International Sketch-crawl #34 Washington DC

studies of the various gourd hats

We went to the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery and American Art Galleries for our day of sketching. 14 Artists showed up and met in the great atrium where a lovely crowd was gathered for a veggie event that included the Indigenous Gourd Orchestra from the Richmond Virginia area. They proudly proclaimed that they grew and made all their gourd instruments. We set down to sketch them when they began to play. All the members of the orchestra had hats fashioned from gourds too! What a great bunch of music men they were and they had us all rocking to their tunes.

moving targets: the music was a lot of fun, drawing the music men was too  

Washington DC sketch crawlers showing their sketches to the camera woman 

Then we before we went upstairs to draw in the great Lincoln hall we posed for a group photo or two. The gourd guys came rushing over and wanted to get photos too since they noticed we were making sketches of them during their concert.  I guess they wanted to see what we were drawing before we vanished into the museum.

sketching with pencil for a change

this is where Lincoln's 2nd Inaugural Ball was held in 1865

artists sketching while enjoying the Naguchi seating 

From there the group went upstairs and drew in the great hall. Then to lunch and back for a little more sketching. Where I soon found I was running out of energy to draw and not feeling very good about my results decided it was time to head home on metro before it got dark and cold.

second floor sketch of hall where the "Puritan" bronze statue stands on a marble pedestal