A Farewell to Wolfe's

Urban Sketchers Houston

Last weekend, Urban Sketchers Houston said farewell to Wolfe's Department Store on Emancipation Avenue. The store is in its final days and will close by December. Twelve people showed up to sketch both inside and out.

Robert's sketch

    

Chris's sketch

Robert and I, along with several others, focused on the cool sign and the exterior.

    

Joel's sketch

Joel captured a little bit of everything inside and out.

 

Jeff's sketch

Jeff's sketch

Jeff captured one of the customers in front of the hat display and did a study of the cool shoes.

 

Mary's sketch

Mary went up to the mezzanine level and got a view of the whole scene.

Carolyn's sketch

   

Mary's other sketch

Both Mary and Carolyn saw the abstract shapes made by the mannequins and the guitars back in the pawn shop.

Lunch was at This Is It, a classic Third Ward staple for soul food. But first, we did the throwndown

We even had one person working in Procreate on an Ipad this time. 

Join us for the next sketchout. Details will be posted soon.

A Slice of Houston History

I'm always intrigued by the funky architecture on some of Houston's older churches. Today was a lovely cool and sunny day and I was out running errands and ran across this church. St. Nicholas Catholic Church is the oldest African American Catholic congregation in Houston. The congregation dates from the late 1800's, but this funny little pseudo-Mission style building was built in the 1920's.  It sits now on the east side of downtown, cut off from the Third Ward by the Gulf Freeway. For a long time this was a no-man's-land of decaying frame houses and old warehouse and industrial buildings. Slowly all the old houses have come down and the industrial buildings have been repurposed into lofts and that funny little corner of east downtown is coming back again.  I was charmed by this little red brick beauty.