Our September Sketchcrawl actually happened a week early so that we could visit the Alberta Railway Museum before it closed down for the fall. It was a lovely day for it and the train cars were very interesting, but my trip was plagued by disaster. I had wandered around some of the cars and settled down to sketching this antique smoking car when I realized that my water bottle had come undone and was leaking into my bag. Unfortunately my bag is water resistant and my camera was swimming in a small pool of water contained by the bag. I had to take immediate action.
I removed the camera and my soggy wallet and dumped the rest of the water outside. Then I had to slog back to my car, damp things in hand. I left my drawing stool and water bottle behind. I spread out all the wet things in my trunk to dry out, switched all the non-wet things to my backpack, and then went to the washroom to collect some paper towels so I could clean up the spill.
Then I lost the train I had been drawing in. I spent half an hour wandering in and out of all the cars trying to find my folding stool. There are four different sets of cars and I had not taken any special pains to remember which one I had exited because I assumed I would find my things when I got back.
So... the last train in the row of trains is longer than all the others and it runs behind a little warehouse. The end of it is some ways down the road. In my preoccupation I hadn't noted that I was passing the warehouse, so I was searching all the short trains, convinced that someone had taken my things.
Eventually I decided to backtrack more systematically and I discovered my mistake. Everything was exactly where I had left it, except the puddle of water which people had tracked all over the room. Sigh.
After that I didn't have a lot of time to sketch and my inks were shaky anyway. I gave up a bit early and after our group dispersed I went back on the rural roads, parked by a little church and had a calm couple of hours painting beside a duck pond.
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