Sunday in Pasadena

My cousin Carol Sue turned 75 this month (doesn't she look good?), and her daughter, Kirsten, came up with the idea for "the girls" (Kirsten's two sisters, her two best friends--who are like daughters to Cos as well--and me) to take her out to a fancy tea at the Langham Hotel in Pasadena. We did this once before with the family, for my mom's 65th, I believe it was, only then it was called the Huntington Sheraton. So the seven of us had reservations today at 1:30 for the Chocolate Tea, aka Tiffin at the Langham.

Coincidentally, one of the meet-up groups to which I belong was doing a two-part sort of sketch-crawl today, in which they started at Castle Green in Pasadena (click the link if you want to know more about that site), and moved on to Echo Park for a picnic lunch and more sketching later in the day. So I went early and did a sketch at Castle Green, and then proceeded to the Langham for tea with my cuz!

I joined a couple of meet-up groups in the hope of making some new artist-type friends, but I'm not sure how well this is going to work out. My impulse when going out to do plein air sketching is to find an aspect I like as quickly as possible, and then sit down to sketch. But the leader of this group wants us to thoroughly explore all our options before we start to work, which has meant that for the three meet-ups I have attended, we have spent 45 minutes (or more) wandering the site and about 45 minutes making art. I think I will probably go on my own in the future, so I can maximize my time, because I don't have so much of it that I can afford to dither!

Anyway, here is my sketch of Castle Green, which I did in pen on site and then added color once I got home after the tea. And also a few photos of tea at the Langham--quite decadent!

I didn't remember to take any reference photos while at the location, so I had to find something online to do the color--so the shadows are probably not correct. My perspective is terrible (my friend Bix taught me a trick about "elbows down, knees up," but I'm still not good at it), plus that weird entryway with the bridge to the main building is really hard to draw! But it was a fun exercise. And my reward was PASTRY!