Summer Sketching on Sunset Blvd.

...from Silver Lake to Hollywood...

Sitting in the shade of a flowery alcove outside The Casbah Cafe at Sunset Junction...with a view of the Boulevard and the hills above the Silver Lake neighborhood...

Traveling west on Sunset to East Hollywood, I returned to a favorite place to sketch...Barnsdall Park with its panoramic views in all directions of the city, and the Griffith Observatory...

...and some sketching in Hollywood...at Sunset and Vine--almost hidden from the street by the giant ficus is a bell signpost for El Camino Real.  The old "royal road" runs most of the length of California, and apparently this section of Sunset was part of it--the bell markers are part of the history of California which I love seeing!

... and just down the street is a modern piece of history, and a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural monument...the Cinerama Dome...

Waiting for Work...

On a very hot summer day, around the corner from the Home Depot in East Hollywood on Sunset Blvd...men wait for work in the shade of sheltering trees...

Traveling west on Sunset...

...from the Silver Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles, Sunset Blvd. takes you into East Hollywood...in the early days of Hollywood, this was the home of many film studios...now it's quite different...

The beautifully restored 1920's

Vista Theater stands at the intersection of Sunset

and Hollywood Blvd...a last bit of "old Hollywood", this was once the lot where D.W. Griffith built the famous "Babylon" set for his epic "Intolerance"...

Just north of Sunset is Barnsdall Art Park which sits on top of Olive Hill...with the municipal gallery and Frank Lloyd Wright's Hollyhock House, built for Aline Barnsdall.  My favorite thing about the park is the views out to the city in every direction!

A sliver of Sunset Blvd. and the city beyond seen through two Kaiser

Hospital buildings...and the Hollyhock House seen from Sunset, over hospital construction...

A local Capoeira group practices on the lawn at Barnsdall Park...

and a view of Barnsdall seen from Kaiser Hospital on a bright winter day...

Views of my favorite building in Los Angeles, the Griffith Observatory, seen from Olive Hill...