Free Subway Tours and Sketching

Hey everybody - it has been a long time since my last post. Summer is going well. There are tons of things to do this weekend with Independence Day and all. One of the hidden tours in Cleveland that not many people have heard of is the free subway tour of the Detroit Superior Bridge.

Three times a year the Cuyahoga County Engineers open up the lower level of the Detroit Superior Bridge to the public. This used to be the place that street cars would use to travel across the river, while traffic passed overhead. This space offers some of the most unique views of the city and is a great environment to draw in....tell your friends and bring them down this Saturday for a great time.

IMPORTANT: This Saturday (July 5th), we will be changing our meeting location for the sketch crawl to take advantage of this free tour. We will meet at the Northeast Corner of W.25th and Detoit Rd., at the west end of the bridge. We will meet at the funky public art installment right at the corner of 25th and Detroit. We will not be meeting at the Arcade like we normally do.

We will start our Sketch Crawl at the same time....10am and end at 12noon. If you arrive late and we have left the corner of W.25th and Detroit, we will be at the center of the lower level (over the metal mesh) at 11am. That way you can reconnect with the group. Feel free to stay as long as you like. The lower level of the bridge is open until 3pm.

If you have any questions...feel free to call 216-736-7799 and ask for Josh Taylor

For more information on the tours, check out this site
Detroit Superior Bridge and Subway Tour

World Drawing Day

June 7th is World Drawing Day! This is the perfect opportunity for our Sketch Crawl to be part of a larger event. If you attend the Sketch Crawl, or even if you do not attend the Sketch Crawl...upload your sketches to be part of this initiative.

Locally, we are also working on an archiving project with the Cleveland Public Library. It is part of a project called Downtown Through the Public Eye. When you attend the Sketch Crawl...be sure to scan your drawings and then email them to jtaylor@dcacleveland.net. All Sketches will be archived at the Library's Downtown Branch. Once the archive grows to a certain size, the images will be part of a larger exhibit! This is an amazing project to be a part of and I hope you'll join in our effort!

June 7th Sketch Crawl

Hey everybody - the June Sketch Crawl is quickly approaching. Saturday, June 7th at 10am we'll be leaving from The Arcade (Between Euclid and Superior) and head towards the Gateway Sports complex.

We'll sketch our way past The "Q" and Progressive Field, and then head over to the Erie Street Cemetery across the street from Progressive Field. The cemetery houses some of the city's oldest graves and while it is in the center of the city...it isn't a well visited site. There are tons of great perspectives to draw there. After we are done sketching, we'll stroll on over to Bricco, the new restaurant in Playhouse Square for a bite to eat, so bring your money and spend some time afterwards sharing your drawings and getting to know fellow artists! http://www.briccocleveland.com/

Cleveland Sketch Crawl

Whew...summer is finally here. Of course, now that i say that...the weather will turn chilly and a slight frost will be in the air, but hey....that is life on the Great Lakes. I was just sitting next to a young guy from the UP of Michigan and he said they still have snow on the ground! Nothing like hearing that to make you appreciate what we have here.

Our next get together will be this coming Satuday, May 3rd. We'll be meeting as usual in the Arcade and then we'll be off to our location for the day. We will be crawling through the Malls towards the Lake, stopping at the Cleveland Convention Center and working our way towards the Rock Hall. This Saturday is the Diversity Walk and there will be thousands at the Rock Hall for the walk and 5k. Instead of just sketching environments, this will give us some different subject matter.

The weather does call for rain, but we'll wait and see. We'll have a good mix indoor and outdoor locations to draw in just incase. Hope to see you all there.

Cleveland's Crystal Palace

Below are some of the images from our last Sketch Crawl. Sorry to everybody for the delay in getting these posted! I've been in the midst of battling computer issues here at work. But I won't bore you with my technological issues.

Take a look at the great images of the Arcade below! This was a great day for sketching. There was an Obama ralley at the Convention Center and a good deal of pedestrian traffic was moving through the Arcade.

Sketching America's First indoor mall

This coming March 1st. We will be sketching one of Cleveland's most treasured landmarks, the Arcade. As usual, we will be meeting in the Arcade at 10am. Since we won't be leaving the building, don't worry if you are late. Once you arrive you'll see sketchers everywhere. To find out more about the Arcade, check out this link: Arcade history

Starting this month, we have a great partnership with the Public Library. They have agreed to let us use their scanners for people to make an electronic copy of their sketch. The Library will keep a record of each sketch as part of the Downtown Cleveland Alliance and Cleveland Public Library's "Downtown through the Public Eye" collection! So, stay a bit longer and record your art!

Crawling "quietly" through the Library

This past Saturday we crawled through the Cleveland Public Library. We started off by heading through the Special Collections room of the Old Building (where we all received an excellent self-guided tour book of the library complex. I highly recommend picking up a copy at the Library gift shop). That room really is an amazing place...Not many people know this but the Library has the largest chess collection in the world. The collection consists of dozens of chess sets on display, but also includes chess literature and other items (some on display, but most in storage). In addition, they have a number of interesting displays to take a look at.

The views inside the building and the views of Cleveland from the library are incredible to draw or photograph.

I focused my efforts on Brett hall...the main Reference Hall of the Library Hall on the first floor. This room is really stunning. The consensus was that we should definitely return to the Library for another crawl...i agree...there are so many unique perspectives and so much to explore. While i was talking with one of the Librarians, i discovered that the Map Collections room just purchased a brand new large format scanner that allows them to make to-scale copies of old maps. I can't wait to see which maps they are able to enlarge - what a great gift for someone!

After the crawl, i stayed later to do some browsing of their Plain Dealer collection. The Library has the Plain Dealer on file from 1850's to present! So i took out some microfilm from 1901 and browsed for some "current" events. Maybe i'm a nerd, but...that is really awesome that you can just waltz into the library and take a look at those old papers (the system is even set up so that you can take a scan of the paper you are looking at and then email it to yourself!).

Next Crawl: We'll be staying in the Arcade next month. We've been starting in the arcade...then traveling around the city every month. We should spend some more time in our amazing starting location! If the weather is nice, we'll also sketch the construction process on Euclid (even though construction sucks....i think that it is an amazing environment to draw in).