Showing posts with label Sacramento. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sacramento. Show all posts

Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Norman Rockwell Exhibit

There was a wonderful exhibit of Norman Rockwell's paintings at the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento. Watching the visitors was as much fun as seeing the paintings. Many of them would have been perfect subjects for one of the Saturday Evening Post covers.





Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Edgar Payne's Plein Air Ford

Edgar Payne's Ford on display at Crocker Museum
When we visited the Crocker Museum's wonderful show of Edgar Payne's paintings in Sacramento, this old Ford was on display in the gallery. The show is wonderful and you can see pictures and more about it on my blog JanasJournal here.  

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Train Trip to Sacramento's California State Railroad Museum

1908 Train #112 Redwood Empire Route, ink & watercolor, 5x10"
We took the train to Sacramento and visited the California State Railroad Museum. The enormous building ( 225,000 square feet) contains many full-sized trains and this one called out to me.

I sat against a pillar on the hard floor and started drawing. I used pencil first to get the basic shapes down since it was so complicated. Then I switched to ink and the time flew by until I realized I only had a few minutes left before we had to leave for our train ride home, so I quickly added watercolor, which I touched up a bit when I got home. 
Micaela and Susan sketching on the train trip
The museum has a Pullman-style sleeping car, a dining car, and a Railway Post Office, all of which you can walk through, along with many life-size displays demonstrating railroad life in the early years of California. I especially liked the little telegraph office with the lady at her desk with a little dish holding egg shells and a salt shaker from her breakfast. She must have had to work long hours in her lonely outpost. 

Click here to take a 360 Virtual Tour of the museum (or go in person—it's fantastic!) 

More on my blog, JanasJournal.com

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.

Thursday, November 25, 2010

Sacramento Sketching Trip by Sonia

Sacramento Amtrak Station Interior by Sonia Tamez
Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, by Sonia Tamez

Emeryville Amtrak Station, by Sonia Tamez
 
Davis Amtrak Station (from train), by Sonia Tamez