Honestly I was a bit skeptical when the SF meetup group posted "Fort Funston National Park" as the next sketching location. A national park in SF is the last thing I would expect, given the population density and limited space. But...it turns out this tiny national park still managed to squeeze itself along the west coastline of the peninsula, and also offers quite a unique landscape. I really had no idea what to expect when I parked my car and walked towards where everyone else was. The grassy field drops down to a sheer cliff with patches of sand and grass all the way until the shoreline at the bottom. You could barely make out the people down there or the distant horizon.
Access to the beach is through the stairs (completely overrun by sand) in the middle of the painting. It really wasn't as scary as it looks once I got down there, but boy was uphill a battle trying to find traction in all the loose sand!
After sitting near the cliff finishing up my first painting, I nudged inland a little bit to focus on the resting hang-gliders. As I was about to put on the finishing touches though, I noticed from the corner of my eye, someone waving furiously at my direction and trying to mouth something. Through his body language, I could sort of grasp that he wanted me to move out of that location. Since there was another sketcher nearby who was still painting, I decided to finish this one up and then move out of the grass. But there were indeed orange cones behind where I was sitting, so I moved a few inches so that I'm behind them. Unfortunately a few minutes later, the same man walked up to me and started to voice anger that I still haven't cleared the area and that it's a hazard for landing gliders. A bit confused at this point, I explained that I though the orange cones are the boundaries, and since I'm now already out of the circled zone, where exactly is the forbidden area? The man quickly lost his patience, taking my questions as defiance to safety. After being thrown questions to the likes of "it's like drawing on the highway, will you draw on the highway?" merely because I asked why people walking through the area is okay but sitting is not okay, I quickly concluded the ineffective conversation and announced my intention to depart. As I was slowly packing up my stuff, another man walked up and apologized for the previous guy's attitude and this time politely explained why I couldn't stay where I was. However, at this stage the anger had really rubbed off on me and I just threw him an impatient "Yes! I AM packing!". (You see, anger and impatience are indeed the worst communication tools, even creating a domino effect on me)
The second person eventually came back again when I started doing the first panorama on my sketch book and explained that the hang gliders just weren't used to having sketchers in their territory, given that most people just walk through and walk downhill. Even though he was nice and considerate, there was still this uneasy feeling as I left the park. It is reminiscent of the various unfriendly encounters w/ authority I had when sketching in Japan (unfortunately most are confrontation from the start too...)
Looking across the parking lot, there's also a nice view of the TV tower in the distant.
