When I found out that this year's annual West Coast Sketch Crawl would be in Tacoma, Washington, over my birthday weekend, I thought, hey -- what a great excuse to go to Seattle! Well, turns out Tacoma is a great place to explore and sketch in its own right.



There are picturesque buildings and sparkling marinas framed by the deep greens of the Pacific Northwest's conifers.



The Museum of Glass has a hot shop where you can watch the glassblowers in action. I enjoyed listening to the narrator talk about how the teams worked together to create a piece.



The city is home to UW Tacoma...



...and the fantastic Tinkertopia, a "creative reuse" shop that sells all kinds of odds and ends perfect for upcycling into artwork -- wallpaper samples, acrylic offcuts, paint chips, you name it. I rummaged through a bin full of colored pencils and snapped up several vintage Berol Prismacolors for a song.



Of course, I couldn't leave Tacoma without sketching the iconic Union Station rotunda/courthouse.



Thanks Urban Sketchers Tacoma for organizing this year's crawl and introducing me to your wonderful city!