Seattle Women's March - Waiting at Judkins Park

When fellow sketcher Tina Koyama posted the suggestion to sketch at the Seattle Women's March, it reminded me of the guy who sketched while running the New York City marathon several years ago. I've run a lot of marathons, but not once have I considered trying to sketch while running. The idea of sketching while marching was equally unappealing as I have a hard enough time not tripping and falling in huge masses of people as it is. However, I took along my sketchbook thinking there may be some down time and managed to get some ink on paper while waiting at Judkins Park before the march began. It actually took something like an hour to filter out of the park walking step by step at such a slow pace people were monitoring their Fitbits and there were no steps being registered as we inched through the small side streets onto the larger arterials where we could actually walk. Later we all learned there were 150,000 people and 3 miles of continuous stretches of marchers which explains the huge bottleneck at the start. In addition to the awesomeness of the enormity of the event, something equally memorable was a pair of bald eagles who circled in the sky above the stalled marchers as if to say they knew exactly what we all felt, and as our country's symbol of spirit and power, they brought message of support and hope.