Friday, November 26, 2010

Jana's Sacramento Sketches

Emeryville Amtrak Station, ink & watercolor
Emeryville Amtrak Station, by Jana Bouc
For our trip by train to Sacramento we arrived early to sketch the Emeryville Amtrak station (above) and then it was "All On Board!"

Once we got underway I experimented with doing VERY quick watercolor sketches of the scenery as we traveled, with about 30 seconds to capture each lovely view flying by:

Capitol Corridor Views #1Capitol Corridor Views #2Capitol Corridor Views #3Capitol Corridor Views #4Capitol Corridor #5

Once we arrived, the weather was perfect so we walked the 6 blocks to the Crocker Art Museum to see the Wayne Thiebaud "Homecoming" retrospective show (ends November 28). One of the great things about the show was seeing that at almost 90, Thiebaud is still painting and innovating. The works in his show range from the 1960s to 2010.
Crocker Art Museum New Building, ink & watercolor
Crocker Art Museum by Jana Bouc
We explored both the Crocker's permanent collection and the Thiebaud show. I was a bit perplexed by the way the shows were curated. Works seemed to be hung randomly, in no particular order that I could discern. I would have really liked to see Thiebaud's paintings arranged by date to see the progression of his work.

Tower Bridge over Sacramento River, ink & watercolor
Tower Bridge over the Sacramento River, by Jana Bouc
After we left the Crocker we walked a few blocks to Sacramento's Old Town to meet up with Urban Sketcher Pete Scully who lives nearby in Davis. Then we all stopped to draw this beautiful bridge, which is actually painted with gold metallic paint, unlike the Golden Gate Bridge which is painted a red-orange, and is not gold at all.

Eagle Theater, ink & watercolor
Eagle Theatre, Sacramento Old Town, by Jana
Old Town is several square blocks of restored Gold-Rush era buildings with board walks instead of sidewalks, old trains, horse-drawn carriages, and a few people in costume.
Sacramento Amtrak Station Exterior
Exterior of Sacramento Amtrak Station, by Jana
My last sketch of the day was the exterior of the Amtrak station in Sacramento. The building is very ornate and I would have liked to spend more time accurately capturing some of the details but my eyes were burning from some nearby idling diesel buses so had to go indoors.

1 comment:

  1. Nicely done. So much to sketch so one must ask, how do you pick your scene? Why this one and not that one?

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