Cozy and Cushy at Madison Centre

 

1/9/26 Smith Tower from Madison Centre

A new venue for USk Seattle, Madison Centre turned out to be one of our most comfy! Plenty of plush seating, floor-to-ceiling natural light, security people in sight but none concerned about what we were doing – it was an ideal winter location. And what’s to sketch there? Fantastic window views of some of downtown Seattle’s nicer buildings, a plant-covered wall, a double-sided fireplace, and an intriguing spiral staircase – just to name a few.

Library window washers

I started with a sketch of my beloved Smith Tower through a window frame and part of that staircase in the foreground. (Note the pink tower! A bold choice that I’m sure I would otherwise never have chosen were it not in my latest wacky palette!)

Mid-sketch, I turned around to get a sip of water from my bag, when I spotted window washers dangling from the very top of the Central Library across the street! Yikes, watching people work up high gives me the jitters, so this one was quick (at left).

When I had first checked out this location months ago for USk potential, the spiraling central staircase had caught my eye immediately. Toward the end of the outing, I finally screwed up my courage to take on a part of that spiral. It was a fun challenge to capture the matte sheen on the black steps in contrast with the shiny, metallic handrails (below).

Madison Centre's stairway

It was great to see a solid weekday turnout for Madison Centre, which will stay on our winter venue list!

Sorting Neocolor II Crayons by Values

 

My Neocolor II crayons sorted by value

My Caran d’Ache Neocolor II wacky palette needed a shake-up. For my previous experiments, my selection had been mostly random and arbitrary. Now that I have a better idea of the concept of coloring by values, I decided to be a bit more systematic (but still in keeping with the wacky principles that I think Germanier was using when I was inspired).

After first eliminating colors I knew I wouldn’t enjoy using in a wacky way (black, browns and grays – especially in the dead of winter!), I sorted the remaining crayons by my perception of dark, medium and light values based purely on the crayon tips (above). As we know from water-soluble pencils, the dry hue can be a far cry from the water-activated color, but it was a rough cut.

From there, I picked out a cool and a warm from each of the three value ranges (below). (Whoa, this is getting way too systematic for an exercise I’m calling “wacky”! But dang if I’m not a color geek, through and through!) Considering my previous palette, I avoided repeating the same hues within the same value. I made test swatches to confirm that their water-activated forms still fit in the value range I saw in the crayon tips.

The palette I selected: A warm and a cool within each value. Pink (081) could fit in the medium range as well as the light, but I'll see how it works as a light.

I have no yellow this time! In my previous palette, yellow had served me well as a light value because it automatically signaled natural light. I felt a little nervous about that, but as I said, I needed a shake-up.

What an unusual way to pick a palette! Does it work? I guess we’ll both find out!

Temporary storage solution after sorting

My Teeny-Tiny Sendak

 

The Sendak Nutshell -- just right for crayons!

I have a big one. I have a small one. And now I have a teeny-tiny one! Peg & Awl, one of my favorite sketch kit accessory makers, has come out with a scaled-down version of their ever-popular Sendak artist roll. Adorably called the Nutshell, it was exactly what I was looking for to solve my problem of carrying Caran d’Ache Neocolor II crayons on location.

Shorter than pencils, crayons are difficult to dig out of the Rickshaw Waldo case I’ve long used for pencils. I briefly tried putting a few crayons into one of my larger Sendaks, but that failed immediately. The slots are made for pens and pencils, and if a crayon got pushed in too deep within a slot, it was really difficult to get it out.

Last summer I used the bulkier Rickshaw Sinclair to carry crayons, which wasn’t ideal, either. While its padding did protect the somewhat fragile crayons, and the crayons could stand upright and accessible, I couldn’t really see the colors easily without pulling all of them out.

I kept thinking that eventually the right kind of case would appear – and then it did! The Sendak Nutshell’s slots are about 5 inches deep – too short for full-length pencils but just right for 4-inch crayons. And six slots are ideal for my wacky palette or any limited palette.

Of course, it doesn’t fit into my daily-carry, mini-size Rickshaw Zero Messenger Bag, so I still need an auxiliary tote bag, but I’m resigned to needing one for any sketch outing (other than fitness walks) anyway. It works best at cafés where I have a table to open it up, and it’s small enough that it doesn’t take up much space on the tabletop.

Small enough to easily spread open on a cafe table. Yeah, I broke the red one :-( ... not in the case but from my heavy-handed drawing!

I’m not sure how it’s going to work when I’m standing while sketching, but I’ll try propping it up inside my bag the same way I did with the Sinclair last summer. I’m looking forward to a day of drier, warmer weather when I can test that out. For now, I’m happy to continue sketching indoors with crayons, now that I have the teeny-tiny Sendak.

An adorable acorn on the strap!

My Sendak family: Papa, mama and their new offspring.

More Wacky Colors

 

12/31/25 Third Place Commons

Here are a couple more experiments using my wacky color palette. I’m diggin’ it!

I made the one above at Third Place Commons, where a few friends helped Natalie celebrate her birthday. The people I sketched were not part of our group; they happened to be sitting on the other end of the community table, and they were all sketching, too! In the background is the Honey Bear Bakery's mascot.

The one below is of Top Pot Doughnuts in Wedgwood. Most of the café space is filled with shelves containing old books, which form an interesting background pattern.

1/2/26 Top Pot Doughnuts, Wedgwood neighborhood

These values-based colors are fun to use in interior spaces. I haven’t tried using them outdoors, though – that will be next-level testing. Given all the rain and cold still ahead, though, it could be a while before I can get to that. In the meantime, I have more excuses to hang out in cafés.

Foggy First

 

1/1/26 Maple Leaf neighborhood

The new year awakened with a thick blanket of fog. It’s a common occurrence this time of year, as my Facebook “memories” have been showing me my foggy sketches from years past. The first one I make of the season always feels rusty – like I forgot how to use a graphite pencil (which, I admit, I hadn’t used in a while, since I used only colored pencils during Pencilvember).

For the animals I’ve been drawing with colored pencils lately, my general approach is to slam on the color as hard and fast as possible. Drawing fog with graphite, however, requires the opposite approach: Shading as lightly as possible while still being visible.

The Burke’s Irresistible Skeletons

 

1/4/26 Columbian mammoth, Burke Museum

I’ve sketched at the University of Washington’s Burke Museum many times, both at the old building and the current one, and I never seem to tire of the paleontology area. Who could resist the skeletons of huge creatures that have been extinct for literally eons? Apparently, no one: The prehistoric animal skeletons were by far the most-sketched artifacts at Sunday’s USk Seattle outing.

Although I’ve sketched the Columbian mammoth nearly every time I’ve visited the new building, it’s not necessarily because it’s my favorite (although it is one). Many of the smaller skeletons are backlit by the Burke’s floor-to-ceiling windows, which makes them harder to draw. I really wanted to use my black sketchbook that day, so I walked around to get the lighted side of its skull and amazingly enormous tusks (top of post).

Walking down to the lower-level entrance where the Burke’s mascot mastodon greets visitors (another favorite exhibit that I’ve sketched many times), I looked up at the Baird’s bearded whale skeleton hanging high above us all. I didn’t scale my sketch very well to accurately show how huge it is compared to Andika, who was sketching the mastodon on the floor below.

Baird's beaked whale's tail and Andika

In the time remaining before the throwdown, I needed something I could capture relatively quickly. From the stairway landing below the third floor, I looked up again, this time spotting the Elasmosaur replica hanging from the ceiling.

After the outing, I joined a few friends for lunch at nearby Café on the Ave. I was too hungry to sketch my food (which was a delicious salmon eggs Benedict made with a croissant instead of the traditional English muffin; regrettably, I didn’t even photograph it), but after I was full, I caught my friends.

Lunch at Cafe on the Ave

Treating Myself Like a Dog

 

12/31/25 Sketched from mirror

When I looked at my social media feeds on the last day of 2025, several friends had posted self-portraits. Then my own Facebook “memories” showed me selfies I had drawn on previous New Year’s Eves. How could I forego that tradition?

Since I’ve been training myself to sketch pet portraits more efficiently, I decided it was time to treat myself like a dog. I used exactly the same process as I did with every labradoodle, terrier and Chihuahua I sketched during Pencilvember: First I spent some time on the eyes with a bit of care, and then I shaded in the rest of the face and hair relatively quickly. I used a rainbow pencil for the early line work, then did the color with a few preselected Derwent Drawing pencils. I spent more than the 20 minutes I gave myself for pet portraits (alas, vanity is still a factor with selfies), but overall, it was less laborious than most self-portraits I’ve drawn.

I figure that if I have the courage to sketch (and share!) a self-portrait, I have everything I need to face whatever challenges the new year brings.