Deeper into watercolor

  The morning began with a persistent rain.  It was steady enough to persuade the Plein Air Washington Artists, scheduled to paint at the Ballard Locks in Seattle, to call off today's event.      
  Spared of driving my 10-mpg. Chevy truck all that way north, I left it at the curb by the house.  I rode Pierce Transit to downtown Tacoma.  On Opera Alley, I found a sheltered

View across St. Helen's Avenue, Tacoma

doorway, out of the rain.   My kit is three REI hiker's tripods.  One is my stool.  The second holds my watercolor paper block.  The third, inverted, tucks into a 9x12-inch canvas frame to make a lightweight, serviceable table for my paints and water jars.  Everything is carried in a small knapsack and a tripod sack.
  For 90 minutes I played with brushes and watercolor washes.  When I wearied of trying to paint over washes that never seemed to dry, I packed my kit and hiked down the block to the B Sharp Coffee House.  This is my second home for the season--I worked upstairs at The Tacoma News Tribune from 1964 until Elbert Baker moved his presses up to the Allenmore District.  The coffee house is tucked into where the old presses rumbled.  The diamond-metal flooring for the metal-wheeled paper-roll trucks is still underfoot.

This was my lunch at B Sharp Coffee House

  Another attraction for me is the guitar performance of Michelle Beaudry.  She plays an amplified box guitar, light  jazz arrangements of tunes mostly from the '40s and '50s.  Michelle prowls second-hand shops looking for old sheet music.  If she doesn't keep these melodies alive, she said, who will?
  While listening to her musical magic, I painted my lunch.  Then I ate it.
  By the time I caught the bus in front of the old Elks Temple to come home, there was a cerulean blue sky almost everywhere.