It was almost exactly three years ago that the local UrbanSketchers group met at the Seattle Bouldering Project, a climbing gym that offers a range of classes to introduce beginners to the sport as well as help more experienced climbers develop techniques for strong and skilled climbing. Avoiding the cool, rainy weather, we met at the same indoor environment again this morning. It’s interesting to compare these two views. The one above was drawn today from a point a little further back and offers a little wider view than the sketch below, done in 2014. As always, trying to capture the climbers themselves was difficult because of their constant movement so all you might be able to see are their ghost images.

Following up on my previous post on Reuben’s Brewing, I visited Outlander Brewery and Pub just down the street here in the Fremont neighborhood of Seattle. This is a view of the tiny barroom in the century-old house that serves as a pub on the street level, with a brewery in the basement. Dragan Radulovic and Nigel Lassiter opened Outlander the same year as Reuben’s but unlike the medium size of Reuben’s, Outlander is a small-scale brewery that uses a 3.5 barrel system to produce experimental beers, usually specialty ales.

During the cold, often wet winter months, it’s not easy finding warm, dry places to draw. But if one likes well-crafted brews, then there is always the taproom of a local brewery to visit. This is Reuben’s Brews taproom in the Ballard neighborhood of Seattle. Adam and Grace Robbings started the medium-sized brewery in 2012 and named it after their son Reuben. Since its opening, Reuben’s has garnered numerous national and international awards for their wide variety of brews