A Return to the Zoo

 

8/18/25 tapir and rhino, Woodland Park Zoo (I got all the parts of the rhino but none assembled!)

I woke with a start: It was already mid-August, and I hadn’t yet been to Woodland Park Zoo! (In fact, at the admission desk when I renewed my membership, I learned that I hadn’t re-upped since 2023; the last time I visited had been exactly two years ago on Aug. 18. What a weird coincidence!)

Like the pets I showed yesterday, which were all done from photos, my mission at the zoo was to get more brush pen practice, this time with live animals. In the past, I’ve really enjoyed making animal gestures using watercolor pencils or graphite. The brush pen, though, is an ideal tool for making expedient gestures, and I think I love it even more than pencils for this purpose. The variable line strokes are perfect for fur and feathers.

Siamang and orangutans

Although I have many childhood memories of Woodland Park Zoo, some of my fondest are as an adult – my first few years as an urban sketcher. That first summer of 2012, I visited the zoo quite regularly, and that’s how I discovered how much I enjoy drawing live animals. It was great practice for sketching moving subjects and good training for sketching in public. As years went on, and my sketchbook and I began exploring more widely, I stopped going to the zoo as frequently, but every time I go, I’m reminded of those enjoyable early times.

Steller's sea eagle and Humboldt penguins

Beyond the fun of sketching animals, the zoo is a great place to walk, with lots of beautiful trees and landscaping. It’s an ideal way to combine my fitness walking with sketching. The zoo is back on my radar now; I hope to make more use of my membership before the wet weather sets in.

After my zoo visit, my plan was to walk to Fresh Flours for a pastry and coffee while I made a sketch journal entry. Before leaving the zoo, I made one last sketch of a penguin in the sketch journal so that I'd have sort of a segue to the bakery recorded in the journal. Then tragedy struck: Fresh Flours was completely sold out of pastries!

A New Look for Pets

8/16/25 (all sketches made with photo references)

Just a couple of weeks ago I had mentioned that I was thinking about ways to change up my pet portraiture style. At the time, I didn’t have a specific client or project in mind, but an opportunity to put a new style to work came up serendipitously. I’ll tell you about that soon, but here are some sketches I’ve been doing as practice for that opportunity.

My main M.O. for these sketches is that they have to be fast to execute – like less than five minutes each. I wanted them to fit on an A5-ish size page or sketchbook, so I practiced in an 8-by-5 inch Moleskine (the old kind with the weird, thick, smooth paper that evokes manila file folders; I don’t generally like this paper, but it’s great with ink). For both speed and expressiveness, I chose my favorite Pentel Pocket Brush Pen. Initially, my plan was to use only that, but since the black ink took less than five minutes, I pulled out a gray Faber-Castell Pitt Artist Pen with a brush tip to add a bit of shading. The shading isn’t essential, but it does define the forms of the heads better than the brush pen alone.

My goal with these is to capture the animal’s essence without necessarily being an accurate resemblance (which I do try to achieve when I make more finished colored pencil drawings for commissions). Although I want to continue practicing proportions so that I can be reasonably accurate without making measurements, I’m pleased with the fresh, comic-y look of these sketches.

(All of these were made with reference photos that I had used previously during the past couple of years for commissioned colored pencil portraits.)

Jason’s House

 

8/14/25 Los Angeles (photo reference)

When I visited my nephew Jason at his newish home in L.A. last April, I took photos with the intention of drawing the house as a gift. A beautiful Hacienda style house with classic white stucco walls and red clay roof tiles, it’s quintessential in southern California, yet rarely seen in these parts. I was looking forward to drawing it.

Strangely, I procrastinated for months. If I had spotted his house while out sketching on location, I would not have hesitated. Yet something about using a reference photo and with the intention of making a gift intimidated me. When I’m urban sketching, I give myself constant permission to be wonky because I’m just trying to capture the moment for myself. When I’m using a photo in the comfort of my studio, I feel like the result has to be more polished because I can tweak it all I want and have no excuse for wonkiness. How silly!

I was tired of having the project hanging over my head. After I finished the last of the commissioned dog portraits, I decided it was time to take on Jason’s house. And the way I psyched myself out was by pretending I was just out urban sketching.

Barely visible, here's the graphite block-in.

Of course, almost nothing I did was similar to my typical urban sketching process: First, I began by blocking in key architectural points with a graphite pencil. On location, I would have gone straight in with the Caran d’Ache Neocolor II crayons, and if I made a mistake, I would have simply found a way to cover it up. I also used larger paper (10-by-7 inches) than my usual sketchbooks. At least one of the Neocolor techniques I used (description coming up) is something I doubt I’d use on location. Finally, with a comfy chair in a clean, organized studio, I happily spent more than a couple of hours on this sketch – something I would never do onsite.

Once I put myself in the urban sketching mind frame, I got over the barrier and enjoyed the process immensely. In fact, I am very pleased with the result – more so than I usually am with architectural subjects. (For example, I didn’t especially like the result of the house portrait I made for my niece and her husband seven years ago; it’s interesting to see how different my approach was then.) It feels good to give this as a gift.

Secondary triad palette in Neocolor II water-soluble crayons

Material and technique notes: The moment I looked at my reference photo, I realized it was shouting for a secondary triad! I dug through my Neocolor II crayons to look for a triad that wasn’t too garish or vibrant (not my nephew’s vibe) but also wouldn’t be too literal. I like the four colors I chose (I added a second green) so much that I immediately put them into my Neocolor case for field use (and used the same colors the next day at Third Place Commons).

In particular, I like Aubergine (099) as the violet. It’s the warmest and least saturated violet in the Neocolor palette, and unfortunately, not available in the Cd’A Museum Aquarelle pencil line, or I would have discovered it sooner. It is, however, available in the Cd’A Supracolor line. To avoid getting lost in picky details, I resisted using the Aubergine pencil too much. Some architectural details, however, seemed important to include, like the sconce next to the entryway and the subtle gridwork of tiny “windows” in the wall seen between the palms. Those were too small to capture easily with blunt crayons, so it was nice having a pencil in the same hue.

Detail of shadows made with watercolor painting method

I used a technique that I rarely, if ever, use on location: I applied dry Aubergine and Moss Green (225) onto the plastic “palette aquarelle” that came with my Cd’A Mixed Media Botanical Set. I used a waterbrush to blend the colors to the shade of purplish-brown I wanted. Then I applied it just like watercolors.

That technique is not too different from the “licked” technique I use frequently with watercolor pencils, but since I’m taking the color from the plastic palette instead of directly from the crayon, I have the opportunity to blend the colors.

I could have used real watercolors for this step, but a big benefit of using the same water-soluble crayons is that the color scheme remains fully cohesive compared to using many different media. I know using mixed media is cool, but I prefer keeping things simple.

Finally, a word on the paper I used: Derwent Inktense Paper. A counterpart to the Derwent Lightfast Paper that I’ve lately been using with colored pencil pet portraits, Inktense paper is intended for use with wet media, especially Inktense pencils. Like the Lightfast paper, I bought the pad of Inktense paper years ago but never got around to using it – it was still shrink-wrapped.

Its warm tone seemed just right for southern California stucco, and its strong tooth gives an organic texture to the foliage with soft Neocolors. It’s 100 percent cotton like the Hahnemühle sketchbooks that I’m used to, so I felt comfortable with its sizing right away. It’s too bad this paper is so expensive – I’d be tempted to stitch a few sheets into small signatures for more portable use. I’ll probably save it for gifts and commissions.

It’s a Hot Rat Summer at Cal Anderson Park

 

8/17/25 Cal Anderson Park, Capitol Hill

Capitol Hill’s Cal Anderson Park was busier than usual last Sunday. In addition to the weekly farmers market, the park was also host to a flea market that I wasn’t even aware of until then. Both events gave USk Seattle plenty to sketch that morning.

I began with an homage to Hot Rat Summer, a piece of renegade art that appeared at the park last year (above). Not just graffiti or even a painting, it’s a mosaic installed on an historic structure. According to Wikipedia: “Widely interpreted as a symbol of queer and trans resilience, the mosaic gained cult status and sparked broader discussions around public art, graffiti policy, and civic engagement.” The city has been painting over the mosaic regularly, and local residents have been removing the paint just as regularly. I was unaware of it until I read a Seattle Times article about the controversy just a few days ago. People stopped by to pay respects to St. Rat as I sketched, and small offerings had been left on the ledge below the mosaic.

For the rest of the outing, I rambled through the farmers market and flea market, capturing some people and dogs. Not too hot, not overly sunny, the morning had a relaxed summer Sunday vibe, despite the crowds.

Flea market at Cal Anderson Park

Capitol Hill farmers market

After the outing, I had lunch with a few other sketchers at nearby Lost Lake Café, where I’d intended to sketch my French toast, but there wasn’t much left of it by the time I got around to it.

Waiting for the meetup to begin and lunch at Lost Lake Cafe

Unseasonably Wet at Third Place Commons

 

8/15/25 Third Place Commons parking lot through upper-floor window

Unusual for this time of year, an atmospheric river was headed our way. With heavy rain and wind in the forecast for Friday when USk Seattle was scheduled to meet at a garden, we made a quick change to Third Place Commons, which is typically a wintertime mainstay for us. We were grateful to have this rare gem in Lake Forest Park, where a huge space of public seating is available for small meetings and other gatherings.

Grateful, yes, but I’ve also sketched there many times, so I walked around for quite a while trying to find a new angle. I spotted a small table tucked away next to large windows overlooking the parking lot (above). I recalled sketching from that same table many years ago, so I thought it would be fun to do it again. It was pretty comfy sketching with a hot cup of coffee through rain spattered glass as the atmospheric river got under way. (Here’s the blog post with that sketch from 2012 – my first time visiting Third Place Commons.)

After that, I wandered around again until I ran into Natalie. Sharing a table with her, I sketched a few people and lamps, happy to have my Urban Sketchers pals to hang out with on that unseasonably wet morning.

As is often the case, I can't spell and sketch at the same time. ;-)

Thirty Seconds And

 

8/13/25 Roof cleaners, Maple Leaf neighborhood

Perhaps you’ve heard this story (or maybe it’s just a parable): 

A sumi-e master stands beside a painting he has made – a few deftly placed ink strokes. A viewer seems skeptical of its value. “How long did it take you to make that?” he asks.

The master answers, “One minute and 50 years.”

When I shared these gestures of a couple of men cleaning a rooftop across the street, a follower commented that they were “powerful.” I was taken aback a bit by her term powerful – it’s not how I think of my own sketches. To me, these were just scribbles that took maybe 30 seconds each.

I had to remind myself, though, that 14 years ago when I first started sketching, I would have marveled at these gestures and said to myself, “They look so simple, but I could never do that, not in a million years!”

A million years are not necessary. Just 30 seconds and 14 years.

Blue Blues

8/12/25 Whole Foods cafe

I just passed the halfway point in a dark blue Uglybooks. It’s the first time I’ve used this color as my daily-carry sketch journal, and I have to admit, it’s a tough one. Coloring highlights instead of shading is a brain buster, but that’s a challenge I enjoy. My struggle is with black and gray. Although I love the way white and some high-contrast acrylic markers pop against the blue, the contrast isn’t strong enough with dark inks. I could just forego black and gray in this book, and I might eventually, but in the meantime, I’m trying different approaches.

8/14/25

The page spread (above) I made at the Whole Foods café the other day is my favorite approach so far. Instead of forcing conventional shading and highlights, I stuck with line drawings and overlapped white and black. 

Although I figured the paper would be too dark to use with colored pencils, I tried a still life (right) using a white pencil first as a base before applying other colors over it. With that technique, the colors popped well enough – better than I expected.

Too Hot to Play Outside

 

8/12/25 Collaborative artworks by MJ, Roy and Tina

With temps projected to hit the low 90s, Roy, Mary Jean and I decided to take our art play date indoors. Meeting in Caffe Ladro’s comfy AC, we spread out our mixed media tools for some collaborative art-making. With an approach similar to our exquisite corpse experiments, we each started a sketch by any means we wanted (from life, from imagination or from photo). At the end of the time limit, we rotated the sketches, and the next person continued working on the piece. Unlike traditional exquisite corpse, where the work done previously is concealed, we could see the entire work, which made the exercise both easier and more challenging. After the third round, the piece was deemed completed.

For the first series, we rotated the materials initially used along with the piece so that each piece would retain a cohesive look. For the second series, the materials were a free-for-all, so we could use whatever we wanted.

Completed collaborative pieces. Roy gave the bottom piece to our Caffe Ladro barista.

Completed collaborative pieces

All of the finished pieces were way more vibrant and colorful than any of us would typically achieve on our own. We all photographed each stage so we could see how the pieces progressed. In the photos below, I show the first stage of the two pieces I started; scanned above are those finished pieces. One challenge was simply stopping so that the next person would have some space to fill!

The throwdown photos show all six pieces we completed. What a kick in the creativity pants!

Look at how much this one transformed!

Shown here are the first stage of the two finished pieces
at top of post.

Crow on a Wire

 

8/11/25

As I always do on clear mornings, I went upstairs to pay homage to Her Majesty. A crow on a utility wire was nearly at eye level. I had a few sketch tools in the next room, but I knew that by the time I got them, the crow would likely be gone. I grabbed a pencil and the back side of my workout notes (the former bedroom is now my yoga studio and gym). The crow stayed almost as long as I took to make the sketch. The haiku came a moment later, just as quickly.

I wish everything were that easy.

Pier 58 Waterfront Park Finally Opens!

 

8/10/25 Pier 58 Waterfront Park

After many years of planning, designing and rebuilding, the much-anticipated Pier 58 Waterfront Park is finally open! The first part to be completed was the Overlook Walk, but that didn’t open until fall last year. The new Pier 58 renovation opened while we still have plenty of summer to enjoy it.

Although Roy, Mary Jean and I had gotten a sneak peek of the waterfront in June before it was officially open, I knew that USk Seattle would eventually meet there, so I resisted sketching the new park. Last Sunday when USk finally had its outing, I tried to capture as many new elements as possible.

Statue of Ivar Haglund and a live human 
borrowing Ivar's chair

The meetup location was the eye-catching jellyfish climbing apparatus, which is the focal point of the new playground. It became a popular subject for many sketchers. Other highlights I had fun capturing were a bride being photographed on the Overlook, the giant swings (with the most comfortable seats of any swing I’ve used as an adult), a caricaturist (though her client got away before I could sketch him), and a man wearing a huge sombrero while singing in Spanish.

While I typically wouldn’t sketch a public restroom, this one seemed important enough to capture: My whole life, I’d heard (and have myself uttered) complaints about the lack of facilities anywhere near the long stretch of the waterfront between the Pike Place Market and Pioneer Square. At last, a clean, safe public restroom!

When I ran out of space in my orange Uglybook spread, I opened my smaller blue one to catch a couple more scenes: A weary human resting in the seat attached to the statue of Ivar Haglund feeding his gulls, and a magician dazzling his audience.

With temps rising toward the upper 80s on the mostly shadeless waterfront, I thought I would run out of steam quickly, but it’s funny how sketching can keep me going. I just walked from one bit of shade to another, covering several blocks and back again. As a native and lifelong resident, I’m happy to say that Seattle finally has a waterfront worthy of my tax dollars!

William Chen at PhinneyWood Show

 

8/9/25 William Chen at PhinneyWood
Comic Book Show

William Chen is both a comic book author/artist and urban sketcher. Last Saturday he participated in the first-ever PhinneyWood Comic Book Show at the Phinney Neighborhood Association. I popped over to say hi. As you can see from the photo, he’s a lot taller and more animated than I drew him!

A Tree-mendous Sketch Outing in Fall City

 

8/8/25 Pete's Treefort at Aroma Coffee, Fall City

Having a treehouse in their backyard is a fantasy for many kids. Pete Nelson of Nelson Treehouse has been making that fantasy a reality for people lucky enough to stay in one, at least for a night or two: His magical houses built in trees can be rented. And now there’s a new one next to Aroma Coffee in Fall City that’s open to the public whenever the café is open! Kate, who discovered it when KING 5 TV featured the café and treehouse a few months ago, knew it would be a fun USk outing location.

Last Friday morning, a good turnout of sketchers tackled the substantial challenge of the treefort’s architectural details. Inspired by Nordic stave churches, the three-story treefort can be climbed all the way up (I forgot to take photos as I climbed, but it’s fun to look out the windows and doors on each floor). There’s even a table and stools on the balcony and a swing accessible from the ground.

My breakfast and a warm-up of the fort

I warmed up with a small thumbnail from the front as I devoured a cinnamon roll (which was one of the best I’ve had in a long time). Then I tackled the color version, focusing on trying to get at least the proportions right. Whew! That took more than an hour, which is longer than I usually spend on any sketch!

That done, I went around to the back to capture the spacious outdoor seating area, where families were enjoying coffee, treats and shade after climbing the fort. Next door to the café is Nelson Treehouse’s office and warehouse. A funny wooden mascot sits atop that building.

Aroma Coffee's spacious seating in the backyard

About 45 minutes east of Seattle, Fall City is a little far for me to make regular coffee/sketching stops, but it’s tempting. Even without the treefort, Aroma Coffee offers unique beverages and treats in a spacious, comfortable place, inside and out. (The coffee shop building, itself, has its own story: It’s the Prescott-Harshman House, on the historic register, built in 1904.) But the treehouse certainly makes it special.

Next door to Aroma Coffee is the Nelson Treehouse warehouse and office.

For ideal sketching, I recommend going early in the morning. By 10 a.m., this bit of light was already disappearing, and then the treehouse is in shade the rest of the day.

My Mojo’s Back

 

8/7/25 Maple Leaf neighborhood

Just when I was beginning to worry that my urban couch mojo had dried up, I spotted one right on my walking route! Despite the drizzle that morning, I couldn’t pass it up. And what a fine, rare specimen it was – upended on the sidewalk! (To keep passersby from getting too comfy?) Bonus: It was also trash day!

Miatagrrl’s mojo makes a strong comeback!

Art and Bananas at Nitro Plaza

 

8/6/25 Nitro Plaza, South Lake Union

My sparkling wine flute from dinner afterwards.

Gage Academy has been sponsoring free pop-up art events this summer in South Lake Union. With big tables spread with markers, pencils and still life objects at Amazon’s Nitro Plaza, the events encourage the community to sketch and interact while promoting Gage’s programs.

Natalie, Ching and I met there last Wednesday to check it out. We had a great view of both the Amazon Spheres and the vintage Elephant Car Wash neon sign. The sticker from Gage was a fun addition to my page.

In case you’re not familiar with Amazon’s “community banana stand,” the company has long operated a kiosk outside the Spheres offering any passerby – employees as well as the general public – a free banana. The kiosk was closed by late-afternoon when we arrived, but Ching had several to spare in her bag. A banana was just what that space on my page needed. (And how about that pop of bright yellow on dark blue?)

Charlie

 

8/6/25 Charlie (reference photo by Katelyn This)

Charlie is the last of five dog portraits I’ve made for the same family. They’ve all been a joy to draw.

I’m taking a break from pet portraiture for the rest of the summer, and when I get back to it, I think I’ll change it up. I took up this fundraising project in December 2023 mainly because I love drawing animals. But the other motivation was to get practice in realistic portraiture, especially with colored pencils. I’ve learned a lot from nearly a hundred portraits, and I feel confident that I can do this on request. While each portrait is still challenging in certain ways, the task in general no longer challenges me.

Although I want to keep supporting animal organizations this way, I need to keep being challenged, too, or I’ll get bored. I’m at that point now, so my next task will be to figure out how I want to change. A new medium, style or approach? I have some ideas.