Night Sky

Back in December, I was on a camping trip in the Oregon woods. The fog had cleared for a short time, and I did some experimental sketching of the Douglas fir trees silhouetted against the night sky. Dilute white acrylic paint called out the faint glow of the sky in contrast to the shapes of the dark trees.

I'd been playing with the idea of pursuing the ideas in this sketch more, but it was just simmering on the back burner for quite a while. Then, a colleague of mine at work, who worked at the museum's planetarium, announced that she was moving out of town. Clearly, the starry sky would be an appropriate theme for her going away card, right?

Revisiting and adapting the shapes from the earlier sketches, with gold paint-pen on black paper. The "boldly" caption is, of course, a Star Trek joke--boldly going where no-one has gone before, right?

For the final version, I hand drew the stars with a white colored pencil on the blue paper, stippling away in a coffee shop one Saturday afternoon. I carved the design of words and tree into a linoleum block print, and mixed a "nearly black" ink out of blue, purple, and green. The joy of sunny and dry weather in Portland--the ink dries faster that it would have in winter!

I printed a few variants on these, and they'll be wandering through the postal system over the next few days. My planetarium friend enjoyed her hand-delivered copy too--hers was extra special, with a hint of glitter. Yay.

Winter Boat Parade

Last night I finally met up with Urban Sketchers Portland! We had a nighttime sketching adventure, trying to capture the twinkling of the city during the Christmas Ship Parade.

It was certainly dark out, but the lights from the freeway helped give a general glow to our corner of the riverbank. 5 of us came out; those who were traveling by car eventually took refuge in the shelter of their automobiles to warm up, while those of us who get around on foot were happy to tough it out in the open air. (It was a lovely night, really!)

I brought a sketchbook of black paper and a tube of white acrylic paint. First sketch, above--the general view of the skyline of downtown Portland.

Second sketch: trying to capture the reflections of car headlights as they crossed the Hawthorne Bridge. (Those bridges are a terrible tangle of struts and supports, even with daylight on one's side!)

 Third sketch: one of the boats was decorated with an adorable whale. Turns out, when they left the marina and were out on the river for the parade itself, that there was a mini-whale tagging along after it!

 Last sketch of the night: buildings framed through the legs of the freeway bridge. Portland is a very sparkly town, indeed.