Getting my weekly building fixes

After a week in South Bay, it is always nice to visit SF and breathe a sigh of relief that tall buildings still exist. Really every corner in downtown SF can become an interesting sketch, unlike in the suburbs where it is just trees and cars and highways.

After I made the devastating mistake of forgetting to bring my palette and brush pen, I gave up on the idea of sketching crowds at the Ukulele jam and headed to Market Street for some quick building fixes. I still have tube paints in my bag, but I can't find any surface large enough to squeeze and mix paint on. In the end I had use the lid of my water jar as palette and only chose 3 colors because any more than that I won't have space to mix paint in.

The building with the unique roof on the left caught my attention. It is the Mutual Savings Bank Building (1902)

Honestly I'm surprised that I was able to churn out a decent sketch out of a lid, although it is mostly a tonal sketch lol. Also just as I was about to get to filling in the details of the cars, the traffic jam suddenly stopped and there was no more than 2 or 3 cars waiting on a red light. Needlessly to say it's not the first time that I'm unhappy because there's no traffic.

Escaping the southern heat, but went to the other extreme

Over the weekend, temperature in South Bay is projected to be close to 40 degrees. Given that I don't have the option of staying later in the office to escape the heat, and that sunset is very late in the evening, I was glad that the meetup for the week was taking place at Fort Point, one of the most windy places in SF!

The fort itself is situated right under the ramp of Golden Gate Bridge, right on the coastline. I've drew in and around this location for a few times already, but there's always some color variations every time I visit. The sea appeared especially green on this occasion. And since I arrived relatively early before noon, the further bridge pillar was casting a really interesting twisted shadow on the distant hill (probably because of the curved slopes) I also found myself a nice parking space facing the scenery, so I could spread out my supplies on my front windshield (no need to balance them on a pole anymore!) while I leaned against my car.

After completing this piece, I ventured on top of the roof of the fort. It was already freezing inside the structure (I assume the open top let all the captured heat escape) I had my drawing pad flip against my face at least twice while I was drawing. Even as we had a break between to share the sketches and chat in the sun outside, I cannot feel my fingers after finishing the two pieces. Only then did I come to appreciate the heat retained by my car under the sun.