Dave's Brewfarm

With the weather warming up we decided to make one of our token trips out to Dave's Brewfarm. We make the 1hr. pilgrimage a few times a year and find our visits to be like hanging out with a family member who has their own farm. Dave's beer is quite delicious and never ceases to impress us on each visit with his ever changing highly, creative menu. While I can't comment on the intricacies of the beer (I'll leave that to my husband), what I can note is perhaps the new found purpose of designated driver in return for sketching time. With so many new breweries popping up I can imagine this becoming a welcome compromise.

Union Depot - With MetroSketchers

So I've been secretly dying to check this place out ever since it was remodeled (I was also secretly dying to check it out before it was remodeled... urban spelunking anyone?). It's amazing to see a place not only go through such an involved remodeling effort, but come back to life in the original use it was intended for. Right now is a great time for sketching as it is open public space, and the light rail that will connect St. Paul and Minneapolis (finally) is not quite up and running yet.  Even with hoards of people though, I'm sure we'd still find a way to sketch.

The beautifully remodeled waiting room

 

One of my favorite parts of the gathering - sharing our sketches

 

 

Saint Paul above from the private rooftop deck for depot residents

 

 

 

Irving Park

 

 

Finally - the first really warm day when you can actually sit outside and not want to leave within 5 minutes because you are cold! In celebration we headed down to Irving Park for a sketching session. I often forget about this one, it's just a little bit further than my usual walking routes, it's tucked in a historic neighborhood, and it's simple and quite small. Being spring, everything was still brown and grey, so we'll definitely have to come back here in the summer.  The park itself is quite a popular place for weddings in the summer surrounded by well preserved historic houses, the park also serves as the namesake for the neighborhood. As tempting as it is sometimes to draw those historic houses, I settled on the fountain center piece this time.

 

As a side note, I'm practicing trying to draw quicker - Look, no ruler!

 

 

St. Paul Conservatory with MetroSketchers

Wow! Sketching at the St. Paul Conservatory this afternoon was absolutely amazing. This annual event marked the third anniversary of the Metrosketchers, as well as an up and coming spot on channel 11 news (next Sunday) and a wonderful afternoon with my dear friend Claire, and fellow lady-architect sketcher.

The afternoon was filled with a series of firsts.  For myself, that has been the most public and crowded place that I have openly sketched in.  For Claire, this was her first commission!  As I tend to sketch nature and spaces, Claire loves to sketch inspiring people.  After chatting with a mom with her baby daughter for a bit, she quickly offered to draw a sketch of the baby as practice. Check out this picture of them together:

And of course, us and our finished sketches!

 

And it goes without saying, a huge thanks to the dedication of Liz Carlson a Tim Jennan for all the time, dedication, and passion they put into this to bring us all together. 

Winter Weekends at Indeed Brewing

All of these long winter days has lead us to find and explore outlets that get us out of the apartment. With my husband looking at starting a brewery and my pending Architecture Registration Exams we've taken to a form of "hanging out" at local breweries.  More than just enjoying a handcrafted beverage, he gets to try any amount of any beer he wants (usually while chatting with other beer fanatics), whilst I, as a designated sober cab, get to enjoy the opportunity to sketch this trend. With all the new local breweries popping up it's quite a challenge to catch them all!

In architectural drawing there's a constant argument over how to represent people. Should they be shown "hyper-realistic," do they distract from the space, or add to it? Should they be shown as implied, such that the focus is on the building.  Every architect has their own (widely varying) opinion on this. Urban sketching by contrast focuses on drawing on site and capturing the moment as you see it.  In this case I hope I've captured a semblance of both - that is drawing on location and on the spot, but influenced by the desire to find this balance between architectural space and the people who inhabit it.

Audubon at the Bell Museum

 

Wow, after a few months of being holed up studying, having a weekend to actually do something fun was amazing.  Ever so conveniently for myself, this coincided with a Metro Sketchers gathering at the Bell Museum to sketch the second part of the Audubon exhibition. If you're familiar with nature illustration, then you're familiar with the work of John James Audubon, famous for his sketches of birds. Which brings me to an interesting observation of his work that I chose to draw - I omitted the birds. A crime?  I'll pass this one off as artistic license.  While I admire the work of Audubon greatly, in this piece I was more struck by the dramatic landscape then the large birds originally drawn in (one on top of each cliff).  The birds in flight were added later in order to help lead the eye through the rocks. 

Sunday's at Nina's Cafe

Nina's Café on Selby has easily become our café of choice for a Sunday morning "relax over coffee, but get something fun done," session. In my case, this often means spending some time with my sketchbook, and in Chris's case, this means working on his business plan for the brewery. Ok, it also often means ARE study time too... But seriously, we need to have some fun too:) In the winter we find ourselves here more often then not these days as we look to get out of the apartment.

And important lesson was learned on this morning is if we don't want to be sketched while we are working on the business plan, then we should sit at a table more a the perimeter of the space so Jodi can draw the architecture and other people instead (see sketch above).

Sometimes we don't get to stay for too long, just enough time to have a quick cup of coffee and be on our way.

Back to the very beginning, this was one of the first sketches I did this summer on one of our first business plan/sketching outings.