Passing Time While Waiting

 Yesterday I took my car into the shop for new brakes.  I put it off for as long as I could, longer even.  I know, I'm a car guy, I should know better but I'll admit I'm very lazy and procrastinate when it comes to maintenance and repairs on my daily driver, good thing it's a car that's hard to kill.  

Fortunately I found a good shop not far from home and I can even set an appointment and have a brake job done while I wait. However, I was looking at a two hour wait.  I could have walked home, about 1/2 hour there and 1/2 hour back, kind of silly when the wait is two hours.  Luckily the Jordan River Parkway is just around the corner from the shop, so while my brake pads and rotors where being replaced I went for a walk with sketchbook and pens in hand.

The first sketch was a very detailed study of a bush.  Why?  I don't really know, I could see it from the bench I was sitting on and it had an interesting shape and I needed to pass some time.  I don't paint realistically but I still think there is value in doing a little study like this.

The second sketch was from the bank of the Jordan River and obviously not nearly as detailed, I was just trying to quickly get an overall impression of the scene, maybe to use as reference for a future painting.

I also took a few photos of course, here are two of them.

This photo isn't the river but rather a pond at the Kennecot Nature Center near Arrowhead Park.

This is the river at the Little Cottonwood Creek confluence. Notice a gaggle of geese are taking advantage of the little island in the middle. Unfortunately our skies are very hazy and gray right now because of smoke from all the wildfires in the west.

Well, it was a well spent two hours.  My car not stops without making odd noises and I got to spend a couple hours enjoying nature and spending quality time in my sketchbook.