Day One

Day 1: Monday, May 19, 2014

Today was my first day of urban sketching and to be honest I was nervous.  I had only sketched in groups of people who were doing the same thing and I was worried that people would not like me sketching in their restaurant/church.  The day started at 10:30 am when I drove to the Commons in Woodinville.  I got a table facing the bar/espresso machines, a latte, and sketched for about two hours.  The time flew by.  I was worried that sketching for so many hours a day would be tedious but I completely lost track of time and it went by really quickly.  One thing that was significant about this experience was the familiar sounds around me.  A woman next to me was talking about a recent trip to Nicaragua and a man next to me had the same ringtone as my dad. 

After the Commons I ventured to the Blick Art Store on Capitol Hill in Seattle.  I had never driven to Seattle by myself so that part was an adventure.  I found what I thought was a good spot, spent half an hour buying supplies, then discovered that the entire block I parked on was handicap parking- and ended up with a parking ticket for a whopping $450.  Not so confident anymore.  I decided to drive to St. Mark’s Cathedral next with the help of my trusty GPS.

The cathedral itself was kind of intimidating.  I was alone and I walked in and there was this booming organ music playing which really creeped me out at first. I was the only person in this massive cathedral so I sat down in a pew in the back and sketched for a few hours.  The usual blankness I get in my mind when I sketch eventually drowned the sound of the organs out.  At moments like these I feel like God can speak to me, especially in a church.  I never thought that in the middle of Capitol Hill in Seattle I could feel thrust back into Medieval Times, but that was definitely the feeling I got from this experience.  Despite the crazy parking ticket, today was a good day.