Let's Sketch the Cleveland Botanical Garden

Date: Sunday June 24, 2018

Time: 1:00-3:30PM

Meeting Place: Front Entrance outside

Cleveland Botanical Garden

11030 East Boulevard

Cleveland, OH 44106

Join us to sketch inside or outside the gardens.

Meet outside the front entrance at 1:00 and again at 3:30.

Note different times. Parking is available below the gardens.

Catch fellow Urban Sketcher, Karen Koch's show in the Guren Art Gallery at the Cleveland Botanical Garden, "Trees I have known...and a few shrubs."

She's showing there with Shannon Casey May 21 - July 9.

More info here: http://www.cbgarden.org/

Let’s sketch Grand Pacific Junction - Olmsted Falls

Date: Sunday May 27, 2018
Time: 1:30-4:00pm, we'll meet at the gazebo near the train engine.
Location: 8082 Columbia Road, Olmsted Falls, OH 44138

Grand Pacific Junction Historic Shopping District consists of more than thirty unique shops and services set in the beautifully restored buildings.

Other things to sketch nearby are the restored train engine, a covered bridge, the falls and an old quarry.

Visit this link for more information: http://www.grandpacificjunction.com/

To see our sketches from this outing go to Facebook: Urban Sketchers Cleveland or
Instagram: @urbansketcherscleveland

West Side Market Artists

From our outing to the West Side Market, some of the 15 artists that sketched and an exterior sketch.

Since opening to shoppers on November 2, 1912, the West Side Market- Cleveland’s oldest continuously operating municipally owned market, has anchored the historic Ohio City neighborhood. Designed by renowned local architects W. Dominick Benes and Benjamin Hubbell, the grand 241′ x 124′  structure has 44-foot high Guastavino tile vaulted ceiling, and a clock tower, which stands 137′ tall. In 2008, the West Side Market was designated as one of “10 Great Public Places in America,” by the American Planning Association and continues to offer an authentic and culturally diverse shopping experience. The West Side Market celebrated its Centennial in 2012.

Visit our Facebook page: Urban Sketchers Cleveland or on Instagram at @urbansketcherscleveland.

Let's Sketch The Coffee House at University Circle

Let's sketch and get to know new members while we enjoy coffee and cake. There's a room reserved upstairs at The Coffee House in University Circle near the Cleveland Museum of Art. Hope to see you there.

Location: The Coffee House at University Circle
11300 Juniper Rd
Cleveland, Ohio 44106
Phone: 216-791-0300

Time: 1:30-4:00pm

Date: Sunday, March 25, 2018

Let’s draw Public Square from the Renaissance Hotel Lobby

Join us for a hot drink and sketching Cleveland’s Public Square from the hotel lobby. And, of course, a warm, elegant interior with a marble fountain. There’s also food or drink service from the bar.

Location: Renaissance Hotel Lobby, 24 Public Square, Cleveland, OH 44113

Date: Sunday Jan. 28, 2018
Time: 1:30pm-4:00pm

Parking: There are a few surface lots across the street or Tower City parking underneath, also many RTA trains and busses.

http://www.marriott.com/hotels/travel/clebr-renaissance-cleveland-hotel/

Cleveland International Film Festival Community Partner

We were chosen as a community partner for the 40th Cleveland International Film Festival.  Everyone is eligible to receive a $2 discount on tickets whether purchasing tickets online, over the phone, in person at the box office, or at standby by using the code USCLE.

Our film is Parisienne which plays Monday, April 4th at 8:30pm and Tuesday, April 5th at 3:45.  More information is available at The Cleveland International Film Festival website.  This screening and nearly all of the other screenings are at Tower City Cinemas in downtown Cleveland. 

Please keep in mind the seating policy for the films.  Ticket holders line up in the hallway at least 20 minutes prior to the screening. 

Please join us for our partner film, or one of the many other great features, shorts, or documentaries that are available until Sunday, April 10th, 2016. 

April 2015 Sketch Outing

Join us on Sunday, April 26, 2015 from 2:00-4:00pm at MOCA Cleveland for our monthly sketch outing.  We will meet outside the rear entrance to the museum.  This entrance is located facing the complex of student housing, restaurants, and CIA.  It is not the entrance facing the intersection (that you see in the above photo). 

There is ample paid parking in the surrounding university and museum structures, and there is limited street parking.  This location is easily accessible by the Healthline and the red rapid line.  The address is 11400 Euclid Ave, Cleveland. 

The weather should be chilly but mild, so outdoor sketching is a possibility.  Please be advised that if you decide to sketch inside MOCA that there is an admission fee, and please be careful what supplies you bring in, as museums typically only allow pencil. 

Sketchers of all levels and abilities are warmly welcomed to sketch with us.  Other than admission fees to venues, there is no other cost involved.  Meaning, we don't charge you a penny.

We look forward to seeing you!

October Ad Hoc Sketch Outing

Saturday, October 18th, 2014 from Noon to 3pm.  4807 Wichita Ave, Cleveland, OH.  Wichita Ave is off of Pearl. 

Join us for a bonus sketch outing in October.  Let's get as much sketching in as possible before winter settles in.

We'll be sketching the Marin Family's Halloween display.  They've been doing this for a few years, and this year is the biggest yet.  They made these giant Transformers themselves, and they have them on display right now.

This is a residential street, so please be considerate of parking spaces, driveways, and lawns.  There is an empty parcel just slightly diagonal across the street from the display, so this is a good place for us to congregate.

Please comment to this post, if you have any questions.

Merwin's Wharf Sketch Outing

A great turnout today on such a beautiful early fall day.  We gathered at Merwin's Wharf which is a restaurant that is owned by the metroparks and sits right on a sharp bend in the river.  Everyone found such fun things to sketch, and it seemed like no two sketchers faced the same direction.  I actually found this scene from the parking lot.  Several others sat along the river.  It was great to see some new faces out sketching.

Let's hope that we have weather like this for one more outing the last Sunday of October. 

Sketching From Outlook Near Sokolowski's

It was a nice, but chilly morning, this past Sunday with a friend drawing from the overlook on Abby Road near the new bridge and Sokolowski's.  It give a great view of the downtown skyline.  Would be a great spot to sit and watch fireworks.

My friend was painting, and how the sun kept coming and going was causing her some problems.  But, since I knew she'd be working longer than I would, it was nice to do a sketch that involved more than what I would usually do.

I did find that sketching from further away did help me get the proportions better and work tighter.

Another 5th Street Arcades

Here's another sketch from our sketch outing at the 5th Street Arcades (Formerly known as the Euclid Arcades, also formerly known as the Colonial Arcades).  We went Sunday afternoon, and we were still pretty surprised at the amount of people that come through there.  It is a good "cut through" to get from Euclid to Prospect.  I've been in there on Fridays, and it's pretty hopping at lunch time with the little food court (much better food options than Tower City's food court), the farmers' market, and all of the little shops open.

We should have sketched them, but they had these weird rolly/rocking chairs that almost looked like thumbtacks that we all took turns trying.  They were shockingly comfortable.

I'll be posting our next sketch outing in the next day or so, so keep watching here or find us on Facebook at Urban Sketchers Cleveland.  We'll be sketching the last Sunday of every month from 2-4pm.  Though, we'll have some ad hoc ones here and there based on special events or just when the mood strikes us.

West 14th

I've been wanting to draw this house on West 14th for some time.  I did this for the woman who lives there.  I just sent it off to her, and I hope that she likes it.  It's an absolutely spectacular sight that I get to see on a regular basis.

Sunday Sketch Outing

It was great seeing so many sketcher friends, old and new, out Saturday morning.  I had planned to sketch the Terminal Tower, but after a couple of attempts, I changed my mind and drew the buildings at the southern end of East 4th.  It was a great morning, and the rain held off until we were all pretty much done for the morning. 

Bottle Car in Steelyard

This is an old bottle car from the days of the steelyard, before Steelyard Commons shopping center.  I draw down there on occassion, because there's a lot of these types of things down there, and it's very close to where I live.  So, I can pop down there whenever I have just a little bit of time.  I also find there is a wide variety of things to sketch. 

As I wrote in the journal page, there was a lot of controversy when they'd built Steelyard Commons, with it's Wal-mart, Home Depot, Target, Old Navy, and such.  This piece of land was the home to steel manufacturing that had closed down over the years.  People were upset, because essentially, stores that sold cheap foreign made items were moving onto land where people had lost their jobs in large part to cheap foreign made items.

Now, you hardly know that there was a controversy.  People are down there shopping all of the time. 

Cleveland Botanical Garden

The roof was a bit of a challenge, because of all of the unique and unexpected angles to the glass panels.  It was a nice morning before a lot of activity started up around the Botanical Garden, Museum, Natural History Museum, and Western Reserve Museum.  Just had a few joggers and a couple dog walkers pass by that morning.  I am probably going to give this another try in the future, maybe even from another angle.  It might be one of those things that I try to draw over and over and over, trying to perfect it.

Sokolowski's. . . . YUM!

If you haven't been to this institution, GO!  The food is awesome, and the long line isn't as long of a wait as you'd think.

Wendy Park Sketchcrawl

It was great seeing so many cool sketchers out at Wendy Park last Sunday.  The weather couldn't have been better.  Lots of people stopped by to see what we were doing.  And, we enjoyed seeing the fishermen that were out having a great afternoon on the river.  The sight of my favorite mighty, mighty tugboat was a surprise.  It's amazing how that little guy whips the giant freighters around the sharp bends of the Cuyahoga River.

I know that the location was a little hard to find, and I think I lost 2 of you on the way in.  But, fromt he sketch, you can see how worth it the trek was.  And, now that you know where it is, you can go back anytime. 

It had been 2 years since I had sketched at this point, and oh, how it has changed.  The major difference is the Ernst and Young building, which is the building I sketched above in grey.  To it's right is a shorter building which I drew as grey windows and yellow concrete.  That's the aloft hotel, also new.

GardenWalk Cleveland 2013

A few of us met out on Clinton Ave for the GardenWalk Cleveland 2013.  This was part of the Detroit Shoreway district, and it featured many beautifully restored houses to visit.  The owner of this particular house had pictures of what the house had looked like before she'd fixed it up.  It was so nice to see someone that had the vision to save such a wonderful house.  She had drinks for visitors who happened into her backyard during the walk.  She even had a great vegetable patch behind her garage.  There were also houses that had chickens.  And, one house's entire backyard was a miniature railroad set up. . . . with a lot of dinosaurs! 

Euclid Ave. Steeple

I love this steeple on Euclid Avenue.  It's right behind the CVS near the Cleveland Clinic.  I wish I had a picture of what the building looked like before this was all that was left of it.  I also like how the composition turned out. Sometimes my composition is just based on how much space I have left on the page, and sometimes it is nice when things frame up nicely.

Zygote Press

Zygote Press is located in a warehouse on East 30th, right near I90.  They are a co-op studio for printmakers, and there are some awesome artists that work in there. 

I find that while I am sketching, I meet so many people with their dogs.  All of the dogs are friendly and well-behaved.  This morning, I met a man who was walking is pit bull, seemed like a bit of an older dog, or a dog that was just not too happy about being out in the heat.  The dog was in the fenced area behind where I was sitting, and every so often, I kind of sensed that he was back there to see what I was doing. . . . Or, if I happened to have treats.

Another thing that I had thought about this last week was the state of Cleveland as a city.  So many people have the impression that it is run-down or unattractive or dangerous.  I just don't see that.  I see the city the way I draw it.  Sure, it maybe cutsey, but this is the way I see it.