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Fall Festival at Craven Farm--Sketches by Michele Cooper |
Sunday, Oct. 18
The Seattle Urban Sketchers monthly meet up began at
Craven's Pumpkin Farm 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 last sketch below. By the time I finished my first sketch, the parking lot had nearly filled up.
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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, under the arbor and the animal barn to keep
my sketchbook dry. Every once in a while I would step out again to check
on something that 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.
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I started the day with my Inktober 18 sketch of the entry gate post |
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!
I actually started another panoramic sketch in my "Perfect Sketchbook" with a view of the distant hillside from underneath the arbor. I thought the arbor would protect me from the rain, but the grape vines started to drip onto my watercolor washes. My sketch is about 2/3 finished and won't take much to complete.