a walk down 2nd St SE in Canal Park

I've been enjoying the good weather on weekends in October and have completed a set of 5 panoramic drawings that describe a walk down 2nd St, along the west side of Canal Park, from its intersection at K St, walking north to Bridge Spot, the skate-park under 695 near Garfield Park.

Eastern Market

For the 45th World Wide Sketchcrawl the D.C. Sketchers met at Eastern Market on Capitol Hill. The market is housed in a 19th century brick building, and on weekends you can find food, art, crafts, and all sorts of things at the nearby flea market. The building was gutted by fire in 2007, but was rebuilt in 2009 and is now a bustling place.

While I was sketching, I met Alvin, a photographer working on a project called People in This City. He takes portraits of people he finds and asks them a few questions - and shares the conversations online. The result is an interesting cross-section of the life of the city.

Great Falls National Park

At the Urban Sketchers Symposium in Paraty, Kiah Kiean did a wonderful demo showing how he sketches using a dry twig and Chinese ink - after which, he gave each of us a sharpened twig from his front yard, and a little ink to try it on our own. Since coming home, I've been wanting to go out and try this in my neighborhood.

I went hiking in Great Falls National Park today with a few friends, and they humored me while I stopped to sketch. I thought the rocks and the falls might make a good subject to try out the dry twig technique on. I decided to add watercolor when I got home - while Kiah's sketches stand alone in black and white, I haven't quite mastered value the way he has, and I thought I needed some color for contrast.

The visitors' centers in the National Parks sell these little 'passport' booklets that you can use to keep track of what parks you've visited, and each park has its own stamp you can use in the passport. I don't have one of the booklets, but I sometimes stamp my sketchbook (if I remember, and can find the stamp). After stamping my Mather Gorge sketch, though, I noticed that someone had dialed the date on the stamp to "Oct 44 2014". Thanks for that.