Sketching the Somerset House

On July 28, the Ottawa urban sketchers chose the historic Somerset House for our outing. (https://www.facebook.com/events/1762033807409046/)

Ottawa Urban Sketchers chose this location because the City of Ottawa recently approved to have Somerset House partially demolished.

This great building has, since 2007, suffered from what Heritage Ottawa calls "demolition by neglect".

The building was built in 1896 to House the Crosby Brothers Dry Good store. If you are interested in reading the entire history of the building (including the mystery behind the missing Turret) visit the link at urbsite by Robert Smythe here: http://urbsite.blogspot.ca/2012/10/the-haunted-hotel-somerset-ritz.html

At this link you will also find a magnificent 1973 ink sketch of "The Ritz" (one of Somerset House's previous monikers) by well known Ottawa artist Arthur II.

Visit link above to urbsite article by Robert Smythe

There were lots of NEW faces to the Ottawa urban sketching group - we LOVE that! And plenty of wonderful familiar faces.

The evening light on Somerset House

The evening light was just starting to hit the western facade and the sketchers located themselves along Bank and started sketching.

5 sketchers sketching from the Second Cup location

 Bank and Somerset is an incredibly busy intersection in the evening! (All the more reason to be sad about this lovely building sitting empty since 2007) Because of the busyness of the pedestrian and vehicular traffic, sketchers looked for alcoves and walls to tuck into to sketch.

Three more sketchers in front of the former "Hartmans"

Sketch by artist/urban sketcher Trish Woolaver

My first sketch of the night.

Unfinished detail sketch by artist Laurie Foster

The sketchers moved over to Gabriel Pizza to share their sketches and talk about some future sketching venues. A great night was had by all!

My last sketch of the evening from Gabriel Pizza