Race Week and Capn Whidbey

The deck of the Captain Whidbey Inn in high summer is perhaps our very favorite place to have happy hour and sketch. When the sun is out, there's no place better. There was a surprising amount of orange in my view yesterday afternoon.

 I liked this very quick sketch of a man leaning over the railing at the end of the Coupeville pier better than my overworked and belabored boat sketch.

A brush pen can be a dangerous tool in the wrong hands. It's destroyed many a sketch. After all these years, values are still kicking my butt, so I try to "punch it up" with the brush pen.

But Where Were the Boats?

Last year the Whidbey Island Sketchers gathered at the end of the Coupeville Wharf to sketch the sailboat races during Whidbey Island Race Week.  Hundreds of boats raced right by the wharf all afternoon.

So yesterday, again we gathered.  After watching the races from my office window on Monday and Tuesday, I couldn't believe my eyes when I arrived at the wharf.  Yesterday they raced the Saratoga Passage course waaay over by Camano Island.  From the wharf, they were just specks on the horizon.

So here is a rare view of Race Week from the Coupeville wharf - without any boats!  Alas.

Susan Sketches the Locals at Coupeville Wharf

This seal skeleton can be found hanging out on the Coupeville Wharf ceiling.

Another local resident, Lisbeth Cort, was spotted at the Wharf in her native habitat.

Here are Susan Jensen's sketches from our day at Coupeville Wharf, both done in ink and pastels.

Whale Bones and Toby's

I arrived at Local Grown and was delighted to meet two sketchers that came from Anacortes, Missy and Aleli. I was hoping they'd join us. They're great fun and I hope we can rendezvous often for sketching adventures. Got in a sketch of William, the owner of Local Grown, pulling coffee. Then ventured out to the lobby to draw Rosie the whale. Bones are great fun to draw. So organic. We then went to Toby's for wine and fish and chips. Got in a few more sketches...

 

 

Bones and Brew in Coupeville

The historic Coupeville Wharf includes several wonderful breezeway displays as well as fascinating skeletons of Rosie the whale and a few other marine mammals hanging from the ceiling.  Here's a sketch of the bones of a sea lion - along with a sketch of one of our visiting Anacortes sketchers below.  It's kind of our own crazy little natural history museum right here in Coupeville!

After sketching at the wharf, a few of us popped into Toby's to toast our visiting sketchers and introduce them to Penn Cove mussels right out of the cove.

We're looking forward to a field trip to sketch with them on Fidalgo and sure hope they come back to Whidbey often.