Country Mouse, City Mouse

The crows roost in a tree across our street, pumpkins are everywhere and I visited two farms on Monday

It seems that I am alternating my sketching days this week: a day on a city street, then a day out on a farm, then city, then country. It's a fun way to keep finding something new to capture. Each round trip is about 90 miles, though, so I have fallen behind in scanning and posting my Inktober sketches. These are the ones for days 24-27.

The sun came out and gave me great shadows today at the Arlington Municipal Cemetery.

I was hoping to enter an online painting challenge today, but although I spent the better part of the day on location at the Arlington Cemetery, I still didn't get my 9x12 plein air piece done. So far, all I want to show is the value study of one of the gravestones that I did to warm up. (Conveniently, it serves as my Inktober drawing for the day!) Most of this section of the cemetery had stones from the early 1900's, people who were born in mid century 1800's. Many of the markers were leaning, especially the ones set on a steep hillside.

The light came over the fence and threw beautiful shadows down the grassy hill, catching a carpet of fallen leaves and turning them into gold. I'm not giving up on the painting just yet. So I will let you know when it's ready and post it here when I feel it's satisfactory. The thing that's taking me so long is that I am working in gouache, an opaque form of watercolor, and it's a bit of a brain twist from my usual transparent watercolor.

The Craven Pumpkin Farm with Seattle Urban Sketchers

To really and truly understand the multitude of offerings at Craven Pumpkin Farm, you must visit their website and Facebook pages. Their Autumn Festival is in full swing: Birthday parties, 3D black-light presentations, food, gifts, animals, Minions, hayrides, pirate ships, duck races, and people pushing wheelbarrows full of newly purchased pumpkins!

Fall Festival at Craven Farm

The Seattle Urban Sketchers monthly meet up began at Craven's at 10 am. For the first 45 minutes, it wasn't really cold at all and the rain held off. I took advantage by sketching the front gate post for my Inktober Day 18 drawing . See earlier post today. By the time I finished my first sketch, the parking lot had nearly filled up.

I wanted to catch the steam rising off the two large kettles out toward the back of the Snack Shack where they were boiling corn on the cob.

I toured as much of the property as I could before the rain started, then stepped inside the gift shop, Mouseville, and the animal barn to keep my sketchbook dry. Every once in a while I would step out again to check on something I may have missed in the sketch I was working on.

The man with the "Hair Style of the Day", was

Dutch Bihary, the face painter working at a barber chair inside the animal barn. His calm and smiling demeanor and fast yet effortless skill attracted an unending stream of children, ready to have him paint butterflies, tigers and more on their upturned faces.

After we shared our sketches, I could see that the rain was letting up, so I decided to stay and wait it out. There was a wagon load of fresh fall flowers, some pink pumpkins and a bin of apples that I had my eye on. I only had to wait for less than half an hour before I could go out to finish my two page spread.

Families, sketchers and people of all ages were not deterred by rain or cold.

Williams' Farm Pumpkin Patch

Today I drove around the corner after my class at A Guilded Gallery to find the sun shining across the pumpkin patch owned by Williams Farms. Melissa, a family member, has everything set up beautifully in the little shed. She has a display of "Exotics" with a friendly scarecrow on top of a giant power line spool.

My sketch for the day in my Pentalic Aqua Journal

A panorama opens up for you, from the water truck, to the eye line displaying every kind of tree, the old house nearly buried under blackberry vines, the distant hills on the coastline, the corn maze on your right, and most of all-the pumpkin patch! If there ever was a time to use a full spread panoramic sketchbook, this it!

We are all welcome to sketch there anytime!