Tina’s Top 10 Memorable Sketches of 2021

 

2/27/21 6th & Westlake

One of my year-end rituals is to look back at the sketches I made and pick the 10 most memorable. Not necessarily the “best” or my “favorites,” they are sketches that stay with me for emotional significance or personal meaning. Not surprisingly, every one of the 10 this year somehow relates to the pandemic. Even when the subject was mundane (as it most often was), the emotional impact was not.

 

Feb. 27, Sixth and Westlake (above): My first sketch downtown in more than a year, this view of Westlake was right around the corner from the Amazon SuperVax site, where Greg was receiving his first Pfizer dose. After highly competitive and aggressive scheduling tactics, the shot itself felt triumphant. But more than that, we both felt immensely grateful that we were one step closer to being safer.

March 25, Toni (from photo, below): Although I have many friends and acquaintances who have been affected by COVID in some way, no one has touched me more deeply than Toni, my yoga instructor’s sister. I made this sketch from a video image that Fran took as Toni was transported from her hospital bed (where she had fought COVID for five harrowing months) to another facility where she was supposed to begin her long rehabilitation. We all believed she had beaten the odds. Days after the transfer, she succumbed to pneumonia – only one of nearly 800,000 dead so far in the US from COVID-19. Although I never knew her, Toni’s suffering and courage stay with me still.

3/25/21 Toni

April 5, Microsoft Conference Center vaccination site: I documented my own first dose of the Pfizer vaccine with mundane sketches of fellow jab recipients waiting out their mandatory 15 minutes. It was both amusing and poignant to see sketchers worldwide sharing similar sketches. 

4/5/21 Microsoft Conference Center vaccination site

April 26, my 407^th hand: Completing the drawing I began on April 5, I added a second hand in a gesture of gratitude, ending my series. Although the pandemic was far from over, receiving my second vaccine dose represented a measure of safety I hadn’t known in 407 days. 

4/26/21 The culmination of 407 consecutive days of drawing my hand

5/17/21 St. Edward State Park

6/13/21 Gas Works Park

May 17, St. Edward State Park (above): A new sketch location for me, St. Edward State Park is memorable in another way: It was the first time I had sketched with friends in more than a year.

June 13, Gas Works Park (above): For the first time in 15 months, Urban Sketchers Seattle was able to sketch together again. How I had missed everyone!

July 8, outdoor life drawing (below): Almost as much as urban sketching with my friends, I had missed life drawing. Joining an informal plein air group at Gas Works Park for an outdoor session felt like one more step toward a return to normalcy.

7/8/21 life drawing at Gas Works Park

Sept. 15, Ocean Shores cottage porch: This Washington Coast town is only a couple of hours away by car, but as our first “travel” in two years, it was an enormous treat. Several days on the beach rejuvenated our pandemic-weary souls.

9/15/21 Ocean Shores

Oct. 17, light rail rider: A sketch outing at Pike Place Market gave me the incentive to take my first ride on public transportation in 19 months.

Nov. 16, sashimi at Kisaku: One more milestone in our return to normalcy, we dined inside a restaurant for the first time in 21 months.

10/17/21 Sound Transit light rail, southbound

11/16/21 sashimi appetizer at Kisaku Sushi