airport sketching

SFO Touchstone (Under the Influence of Billy Collins)

Sitting in a gray swivel chair with gray skies above and the United Boeing 737 below at gate E8.

This was not the plane taking me to Houston nor that plane continuing on to Quito. This plane was heading off somewhere else.

I pull out my sketchbook and pens and start sketching in a continuous line, starting with the nose of the Boeing and reaching back to the tail then reaching out to the starboard wing and down below to the turbine engine and back to the front landing gear.

I have done this sketch many times before at different airports of different planes at different gates.

This is a touchstone sketch, one that I return to while killing time at an airport.

Perhaps it’s not really killing time but a meditation after the chaos of security lines and X-rays, of taking off your belt and hat only to put them on again.

Yes it is a meditation as time flies by (pun intended) and moves ever closer to 8:15, boarding time.

Airport sketch at Quito. UIO is a beautiful setting in the middle of the Andes.
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Airport Sketching: SFO to DCA

Having made it through TSA in 11 minutes on a Saturday morning, I found myself before Gate D9, an hour and a half before boarding. Being that I was in the back of the plane, in Boarded Group F (I’ll let you use your imagination as to what F stands for), I knew that I would be one of the last to board the Alaska Boeing 737.

So after getting some joe and a scone, I found an empty row and had breakfast.

Now it was time to get low tech in the form of my soft cover Stillman and Birn Beta Series sketchbook (No batteries required).

I found one of those nice swivel chairs and sketched the Alaska Airlines jet at gate D9. The Boeing 737 sat at the gate with a fuel hose attached to the bottom (always a good sign) and the crew loading luggage into it’s underbelly.

Our flight was on time and despite the demands to check bags from Boarding Groups E and F because the overhead bins were full.

I was able to waltz on the plane as a one bag backpacker, shouldering my Osprey Farpoint 40 and I found an empty bin right above my aisle seat in Rom 30 (at least I was close to the bathrooms!).

On the other half of my panoramic sketch I added my view from Row 30, Seat D.

A little time travel: the featured sketch is from Reagan National Airport (DCA), in Virginia, just across the Potomac from Washington D. C. This panoramic sketch is from my return journey to SFO.