Lonsdale Quay

A familiar place for me - sometimes a bit too familiar to inspire sketching - but Lonsdale Quay is a great place for drawing on a blustery spring day of showers and sunny periods.  I hosted a meetup there on Saturday, and it was good to see old sketching friends, to be re-invigorated by their enthusiasm, and to appreciate the mix of locations outside, inside, and in sheltered places in-between.

The mosaic fountain is looking a little tired, drained during the below-zero months.  There were 7 people in the view, and all seven were wearing black baseball caps.

The guy who runs the fish shop loves fish - he was talking fish to various customers the whole time I was drawing.  He also very welcomingly brought out a stool for another sketcher to sit on and draw the red snappers.

The big yellow ship-building cranes - love 'em or hate 'em if you're a sketcher.  I always struggle trying to do a bunch of fine lines in yellow, so I kept them as small background elements.  I prefer the pilings with their witches' caps, and the big blue building where they ... do something nautical.

A Quay drawing from a scouting trip a few days before the meetup. I like those hidden spaces under wharves.  I suspect there are a lot of creepy-crawlies right under all the tourists' feet.

And one more on the wharf'ish theme - the loading dock at the Viterra grain terminal at the Vancouver end of the Second Narrows Bridge.  It's a favourite view, but no shelter for sketchers here.  I was out on a dock exposed to the cold wind on the ocean.  My fingers holding the sketchbook froze in place - I had to peel them off when I was done, and I could barely hold the handlebars to ride home.  I'm sure it made me stronger...