After the sketch crawl in Tacoma, we headed to Seattle for the rest of the weekend.

Dinner at Wild Ginger was followed by a visit to The Triple Door's Musicquarium to hear the roots/blues sound of the JD Hobson Band.





So much fun! We really should catch live music acts more often.

The next day, M. surprised me with a rowboat ride at the Center for Wooden Boats on South Lake Union. I drew Gasworks Park and one of the bridges as he rowed me around, dodging the fast-landing seaplanes all around.

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!