Today I’d like to share some ideas for creative places you can sketch in your community. For those who reside in cities, you may have the incorrect notion that you’re at a disadvantage compared to country dwellers in finding suitable places to sketch. Nothing could be further from the truth! Here are some ideas for both rural, suburban and city dwellers.
Sketching locations around town:
- Rivers and their footbridges that might yield waterfowl, beaver, muskrat, otter or migrating salmon (we are lucky in Oregon to have seen all of these!)
- Natural history museums and college science departments, with their exhibits and dioramas, mineral and fossil collections, skeletal reconstructions, taxidermied animals and astronomical observatories.
- Aquariums, zoos, botanical gardens and arboretums (many of these have membership programs that give folks exclusive behind-the-scenes access and tours of their facilities).
- Schoolyards or college campuses.
- Community gardens (abundant flowers and vegetables in season).
- Farm, ranch or petting zoos (chickens, turkeys, goats, and cattle).
Christine and students sketching at Hope Zoo
- Public parks, golf courses and playgrounds (I especially love finding those that have life-sized sculptures of animals that I can use to practice my 3-dimensional drawing skills).
- Dog parks are a great place to sketch this common mammal in all its myriad shapes, sizes and behaviors! As a dog lover myself, I’m lucky to live in Bend, Oregon where our town is consistently voted as one of the dog-friendliest in the nation!
- Pet stores, where (with permission), you could sketch the fish, birds, reptiles, and amphibians on display.
- Cemeteries (especially historical one) can be great places to find solitude and wildlife to draw (even if it’s just the many species of moss and lichens that populate old gravestones.)
- Farmer’s markets (you might even want to purchase some unique heirloom varieties of fruits and vegetables to sketch when you return home!)
- Fresh seafood markets on the coast.
- City dumps can be surprisingly productive places to sketch, with myriad circling gulls and crows.
- City sewage ponds; yes, some are quite lovely! A great example is the Arcata Wastewater Treatment Plant and Wildlife Sanctuary in California, where I attended graduate school. It was designed to allow wetlands to filter the waste naturally and double as valuable migratory bird habitat. In Bend, where I live now, similar ponds support a variety of waterfowl, yellow-headed blackbirds. We even had the first-ever sighting of a White Wagtail; a bird species native to Eurasia!
- Roof-top gardens and atriums of city skyscrapers.
- County Fairgrounds. I was blessed to grow up in a county whose fairgrounds were voted the state’s “most beautiful” being set in a shady grove of ponderosa pine trees. So I may be biased towards this sketching location for I know many fairs nowadays are nothing more than a paved parking lot with circus rides, cotton candy and hotdogs. But some fairs, like my own, have natural landscaping and events throughout the year that provides great opportunities to view plants and animals up close.
- Seaside and lakeside wharves (think sea lions, gulls, and catch of the day reeled in by fisherman or on display at a dockside market.) My favorite thing to sketch at oceanfront wharves is actually underwater, growing on the pilings, such as small crabs, anemones, and other invertebrates. I’ve often collected a few to put in a little tray for closer observation (returned quickly before the water gets too warm for them.)
Events and Clubs:
Another rich source of sketching inspiration can be found at events that give you public access to otherwise private spaces such as garden tours of residences, or artist’s open studios. Annual events such as flower shows, gem, and mineral shows, and dog/cat/horse shows are also an entertaining source of subject matter.
You might consider joining an outdoor club that has field trips. For example, here in Oregon, I belong to the local Audubon Society, Sierra Club and mycological group that has field trips to view and pick wild mushrooms like morels, yum!
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