Musée Mécanique & Pier 39

Family time in SF at the Piers and Musée Mécanique! The museum hosts over 300 mechanical games including: music boxes, fortune tellers & love testers, and various mechanical games from the 20th century. They also have current video games, but who cares about that?

The puppets they have sure are creepy, but are very fun to draw. May do a little series of these guys. This is a page from my sketchbook done in graphite.

Detail of a miniature carnival model

Before there was Rock Em Sock Em Robots, there was Boxing Match...

Man vs Machine at the Arm Wrestler. Pay a quarter to test your might. You will most likely lose.

The Grotto, 8x12, watercolor on paper

Took many photos of the piers and used some as reference for little watercolor paintings. Here's a street scene that features  the Fishermen's Grotto. Below is  Ghirardelli square. Need to go back and take more photos and paint from life. There's just a completely different feeling about working in the middle of it all. 

Ghirardelli Square, 8x12, watercolor on paper

We also took a short bike-cab that took us from the piers to Ghirardelli, Lumbard, and through Little Italy. Our rider was very informative of the  cities history. I'd recommend  hopping on one of these even if you're not a tourist. I think it was $20 for 15 minutes. It's an interesting experience. We zoomed through pedestrians and cars. Didn't get hit once! They can take you to Chinatown and even to the Golden Gate Bridge.  

More to come! Will start posting an artwork of the day once a week. Haven't decided on which day. Maybe smack dab in the middle on wednesdays? Sounds like a plan.