Hamilton Viewpoint Panorama



8/30/13 Platinum Carbon ink, watercolor, Zig marker, Moleskine Japanese-style accordion-folded
watercolor sketchbook. (Click to enlarge.)

One of the many sketchbooks I received from sponsors at the Barcelona Urban Sketching Symposium was a Moleskine accordion-folded (Japanese style) sketchbook containing watercolor paper. The paper is the same as Moleskine’s landscape-format watercolor book. It must be a custom edition that was produced just for the symposium, because as far as I know, Moleskine doesn’t sell this style of book. Although I’ve seen Moleskine’s Japanese-style sketchbook, it contains the usual waxy-surface, yellowish paper, not watercolor paper as this one does. (Of course, the coolest things about it are the Urban Sketchers logo and “I’m an urban sketcher in Barcelona” silkscreened on the cover!).

 

When I saw that the book folds out into a single, 23-panel page, I knew I wanted to use it for a panoramic landscape sketch. In the past when I’ve done skyline panoramas, I’ve used a landscape-format sketchbook to capture as much as I could in a double-page spread. But even with that format at Jack Block Park, I got only from the Smith Tower to Queen Anne Hill.

 

Photo by Greg Mullin

 

I finally got an opportunity to give the Moleskine book a try yesterday at West Seattle’s Hamilton Viewpoint.  Since I’m left-handed, I turned the book upside-down and started sketching from the right side of the view (again at the Smith Tower) and continued in the northerly direction until I couldn’t see any further. This time I got all the way over to Magnolia, filling seven panels (the green masses at the sketch’s bottom are trees that were partially blocking the water view).

 

It was easy to fold over each panel as I sketched, but to paint, I had to lay the panels out flat. Fortunately, there was a bench nearby that I could work on. Unfortunately, the bench faced the view, so I had to keep turning around to look at the skyline as I painted.

 

The paper is heavy enough that I can use both sides. I’m going to save this book for more of these pano landscape sketches. I wish Moleskine would sell it – I would definitely buy more if I could. (Shown below are the scanned panels. From top to bottom, they show the skyline from north to south.)