Saturday Afternoon Downtown

 Downtown Asheville on the last afternoon in May-- clouds looming in the east, but meanwhile fierce spring sun baking the sidewalks underfoot;  crowds meandering to a beer festival in Pack Square where lots of live music is also happening;  Jacob and I heading over to Eagle Street to find some good images at a construction site that F and I saw this week.  Here's a sketch of J peering through a slim gap between the chain-link construction fence and the brick wall of the adjacent building.  He's standing behind (and almost inside of) a potted palm that's been dragged there to form a kind of barricade between the construction site and the bar next door.

I found a spot where someone had removed the tarp that was blocking the view through most of the fence while J took off around the corner to try to find a better view.  I love the way this came out!  The workers have torn down several early 20th century brick buildings to make way for a new market building, but happily they've left some of the original walls standing.  I assume these will be incorporated into the new structure.  Drawing this felt like drawing rooflines outside our apartment window in Barcelona.  An interesting touch was that a bagpipe was playing in the background while I was drawing, probably connected to the Highland Brewing booth at the beer fest.  We aren't Beer City for nothing!

After a while I texted J and we met up around the corner.  He had climbed a fire escape and looked down and found what looked like an interesting photography gallery (Castell Photography); so we went to take a closer look.  Inside, along with the really good exhibition, there were old cameras and photography things.  I sketched this large format wooden camera while J tried out a  stereopticon,  We enjoyed the exhibit and recommend this gallery. Be sure to check out Jacob's blog to see his images from today.