sketching the castro

San Francisco, CA: The worldwide sketchcrawl last Saturday took me to the Castro neighbourhood of San Francisco, and the first thing I did when I got out of the Muni at Harvey Milk Plaza was sketch a panorama of Castro Street, sloping down the Eureka Valley, with the magnificent Castro Theatre dominating the scenery. Click on the image for a larger version. It was a sunny morning, and remained sunny all day, but the wind really picked up later on. I do love sketching this colourful area.  

The SF sketchcrawlers met at Philz Coffee on 18th St. Right opposite is a row of old Victorian houses that were impossible for me not to sketch. I spent the best part of a couple of hours drawing these, doing all the inkwork and some of the colour on site, and finishing the rest of the colour at home. If it hadn’t been for the fact I wanted to draw other things and maybe go and eat something, I could have just continued down the whole row, sketching every single building.

The Castro is known as the gay capital of the city, with Castro Street
having a long historical connection to the LGBT community. Rainbow flags
adorn many lamp-posts and bars and shops, and tourists flock by to snap pictures of skimpy underpants in shop windows. 

Above is Allan, fellow sketcher from Davis, busy sketching the flower shop next to Philz Coffee. Behind him, a mix of urban sketchers sketching, coffee drinkers chatting and fliers taped to a pole offering massage and other services. On the right is Moby Dick’s, a local bar a bit further down 18th. You can see the belltower of Mission High School in the distance there. Below, a car I spotted on Castro Street.

And of course, at the end…

by Pete Scully