Burke Museum in the Morning and Remains of the Day

Sunshine and shadows this morning at the Burke Museum entrance

Seattle Urban Sketchers arranged an ad hoc meeting this morning to accompany Laurie W., a visiting sketcher from San Francisco. On a cold, frosty November morning, it was so nice to be indoors, discovering something to draw in the current exhibit. Kate sketched everything, both inside and out!

In the lobby, a woman in a white lab coat was seated at a small table holding jars of preserved snakes. She was counting the scales to determine which of three varieties of garden snakes they were.

We also shared the venue with a group of school children, some of whom gave encouraging comments on our sketches in progress.

Fossil Whale Exhibit

The first thing that caught my eye was the fossilized remains of a 30-million-year old baleen whale found on the Olympic Penninsula. I can't imagine the effort it would take to assemble this from pieces found in the mud. Other fossils, such as shells, were displayed with it on a bed of sand.

I used watercolor pencils while sketching fossils in the museum.

Since water media isn't allowed in the exhibit area, I used watercolor pencils to sketch, then went out to the lobby to blend the drawings with my water brush. The fossilized whale head, upper right, is how the pencil looks before adding water. The 180 lb. paper in my Stillman & Birn Beta sketchbook works great for this.

THE REMAINS OF THE DAY

Afternoon sketches, parking ticket, lunch, etc. (tap to zoom)

Home in time to enjoy the sunset!

After sharing our sketches at 12:30pm, some of us went to the University Book Store for lunch in the cafe and shopping in the art department. I sketched a sandwich and Tina sketched me!

Laurie brought her Moo Card collection of bird sketches (she let us choose one of the 50 in her series.) I got the hummingbird in its nest!