Tuesday, February 18, 2025

Single-Panel Comics

1/31/25 Cloud City Coffee

When making small, quick sketches on my walks, I often think of them as single-panel comics. They don’t usually have much story to tell, but I try to tell as much story as possible in one frame. The one at right seems to be the most successful as a single-panel story: I couldn’t draw much less to convey the story, but I don’t have to draw more, either.

2/3/25 Maple Leaf neighborhood
When I think of them as comics, I also become more aware of the frame – whether it’s needed or not. Almost always, I think a frame helps to give the story and composition a place in space. The garbage trucks (below) were gesture sketches that I was able to get only because I was chasing them down the street and around corners (with thawing slush still on the sidewalks! Treacherous footwork!). I didn’t have time to frame them or even think about the compositions, and the result is less finished. (My handwriting shows how cold my hands were, even with fingerless gloves on.)

2/7/25 chasing trash trucks in Maple Leaf



The overall story of this post is how unhappy I am with the bright turquoise Field Notes I’ve been using. Although I love the hue, it’s just a bit too pale as a midtone to make white pop. The smooth surface is great for ink (although some inks are bleeding through), but I sure miss
Uglybooks ideal tooth with colored pencil. At this point, I’m just trying to burn through pages quickly and skip the back sides of pages where ink bled through. I can’t wait to get back to a beloved Uglybook.

2/9/25 Green Lake (Every medium I used was fighting me!)

2/12/25 Roosevelt neighborhood

2/12/25 Two peaks on one walk

One more story from a walk that happened too fast to sketch, even for me: I spotted a coyote! I keep hearing about coyote sightings in my neighborhood, but I had never seen one with my own eyes until this one. I know pet and chicken owners see coyotes as their enemy, but I sympathize with these wild carnivores. They’re just trying to make a living like the rest of us. One reason they are coming into urban areas is that humans have encroached on areas that used to be their habitat. What a beauty.


Monday, February 17, 2025

Too Fast

 

When I couldn’t find a product, a Costco staff member offered to look it up in the system to see whether it was out of stock or was gone for good. Relishing a few minutes of sketchwaiting time, I pulled out my brush pen and Field Notes to catch folks pushing their carts toward the exit. But the helpful Costco guy was too fast for me, and I only got these two.

These quick gestures reminded me, though, that the One Week 100 People sketching challenge is just around the corner: March 3 – 7! Check out Marc Holmes’ blog for details if you’re interested in playing, and see my sketches from prior years. This will be my ninth consecutive year participating!

Sunday, February 16, 2025

Of Course, We Begin with Values


2/8/25 Faber-Castell Polychromos
(all sketches in Stillman & Birn Zeta sketchbook)

The first assignment in Sarah Bixler’s class was – surprise, surprise – an emphasis on values. Using only gray tones and black, we were to make four master copies of the image from the portrait shown at the end of the post. Sarah encouraged us not to worry about resemblance or even proportions. We were instructed to squint a lot, avoid details, avoid rendering with contour lines, and simply make large shapes of value contrasts. In addition, since most students were experienced painters but new to colored pencils as an art medium, the exercise was an opportunity to become familiar with the medium. (I may be unique among my classmates in that I have little painting experience but expertise in colored pencil geekery!)

2/9/25 Caran d'Ache Luminance

After having spent part of the first class discussing color and getting excited about colored pencils again, you can imagine how frustrating this exercise was for me (and probably all my classmates): We were all using freshly sharpened pencils, yet we were to avoid all detail – and color!

2/9/25 Prismacolor

Of course, I understood the purpose of such an exercise, so I soldiered on, and it was challenging as well as frustrating. To avoid rendering, I tried to shade loosely with my pencil held way up near the wrong end. Sarah equates this pencil method with painting with a palette knife instead of a brush. When doing the latter with oil or acrylics, you slather on paint, then scrape it off with the edge of the knife. Picky, little details are not possible – only large swaths of color. This is part of how we learn to think like a painter, regardless of actual medium. To make it more interesting for myself, I switched out the pencils.

2/10/25 Polychromos

Despite my grumbles, the exercise was low pressure because I wasn’t worried about whether my copies looked anything like the painting (what a mean grump I made this sweet girl into!).

You'd never guess from my studies that they were all from the same reference!

Saturday, February 15, 2025

Colored Pencils are Back!

 

2/10/25 Seven Market & Cafe, Ravenna neighborhood

My most recent play date with pals Roy and Mary Jean was fun (which it always is) as well as another media shake-up. While we’re indoors for the winter, I’ve been using our sketch gatherings to play with media that are hard for me to use in the field. Last time I used Caran d’Ache Neocolor II. Another time I tried Caran d’Ache Neopastels and Derwent Inktense Blocks. Last week, inspired by my reunion with colored pencils in Sarah Bixler’s class, I put together a palette of Caran d’Ache Luminance pencils based on the colors I’m using in class. Even if the pencils are different, I enjoy using the same limited palette so that I can get accustomed to how the hues work together.

Caran d'Ache Luminance pencils in Sarah Bixler's recommended palette 

We met at Seven Market and Café, a small, eclectic venue in the Ravenna neighborhood in a former old house. Offering provisions like wine, canned fish, stationery, and their own roasted coffees, not to mention excellent pastries, we laughed about how we could live there for a long time! The sketch at top of post looks down the aisle of working antique refrigerators and wine.

Of course, I always like to record the outing in my sketch journal, which is currently a limited edition Field Notes containing turquoise pages. I thought this notebook would be an acceptable, temporary break from Uglybooks, but I must say that the latter’s 80-pound paper has certainly spoiled me. This Field Notes contains 24-pound Astrobrite, and I love the color, but I’m getting bleed-through with some markers and brush pens, and the surface pills under rough Posca markers. Unexpectedly, I’m also feeling cramped by the standard Field Notes size (3 ½ -by-5 ½ inches). You wouldn’t think losing a quarter-to-half-inch in page size would make much difference, but it does. I’ll finish this one up, but I’m already looking forward to going right back to my beautiful Uglies.

Breakfast at Seven Market and lunch at Isarn Thai Soul Kitchen 

I’d been neglecting my round robin Seawhite of Brighton concertina, so I hastily made a sketch facing the storefront with a window view of a Chinese pinwheel palm. After sketching in the book we each had that day, we made another rotation in our round robin. We already have plans for our next group project after the concertinas are full!

Through the front window

A learning opportunity: After I took my “trophy shot” (below) of the colored pencil sketch to share on social media, I frowned at how wimpy the colors and especially the values were. I thought the sketch was done, but sometimes I don’t see how easily I could improve it until after I take a photo. Something about a flat, digital image enhances flaws – which is very helpful! I went home and layered the same colors over different areas and added more contrast overall (the finished sketch at top of post).

Wimpy colors and values
One last highlight: In addition to colored pencils, guess what else is back in action? My beloved Peg & Awl mini Sendak (one of them, anyway)! My commitment to a small everyday-carry bag has prevented me from using any of my Sendaks regularly, which makes me very sad. On our mixed-media play dates, though, I always bring a larger sketchbook and enough additional media that I need to use an auxiliary tote bag anyway, so I’m thrilled to have a purpose for a Sendak again!

Mini Sendak back in action! (Photobomb by Weather Bunny adorning the cover of my concertina's slipcase.)

Friday, February 14, 2025

Old-School Seattle Snow

 

2/6/25 Maple Leaf neighborhood, about 8:30 a.m.

As much as I can see without putting on boots.
The first good snow of the season is always a novelty in these parts. People post photos of their streets on Facebook, and a couple of inches will close schools. Unfortunately for kids, they don’t get a snow day – they have to attend class online. (Pandemic preparedness sure ruined snow days!) With temps above freezing, the wet, heavy snowfall last week was pretty first thing in the morning when I sketched this but soon turned into a slushy mess. This is old-school, Seattle-style snow – not that newfangled climate change stuff we got several years ago.

It was trash day, and everyone optimistically put their bins out the previous night. Unfortunately, all the pickups were delayed all over the city. I didn’t care about that; I was just grateful I didn’t lose power as many areas did.

Technical note: How I’ve missed graphite and all pencils! The markers I’ve been using for the better part of a year have been fun and expeditious (and just right for the comics approach I’ve been focused on), but making this sketch with a Blackwing made my heart soar in a way that using markers never will!

The day before the solid snowfall, we got an inch of "teaser" snow that
was gone by noon. During my afternoon walk when the snow was starting
again, I spotted this quintessential Seattle snowman!

Thursday, February 13, 2025

To-Go is the New For-Here

 

2/5/25 Cloud City Coffee

One unfortunate outcome of the pandemic is that after cafes were allowed to serve food and beverages with reusables again, many decided to stay with disposables. I’m sure that using takeout boxes and paper cups is easier than washing and managing breakable plates and ceramic mugs, so I understand that decision from the often-understaffed café business perspective. But when I intend to stay in a café to sketch, I miss feeling like I am “here.” Even if I say “for here,” I often receive my refreshments as if I am “going.”

Like some regulars who come to Cloud City Coffee, I could bring my own mug to avoid a disposable cup, and I always used to do that when I drove to most cafes. That would make me feel better from an environmental perspective. I guess I should just do that again, but now I always try to walk to my coffee breaks (that’s one way I justify having a pastry), and I don’t like carrying a cup while I walk. Moreover, using my own cup wouldn’t address my personal issue of wanting to feel like I’m “here” and not “going.”

Sigh. Yet another first-world problem (or maybe it’s just my existential one).

Wednesday, February 12, 2025

Lunch at PCC

 

2/4/25 PCC Green Lake cafe 

After standing on the sidewalk for five very cold minutes to sketch the tree that was no longer there, I was relieved to warm up inside PCC Green Lake’s café to sketch and have lunch with Natalie. While I devoured a burrito too quickly to sketch, I noticed a man wearing a fantastic hat. He was still there when I finished eating, so I got him just in time before he left.

My other favorite sketch in this page spread is the man at lower left (he may look like he’s sketching, but I think he was working on a newspaper crossword puzzle). For a while now, I’ve been deliberately trying to draw less than what I see: Make as few marks as possible while still conveying the story (I talk about it briefly in this post from last year and more recently in this one). I could see that he didn’t have hair, but I didn’t have to draw that bald pate for you to imagine it, right?

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