Kuruvunga Springs

Would you drink from a spring in the middle of Los Angeles? I did. It tasted fairly neutral, and I didn’t get sick. In fact, someone in the museum told my friend the water was reputed to be heal joint and muscle pain. Regardless, it was nice to drink water straight from the ground in the middle of a metropolis, with no ill-effects.

dracaena

I went to my first Urban Sketchers event in a year; we met at Kuruvunga Village Springs, which is only a 30 minute drive from home, but I’d somehow never heard of it before. This very large dragon tree caught my attention.

A couple of fun things happened when I arrived. First I saw a guy I worked with years ago, and his wife, and we had a nice catchup. He was just randomly visiting the springs that day, nothing to do with USK. Then, I overheard one of the other sketchers mention John Muir Laws, so I sidled over and told her about our new nature journal club. She was very interested and said she’ll come along. Yay!

on the way to the dentist

I dropped my car at the mechanic and walked to the dentist. On the way, I noticed these two people sitting back to back outside a coffee shop — I wonder if their morning would have gone differently if they’d sat face to face? I sketched them for ten minutes or so, until they went their separate ways.

Arriving at the dentist waiting room, I had just enough time to sketch the ubiquitous fake plant before I was called in.

I am not loving this new sketchbook. The cold pressed paper is much more textured than I’m used to. But rather than putting it back on the shelf, unused, I plan to fill it up quickly so I can move on to a preferred sketchbook sooner. It might be time to bring out little-used art tools and indulge in more experimentation and play.