Fisherman’s Wharf and U.C. Berkeley

Catching up a bit here with some recent urban sketching. During my time in S.F. I spent some hours wandering and sketching at Fisherman’s Wharf with my buddy Cathy McAuliff. She’s good at finding sketch spots anywhere. The Wharf was teeming with tourists, so we hid out behind a particularly wharf-y looking building where we sat enjoying the sun and light breeze with only an occasional passer by.

I was anxious to give my gouache another try. Don’t you just love the creamy colors? Gouache does inspire a bit of “like a child”, which is what Maru Godas excels at. You can just keep playing around with the colors and layering and editing and adding cool details, both observed and invented!

I wanted to include the Fontana building where I was staying for a few days. From there you have a view of parts of Fort Mason and the Bay and Alcatraz and the pier and the people swimming in the frigid bay waters!

Today I had fun using my gouache to finish a scene I had sketched on that day at the Wharf. It is right below Ghiradelli Square (chocolate heaven) not far from the prior picture. The bear is our state animal mascot. (Fontana in the background there again.)

On another day I met up with some Bay Area sketchers at the Cal Berkeley campus. Here was a great vantage point above the Tyrannosaurus Rex Osborn (found in the badlands of eastern Montana by a rancher!) at the Museum of Paleontology. From up where I stood it looked like Susan Wilson had picked a dangerous spot to sit!

Ponderous buildings and rushing coeds alternated with some lunchtime loungers on the expansive lawns.

And then there was the obligatory Campanile sketch.

Outside the Faculty Club, an extraordinary tree whose white trunks were entwined like dancers or lovers. I called it the Ghost Tree because it was so light against the dark green background.

I had the guilty thought more than once that my day on campus was so relaxed and enjoyable while all around me was the strain of academia; assignments with deadlines and grades at a highly competitive university.  Yeah, but oh those were great times. . .to be young again. . .!

 

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