The wrap up

This morning I settled down on the couch with a nice big cup of coffee, picked up my sketchbook, and an enormous cockroach ran out of the cushions and across my neck, sending me leaping 3 feet straight up into the air. Things are back as they should be.

So, this trip was not my best idea.  I got out of my depth, surrounded by a city I wasn't prepared to navigate, attending a workshop that wasn't what I thought it would be.

Oh, well.

Not having a companion along to take pictures of me posing in front of weed dispensaries and embracing pig statues, here is the total photographic evidence that I actually went on this endeavor in person: two outfit poses in the hotel mirrors for Sarah; locked out of the studio; and an accidental selfie. There you have it, posterity.

Refusing to leave the city without starting a decent painting to remember it by, I took a few reference pictures of interesting objects and lintels on my walk to the train station and sat drawing in the airport food court, trying stupidly to calm my nervous hands with more poisoned coffee.

I'll straighten it out with paint

"Good job," the man said when I showed him my sketches. "You flew all the way to Portland to draw a fire hydrant."

YES I DID, OKAY.

Also some mushrooms.

The kids were most excited by the loot I dumped out on the coffee table - particularly the .99 Trader Joe's chocolate advent calendars I got for each of them. Gavin awarded me parenting points for figuring out what he meant when he asked me to get him "smoosh penguins with goo bellies" (these turned out to be gummy snacks with liquid centers that are shaped like penguins). I also bought a couple of letterpress prints, and they all agreed that the naked-butt goat picture by Phoebe Wahl was the best. Should have given that bat some rosy buns, Erica, the critics have spoken.

I'm going to re-do the city painting in my own time and method, applying what I learned in a manner that works for me. Will not be defeated by 2-point perspective and wobbly power lines.*

* Oh yes, I was. Go to hell, city street painting.