Winter Waltz @ Benaroya

Friday night was the 18th annual Winter Waltz @ Benaroya Hall.  This is a fundraiser event put on by Friends of Garfield Orchestra and the Garfield High School Orchestra led by Marcus Tsutakawa.
It was a wonderful event open to the community.  Students, parents and general supporters of the orchestra attended.  An evening of waltzing from 7:00 to 11:00.   What was so great about it was seeing everyone enjoy the dance whether or not you really knew how.  At some moments there were so many people on the dance floor that it felt like driving in evening traffic!  The music was excellent and filled the space.  I brought my sketchbook and watercolors here are the sketches I did while there.

Winter Waltz @ Benaroya Hall

Chihuly Chandelier in Entry Lobby @ Benaroya

30th WW Sketchcrawl: Part 2

Saturday Evening some of the sketchers had an opportunity to sketch at a fund raising concert for Music Works Northwest.  Geoffrey Castle performed wonderful music on his electric violin.
Music Works Northwest is a non profit organization providing affordable music training to kids in King County.

30th WW Sketchcrawl Saturday: Part 1

Saturday was the 30th Worldwide sketchcrawl.  This is usually set up by sketchcrawlers (sketchers) around the world on a particular day (I think it is 4 times a year)  where we all go out and sketch on location and post our results.  Many take it quite literally sketching all day until you are practically crawling back home.  We usually just do our 2.5 hour sketch outing.  But this time I had the opportunity to sketch at two different venues.
Here are my results  for  the morning session.  I was at Seattle Public Library with many of my fellow sketchers.  What a challenging building to draw....but really fun too.  There are endless possibilities for sketching there.

Blue Dining

Trying to catch some of our Christmas decorations before we take it down for the year.
This sketch is from our Blue Dining Room looking toward our window seat.
The blue color is actually quite rich...which is poorly captured in this sketch.

Coffee House Sketchcrawl

You know how people have "Progressive Dinners",  you go from house to house and have different courses of your meal?  Well we did something similar today by doing a little coffee house hopping.
Our urban sketchers group met at Bauhaus Coffee and then ended up at Victrola Coffee.  Some  visited other establishments in the area of Pike and Pine near Melrose on Capitol Hill in Seattle.  A nice way to do a little sketching in a warm, dry, cozy environment!  Check out Seattle Urbansketchers to see more sketches from the morning.

Victrola Coffee

Bauhaus Coffee

An Evening at The Seattle Opera: The Barber of Seville

Last night we attended the Dress Rehearsal for Seattle Opera's Barber of Seville.  Now I am not normally a fan of Opera....I tend to fall asleep at the opera, however last night's performance was a wonderful, funny, entertaining and an engaging event.  Rossini's Music was familiar,  beautifully sung, and hilariously acted.  It helped that subtitles were used so we knew what was being sung.  The house was filled with highschool and middle school kids as well as adults and everyone enjoyed it.  It is well worth going to this if you have the chance.  Here is a sketch I tried to do in the during the Opera.  It was so dark I could hardly see the paper or the lines I was making on the paper.  I painted it during intermission trying to remember the colors of the scene.

Barber of Seville, Seattle Opera