some interesting reflective surfaces.

Decha

Nick and Mark sketched inside and in pencil. You can see the same pattern Rita drew on the right hand page of Nick's sketch.

Nick

Mark

Kel was determined to find a person to draw. She finally found someone enjoying the garden.

Kel

We had a throwdown at the end. It was interesting to see what everyone chose to draw.

throwdown

If you're interested in joining us on a future sketch out, watch Instagram for details. If you would like more information or more to see more sketches, join us on Facebook. Please answer all the screening questions to join and get commenting privileges.

Heritage Park

 

Our group at the throwdown

Rain may have threatened, but our group managed to have a sketchout downtown at Heritage Park. Among the collection of preserved homes in the park is the Jack Yates home from Freedman's Town in the  Fourth Ward, an appropriate subject for a February sketchout. Several sketchers chose that house for sketching, but there was so much there to draw!

First let's appreciate Monica's sketch of the small wooded glade in the middle of the park. You can see that in the header. She drew a second view, which you can see below.

Monica

Let's look at some of those sketches of the Yates house.

Jeff Whit

Jeff Whit did a great watercolor of the house.

Susan

Susan chose a three quarter view.

Another favorite subject was St. John's church.

Lisa

Lisa picked a back view with the winter trees.

Decha

Decha drew the church from the side with all the winter trees and the skyscrapers behind. A nice contrast.

Carlos

Carlos also chose the side view with all the tall buildings just behind.

Judith

Judith moved way back and got a much broader view of the trees, the winter park and all the buildings.

Chris

I kept, mostly, to black and white with a splash of color on the roof of the little pavilion that sits in the middle of the park.

There were other houses in the park to draw. Each one of them has a place in Houston history.

Joel

Joel did a study of the Pilott house in brown ink.

Heather

Heather and Sherry chose to sketch in pencil.

Sherry

Candy drew the Staiti house and surroundings in ink.

Candy

Janice decided to draw the very large sphere in one corner of the park.

Janice

Candy's husband Jeff did a collage of the church and the various buildings behind it.

Jeff

Susan finished her first sketch and went across the street to draw Oldenburg's Geometric Mouse.

Susan

We had a group throwdown and then went off to lunch.

If you're reading this blog for the first time and urban sketching interests you, why not join us on our next sketchout? We'll be meeting at the new Ismaili Center in March. You can find out more about our group and the dates and times of our sketchouts on Instagram. You can see more sketches and meet more of our group on Facebook.

Swap, Admire and Share at Texas Art Supply

 This time I'm diverting from the norm. No sketch credits, no group photo, no throwdown. We met at Texas Art Supply to admire everyone's sketchbooks, to look at interesting art supplies and to sketch each other.  The sketch in the header is one example.

Judith

Judith took care of some group business first and gave a general run down of our indoor sketchout.

People wandered around and paged through everyone's sketchbook and admired the work from past sketchouts.

They also admired and tried out the sampling of supplies that people had brought to share with the group.

Some people settled down right away to begin sketching while the rest of the group paged through sketchbooks.

And the header and this sketch were some of the results.

But the view out the window works too.

Some decided to try out Joel's plasticine stamp idea.

So there was no throwdown and no group pic, but there was lunch. It's always nice to try something a little different in the months when it's harder to be outdoors. Many thanks to Texas Art Supply for lending us the meeting space....oh and shopping..did I mention shopping?

Join our Facebook group or follow us on Instagram for future sketchout locations. Remember that barring complications, we now meet on the second Saturday of the month. Join us.