I decided to start a series of urban sketches highlighting neighborhoods in my hometown of San Francisco and I decided to start in a park of many firsts.

Portsmouth Square is the oldest park in San Francisco and was originally called Plaza de Yerba Buena or simply La Plaza in the pre-statehood days. This was the epicenter of the town and it was here where the first public school was built in 1847. A year before the discovery of gold in Coloma in January 1848.

It was also here that the first American flag was raised.

This seemed like a location worth sketching and the anchor of the spread and my reason for the visit was the monument to the first public school in the Golden State. And as a public educator, and as a student of California’s public schools, I should pay my homage and sketch it.

Also in Portsmouth Square is another statue that I added to my spread. It is titled “Goddess of Democracy”.

This is a smaller replica of a statue erected by activist-artists in Tianamen Square in 1989. The Portsmouth statue was created by Thomas Marsh and dedicated in 1994.

The Goddess of Democracy.

There are two other Santa Rosa Shadow of a Doubt filming locations I wanted to visit and sketch.

The first was a ten minute walk from the Railroad Depot under Highway 101 into downtown.

My destination was Old Courthouse Square. And my subject was the 1908 Beaux-arts building crowned with an iconic clock tower. This is the historic Empire Building on the western side of the square. I had previously mistaken the building for the old courthouse which was damaged by the 1906 Earthquake and later torn down.

The Empire, then a Bank of America, is prominently featured in the background of the film during scenes with Charlie, or the two Charlies, walking in downtown Santa Rosa.

There is one other house I wanted to visit again in Santa Rosa on a quiet residential street that was used as the Newton’s house where Uncle Charlie stays during his visit.

The Italianate-style house at 904 McDonald Avenue was built in 1872. The beautiful house’s exterior was used as the Newton Family home where much of the story takes place (interiors and a few exteriors were shot on a soundstage). The setting underscores that evil can enter a place you think is safe and secure: your own home.

I wanted to do a field sketch of the house but there was construction work in progress across the street and I didn’t want to disturb the current residents by camping out in front of the house with a sketchbook, so I took some reference photos and sketches from those. Yes I broke the Urban Sketcher’s creed, oh well.

Spending time eight miles north of Bodega Bay meant that I could explore and sketch subjects off the beaten path (Highway One). I had been to BB many times but I had never heard of the Children’s Bell Tower. Being an educator I wanted to learn more about it.

The tower has a very interesting and tragic genesis that starts in Messina, Italy. It was here in 1994 that seven year old Nicolas Green and his family were vacationing in Italy.

Local Mafia mistakenly thought his parents were jewelers and followed the family’s car. They fired shots into the back of the car, a bullet hitting Nicolas in the head.

He was rushed to a hospital and he died the next day on October 1st.

The family donated his organs to help other Italian children. In the aftermath organ donations went up in Italy and many lives were saved.

In the Green’s hometown of Bodega Bay, a monument was erected for their slain son.

A bell tower was constructed near the Community Center. The tower consists of 140 bells that were donated from churches, schools, families, and individuals all over Italy. One bell was donated by the Martinelli Foundry, they have been making bells for the Catholic Church for 1,000 years. This bell was blessed by Pope John Paul II and it crowns the tower.

I walked out to the tower and started to sketch. Let’s just say it was complicated. For my first sketch I used a loose style with solid lines with a brush pen (featured sketch). I think I captured something about the tower but I wanted another crack at the tower so I returned the following morning after breakfast at the Tides.

The views from the panoramic windows as outstanding and the drama of wildlife beats anything on television. A roosting flock of marbled godwits and willet were sent into the air my marauding peregrine.

I returned to the Bell Tower, warmed by the fall sun. A breeze off the Bay sounded the bells on the tower as I sketched.

One sketching destination in Bodega Bay I planned to visit was Hole in the Head. The head being Bodega Head.

When you visit the Hole today it is a serene pond with gulls bathing, sparrows singing from the trees, turkey vultures rocking in the overhead currents, and reeds gently blowing in the wind. But the 160 foot hole has a complicated past.

Pacific Gas & Electric (PG &E) planned to build the first commercially viable nuclear power plant in the United States. And the site they chose for this new source of energy was Bodega Head.

In the late 1950s Bodega Bay was a fishing port surrounded by farms and grazing land. It was far from the tourist destination it is today and still a few years off from the film that put the area on the map: Hitchcock’s The Birds (1963).

After obtaining permits, PG & E started construction on the power plant by digging a 160 foot hole for the foundation. Local resistance to the nuclear plant started in 1958. This also coincided with a growing understanding of plate tectonics and earthquakes.

The plant’s location was two miles from the active San Andreas Fault. The fault that slipped on the early morning of April 18, 1906 creating the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake. They also discovered minor faults directly underneath the planned plant site. This combined with the protest (dubbed the “birth of the anti-nuclear movement”) put a halt to plans and construction ended in 1964 with a very deep hole in Bodega Head.

Overtime, rainwater filed in the deep pit and it took on the appearance of a placid pond. There is a boardwalk that takes you to the edge of the pond and a fence that prevents any swimmers. Hole in the Head is no kiddie pool, it is all deep end.

I walked out to the boardwalk and sketched the view of the historic non-nuclear power plant that launched a movement.

This year we have the week off for Thanksgiving and the north coast is calling.

After looking into many options I settled on a pad with a sunroom with amazing views on the Sonoma Coast between Bodega Bay and Jenner (the end of the Russian River).

This would give me the time to slow down and sketch an area which I had mainly driven through. Now I would put boots to dirt and sketch history, nature, and amazing coastal views.

That’s if my knee didn’t feel better. I’m at the age where I wake up with a new pain. First it was the left elbow and now the right. I woke up Saturday with pain in my left knee. How this happened I do not know. Perhaps I shouldn’t have played soccer with my students on Free Friday. Was it the left footed shot from the left wing? Yes I scored! Was it almost worth scoring against nine year olds? Maybe.

I made four pre-trip sketches, some are included in this post.

To help visualize the path of the San Andreas Fault through the land I would be traveling, I sketched it out on a map. At the bottom I drew from a famous photo of a train put on its side by the San Francisco Earthquake. It was taken about 30 miles away from the epicenter, near San Francisco, in the town of Point Reyes Station.

On Veteran’s Day I headed out to Point Reyes and the Estero Trailhead. My destination: Drake’s Head.

About ten years previously I headed out with this headland as my destination but was halting by a mad cow across the trail so I reversed course.

I hit the trail from the parking lot at 8:20, and I hoped no cows would be blocking my path.

I made it to the wooden bridge at the edge of Home Bay by 8:47, yes I was noting times as I reached certain landmarks. I looked into the tidal waters below for bat rays and leopard sharks, no dice.

After the wooden bridge the Estero Trail started to climb and I had great views of Home Bay and the cormorants, buffleheads, and pelicans on the waters. Near shore was a family of three river otters terrorizing, as they do, the local wildlife.

The Estero trail rose and fell over the curvaceous shoreline until I reached the junction of the Estero and the Sunset Beach Trail (at 9:30).

Here I took a left turn over the open country that is also grazing land.

There was a lack of bovine in the open pasture and the occasional dried out cow pie and the empty old cattle trough were the only reminders that cows had used this land for grazing. So it looked like I would finally make it to Drake’s Head.

It felt good to be in the open plains, with the wind in my ears, stirring up meadowlarks underfoot and watching a harrier with it’s kestrel escort. On the low ridge was a buck that I almost took for an elk.

As I neared the headland, I approached a small grove of eucalyptus trees with a very vocal red-tailed hawk. This call is used liberally in movies and nature documentaries and is very recognizable (whether the raptor featured is red-tail or not). Buteo jamaicensis is very quiet for most of the year, especially out of the breeding season. Why this hawk was so vocal was a mystery. One of those mysteries that keeps me hiking out to explore nature.

I summited the low headland with the Limatour Split in front of me and the entrance to Drake’s Estero and beyond, Chimney Rock.

I found a sandy hollow sketching perch at the edge of the headland and pulled out my panoramic sketchbook to capture the incredible view, fully realizing that my sketch could never truly capture the beauty of what was before me.

After my sketch and a snack I returned back on the Drake’s Head Trail and this time the nature really began to show. On a ridge was a group of four bull elk.

Along the hike I had seen kestrels, harriers, an osprey, and a red-tailed hawk. Now it was time for a First of Season (FOS) raptor, a wintering king raptor. A buteo or broad-wing hawk. I first saw a soaring hawk appearing from my left. This raptor looked a little different than your resident red-tail.

This was Buteo regalis, the ferruginous hawk. This was a harbinger of winter. A raptor that spends its time hunting in the wide open spaces, south of its breeding range.