Port Angeles, WA

Views from a Safeway parking lot, while everyone was grocery shopping.
Since they could return at any minute I went small + fast! 

Recently, my partner's folks came over from the east coast & Colorado to spend some time with us in the Seattle area. We spent 5 days exploring the Olympic Peninsula, with our home base in Port Angeles - specifically, partway up the slope of Mount Angeles, where the small-town feel gives way to barns and woods. 

While I enjoyed my time in Port Angeles – the natural beauty and a lot of the older houses are really nice to look at – the overall impression I got was pretty guarded and even foreboding. Who knows what's behind the trunks of the towering conifers in that darkness? (I was thinking about vampires because we went through Forks earlier)

On one afternoon, my partner & I walked over a mile down the mountain to find this very cute/abandoned(?) moss-roofed house we kept passing in the car on the way to the base. Although it wasn't a busy road, there were no sidewalks and no shoulder, and everytime a car passed us we felt so out of place...like we shouldn't be walking there; we should be driving. Then when we finally arrived at this house, which was in a more suburban area, it felt very weird and awkward to sketch. Some neighbor guy even came out to ask what we were doing; he apparently thought we were casing it to steal their stuff. I wish we asked him what was up with this house, it was quite dilapidated. Most of the painting on this one was done later, as we didn't want to stick around.

On another day, we were able to spend some time down by the water on the Strait of San Juan, near where the Victoria ferry comes in. So many great views, especially on such a clear day like this, where you can clearly see Canadian mountains. I was drawn to the clearly defined horizontal layers of this pier scene.

A final quick painting in my sketchbook, turned 180 degrees from the previous painting. The mountains rising up behind the house-topped hills of Port Angeles are so stunning. This was a rare, perfectly clear day; usually the peaks are obscured by clouds.