Sketchcrawl Day: May 21, 2005

I'm so envious of those of you who can walk the streets of great cities and do your sketchcrawling! My city is about 100,000 people, in the desert of eastern Washington. Prior to the nation's need for plutonium, this place didnt' exist. Plutonium? It's a key ingredient for making nuclear bombs, and the plutonium produced here was a part of the Nagasaki bomb in 1945. Prior to the massive construction on the nuclear reactors needed to produce this stuff, there was nothing here but jack rabbits and an occasional rattlesnake. Our buildings are 1940's, remodels of 1940's, '50's, etc. No great architecture to sit and dream about, only grain elevators and modern day shopping malls.

Today I went looking for the great Sketchcrawl images: a grain elevator, a crane, a house built in the California style. Then I found it, the great equalizer of all equalizers; a place where no matter where one lives, one can enter this place and pretend to be anywhere! Starbucks.

My entries:

The Cable Bridge - This bridge is a replacement for the old "old" bridge that was two-lane, green and quite hazardous. The "old" bridge was torn down some 25 years ago and this modern bridge was erected. It's architectural style captures the eye and is visible for many miles around. Just beyond the bridge, on the right, you can see the grain elevator that is coming up in the next image.




The Grain Elevator - This old grain elevator has been here for many years. It sits just east of the Cable Bridge and is one of the many places where the tons of wheat produced in the Horse Heaven Hills is collected prior to being loaded on barges on the Columbia River just behind it in the picture and shipped all over the world.




Lampson Crane - Neil F. Lampson built cranes for the nuclear reactor construction back during the Cold War days when plutonium production was in full tilt. His cranes have been used around the globe and we see them each summer being used to lift hydroplanes into the river during the races. I messed up the boom on this one, but hey, it's my first crane, ok?




California Styled House - This house has caught my eye many times. The reason is that it doesn't fit in the regular architecture of housing here: it's too California with it's slate roof and off-white plaster siding. It being unusual is what caught my eye. Wish I'd paid more attention to the perspective leading from the front corner to the right side. Oh well, next time...




Starbucks - What can we say, I sketched these French people just below the Eiffel Tower in the Rue de Wishuwerehere. Pierre is talking with Fifi by the window, he wears the ever popular cowboy boots found in Paris.




Splayed Hair - This lady was sitting with her 3 sisters and parents. They were enjoying frappacino's as only those people in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco can. I enjoyed drawing her while the birds from 'Frisco Bay pelted my car.




Thanks for looking and I hope you not only learned some really exciting stuff about this part of the world, but also enjoyed your stay.