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.

Planet Grief’s Orbits

 

6/26/25

I think about grief often lately. Process-oriented as I am, maybe thinking about it is a natural reaction to feeling it.

Coming into the middle of an NPR interview, I heard the author make an analogy that resonated. Since I was driving, I couldn’t take notes, and I regret that I missed both his name and the title of his book, so I can only paraphrase what he said:

Grief is like an orbiting planet. At first, it orbits regularly, frequently, continually. As time goes on, the orbits become wider and wider, so the grief comes around less frequently. But it never stops orbiting completely.

The moon takes only 27 days to orbit the earth; Neptune takes 165 years to circle the sun.

5/8/25

These widening orbits are familiar to me from when each of my parents and my sister died. Twenty-two, 16, 14 years later, the orbits are wider now, yet occasionally the planet appears. Unlike the moon or Neptune, its revolutions are unpredictable, prompted by the unexpected.

I understand that kind of grief because it’s a response to death, and that topic is easy enough to study and analyze, in terms of resources (a quick search on Amazon brings up more than 60,000 publications with the term grief in their titles, usually associated with loss from death). The more challenging study of grief is when it’s related to loss of something other than death. *

I know that people who have lost loved ones at a young (or younger than expected) age feel a loss for all the years they thought they would still have together. I feel that too, so perhaps my grief is not very different in that regard.

10/8/24

Yet every time I visit, I am reminded that I haven’t lost him yet, and I should be grateful for whatever time we have together now. Appreciate the present. Stop grieving for what hasn’t happened yet, I tell myself. But it’s too late for that: I began grieving years ago, long before we even had a diagnosis with a name. It began the moment my denial ended. As I watch him decline, each day brings new losses to grieve.

The orbits are tight, frequent, continual. Accepting grief is easier when I understand that although the orbits don’t end, the circles become wider.

Someday, I will have to start over again, fresh.

11/28/24

(These sketch journal entries, some quite old, didn’t have enough context to write about at the time. Somehow, this post seems to give all of them context enough.)

*A couple of years ago when I was still part of a support group for caregivers of people with dementia, the moderator had recommended a book: Ambiguous Loss: Learning to Live with Unresolved Grief, by Pauline Boss. After reading it, I read a second book by the same author, Loving Someone Who Has Dementia: How to Find Hope while Coping with Stress and Grief. Despite their titles, which sound like they would address my experiences directly, I found both disappointing and mostly unhelpful. I suppose everyone’s mileage varies.

8/4/25

Bake-off Interruption

8/3/25 7:20 p.m., Maple Leaf neighborhood

This sketch probably looks like many others I’ve made, with one exception: It was 7:20 p.m. on a Sunday evening. I had been quietly enjoying The Great British Baking Show after dinner as I occasionally do, when suddenly the floor started shaking and the windows vibrating from jackhammering on the street. Although it hadn’t rained in weeks, a small river was forming on the pavement in front of the house a few doors down.

After I made this hasty sketch from my front porch, I went down to ask a worker what was going on: a broken water main. “Happens all the time,” he informed me, gesturing toward “these old pipes are everywhere.” In response to my remark of consternation, he said, grinning, “One of these days it’ll be your house.”

I thanked him for his reassurance and went back to my no-longer-quiet Sunday evening.

Flowers, Music and Peach Pie

 

8/2/25 Art in the Garden at the Ballard P-Patch

Art in the Garden, the Ballard P-Patch’s annual neighborhood fair, hasn’t always been on my radar, but after last year’s fun, I have decided to keep it on my summer calendar. Now in its 23^rd year, the event offers arts and crafts vendors, live music, a barbecue, beer garden, and a walk through the community garden’s lovely blooms and produce.

I was surprised to find myself sketching the Sølje Sisters again – I had just sketched them at Phinney Farmers Market a couple of weeks ago. And then I wasn’t surprised: I learned that the violinist shown second from left is a gardener at the P-Patch.

Now an annual tradition!

Colorful flowers, art vendors, music – plenty of reasons to enjoy Art in the Garden. But let’s be honest: I was there for the peach pie (and since I’ve done it for two consecutive years, it’s now an annual tradition).

Fresh and Familiar Faces at Drink & Draw

 

8/1/25 Old Stove Brewing Co., Ballard neighborhood

We enjoyed last month’s drink & draw at Old Stove Brewing Company so much that USk Seattle went back on Friday. First timer Jovel was happy to meet and chat with a few folks over brews and sketchbooks before she eventually joins us at a regular meetup. The extreme introvert in me is always surprised that a newcomer would choose to first approach a group at a purely social gathering like drink & draw, which would be really hard for me, rather than at a sketch outing, where I could easily retreat to my sketch (without necessarily having to talk to anyone). But I’m pleased that others are more comfortable joining a group in the casual, familiar setting of a brew pub; it happens at almost every drink & draw. As an admin, I think whatever we can offer to make USk more approachable is a good thing.

When I sketch across a spread like this, I try to avoid letting the gutter run through something important like a face -- ouch. 

As for me, I’m always comfortable at USk drink & draws now. Even if I don’t know someone, by the end of the evening, we have probably sketched each other, and there’s no better way to break the ice than to laugh over sketch-mate portraits.

Gouache: Mind Blown Backward and Inside-Out

 

7/30/25 Elliott Bay beach (gouache in Stillman & Birn Delta sketchbook)

After taking several colored pencil workshops with Sarah Bixler to learn her fascinating take on color temperature, I got brave and plunged into a totally new medium: gouache!

Sarah's workshop met at a strip of beach on Elliott Bay, where
I learned to balance my palette, sketchbook, water cup, and butt on a handy
but uncomfortable log. Only the five paints in my CMYK set are in the palette
(the rest are watercolors).

Oh, sure, I’ve dipped into pink gouache during cherry blossom season, and we’ve all used touches of white gouache for snow or highlights. But making an entire, full-on painting with nothing but gouache was completely new territory for me. And because I prefer to plunge into the deep end before sticking my toe in the water, I took Sarah’s plein air workshop so that I could struggle with all the usual challenges of being on location (on this day, it was heat, humidity and sitting on a log) while also learning a new medium. Yay for tough art love!

A color-mixing study in which we make an arrangement of 
squares and rectangles indicating the percentage of a
particular hue we might use in the composition. Without
trying to make the actual composition, we can see how the hues
might play against each other.

Although I’m certainly no pro at watercolors, I’ve used them enough to know that gouache is basically the opposite in every way. They both squeeze out of tubes to make you think they are similar, but their similarities end there. When watercolors are glazed, their transparency allows the previous colors to show through, resulting in optical mixing. Colored pencils, too, are transparent like watercolors, so I’m used to that kind of layering.

By contrast, gouache is opaque, so succeeding layers completely obscure whatever was underneath (definitely a benefit in many cases, but difficult to wrap my head around). Instead of saving out the white of the paper for the brightest highlights with watercolor, with gouache, you can simply paint the white on last!

The biggest head explosion (or implosion, perhaps, given the backwardness of my perception), however, was in the way shifting values can be achieved: If I’m using a watercolor that turns out to be more vibrant or darker than I want, the simplest way to lighten the hue is to dilute it with more water. With gouache, you don’t add water – you add white! Whaaat!!

Sarah at her demo easel and some classmates.

Even though I understood this in concept, it still took me many (perhaps habitual) dips into the water cup before I learned to dip into the white instead. Once I did, though, what a game changer! I found it much easier to shift the value of a hue one way or the other with the simple addition of white or the hue (or occasionally black). Although Sarah had given us a supply list with a fairly typical palette of basic colors, I chose to bring only five paints to the workshop: the cyan, magenta, yellow, black and white that came in the Holbein primary mixing set I had purchased a couple of years ago. With only the three CMY primaries plus white and black made the job of shifting hues and values much easier than with a full palette.

My painting is a bit of a mess, especially the pile of rocks in the foreground, but as a first painting in a new medium, I’d say it’s not a bad start. I was pleased by the range of muted hues I was able to mix with that basic CMY triad (it helped that I was already familiar with using the CMY triad with colored pencils). The result looks more cohesive than I would probably otherwise achieve.

Elliott Bay beach just below Olympic Sculpture Park

My biggest frustration was how much time it takes to mix the hues and values I’m looking for. Gouache dries so quickly, especially on a hot day, that I was constantly fighting with making the paint fluid enough to apply without adding so much water as to dilute the opacity. As with any wet medium, learning how to hit the right ratio of water to paint is critical to mastering gouache.

But never mind mastery. Sarah’s workshop has whetted my appetite, and I’m looking forward to more stumbling and fumbling with gouache. I might even concede that some studio practice would be helpful before I go full-on urban sketching with gouache.

Unauthorized at the Sculpture Park

7/30/25 Calder's Eagle from inside Paccar Pavilion, Olympic Sculpture Park

I knew it had been a while since I had last sketched at the Olympic Sculpture Park, but I was surprised to find that it was as many as three years ago. Arriving there a bit early for a workshop (more on that tomorrow), I had time for a few quick sketches. (I made a mental note to come back sometime soon so I could spend more time there.)

On that hot, late afternoon, I had initially ducked into the comfy AC of Paccar Pavilion, Seattle Art Museum’s indoor facility at the sculpture park, which has a view of Calder’s Eagle. Shortly after I had begun the sketch, a security guard, surprised to see me, informed me that the pavilion had closed 15 minutes earlier. When I explained that I had entered because the door was unlocked (pointing to the door), he muttered something (which I took to mean that he was supposed to have locked it but hadn’t). Oopsy.

Fortunately, the outdoor part of the park stays open until dusk.

After I got kicked out, I sketched Ellsworth Kelly's Curve XXIV at the Pavilion's entrance.

Rukus (with Pet Portraiture Tips)

 

7/30/25 Rukus (reference photo by Katelyn This)

Bright-eyed Rukus is in the same family as Jett and Maggie. Something tells me that this little guy is a handful (perhaps his name is a clue)!

I’ve often talked about the many things I’ve learned from my long and now-large series of pet portraits (nearly a hundred are in my Flickr album). I’m probably repeating some thoughts here, but I wanted to list what I have found to be some of the most important characteristics of realistic pet portraiture. If you feel like drawing pets, maybe some of these tips will be helpful.

• I can’t stress this enough: Get a well-lighted, in-focus reference photo. It often helps to have multiple images of the animal from different angles, in case some information is unclear in your primary reference.
  
  
• The eyes are critical. Humans and their pets (maybe especially dogs) spend a lot of time making eye contact, so the eyes have to be right, or the human won’t feel the connection. I spend more time on the eyes than I do on any other feature or all that fur.
   
• As in portrait photography, a super-important part of the eyes is the catchlight. If the
  
  reference photo doesn’t have one, I will fake it – it’s that important in conveying life in the eyes.
  
  
• I can’t remember whose class it was (maybe Gary Faigin’s) or which book I read, but here’s a tip about drawing eyes (human, but it applies to animals, too) that has stayed with me: The upper eyelid always makes a subtle shadow on the top of the eyeball. A good reference photo will show this, and if you learn to look for it, you will observe it, even if it’s subtle. The tip I learned said that beginner portrait artists will often draw the eye as if the entire iris is visible, but it is almost always partially obscured by that shadow. If you nail that, the eyes will look more realistic.
  
  
• With dogs, almost as important as the catchlight are the subtle reflections on the lower edge of the nostrils. It’s not a bright highlight, as the nose is not shiny, but it is always moist, which creates the reflection.
  
  
• Here’s a helpful dog tip I learned from Sketching Scottie: In life-drawing classes and books, we always learn that the average human face has about one eye width between our eyes. In dogs, the space is two eye widths. I measure every time, and it’s true! Well, as in human anatomy, it’s a general guideline, not a universal rule. I’m working on a dog portrait now whose eyes are much farther apart than two eye widths. And the face must be straight head-on like Rukus is here, with no angle, to measure it accurately. But it is helpful to understand basic anatomical structures.

Naturally Occurring Still Lives

7/9/25

 A still life is typically an arrangement of objects that an artist designs in the studio for the purpose of drawing or painting. The objects are optimally lighted from just the right angle so that their form and cast shadows are part of the design.

(This post isn’t about the difference between a still life and an urban sketch, but as a diehard urban sketching evangelist, I can’t help but make this point: Since a still life is made from direct observation, some sketchers draw a vase of flowers on their kitchen table and call that an urban sketch. I would argue that anything you set up yourself for the deliberate purpose of drawing is not urban sketching because there’s no story or context there other than the exercise of drawing. End of sermon.)

7/27/25 

The only times I’ve ever worked from a studio still life were in classes or at home as class homework. The best example is from Terry Furchgott’s class years ago. Although I appreciated learning about rendering form from these exercises, I was relieved that the instructor had done the work for us. For each student, she arranged a unique still life inside a box that was open on only one side. The arrangement was lighted with a single light source to minimize confusing shadows. Although it was an ideal setup for understanding and practicing values and forms, I’m too lazy to do all that for myself.

Shown here are some sketches I’ve made on the patios at Aegis Living. Although these might be legitimate urban sketches, I think of them more as naturally occurring still lives. I don’t arrange anything or even move a chair (though the temptation is sometimes there); I simply look around for compositions. (This is my personal philosophical argument, not a “rule” of urban sketching, but I believe that as soon as I move a chair to improve the composition, I am making a still life, not an urban sketch.)

7/29/25 

An important part of these “designs” are the cast shadows, which I find especially interesting when the sources of the shadows are not part of the composition (as in the one at left).

These naturally occurring still lives are a fun challenge that also appeal to my naturally lazy nature.

Rediscovering Southeast Green Lake

7/28/25 Green Lake

Although Mary Jean and I both know Green Lake well, Roy does not. We decided it was a good time to further his education of our favorite lake. Last fall, I showed him the lake’s north end, so this time we met on the southeast side. In particular, I thought it would be fun to start at Green Lake United Methodist Church, which is as close to a European stone castle as anything in Seattle might be. Since I’ve sketched other parts of the church before, I focused on one “tower” to fill the last page in our round-robin single-sheet signature booklet (below).

Green Lake United Methodist Church

At lower right is a different church that I see regularly but had never stopped to sketch before.

Restaurant Christine

From there, we continued walking and sketching around the lake until we got to the Tangletown micro-neighborhood in the south end of Green Lake, where we stopped for a delicious lunch at Restaurant Christine.

Exploring familiar territory with someone who hasn’t seen (or sketched) the area before always gives me a fresh view.

Color notes: I’d like to start exploring more variations of primary and secondary triads available in Caran d’Ache Neocolor II’s palette. Many Neo II hues are not available in the Cd’A Museum Aquarelle line, which I’ve become familiar with, so it’s fun to try new combos. I also find that choosing a very limited palette of just three or even two hues (a warm and a cool; a sketch I made at Sketcher Fest is one example) makes it much easier for me to interpret and mix color temperature shifts. I’m not especially fond of the primary triad I used in this Green Lake sketch (top of post), though. The blue leans too hard in the violet direction, which results in an odd green when mixed with the yellow I chose. I find that these waxy, water-soluble crayons don’t blend in the same way that Museum Aquarelle pencils do (which I still prefer in that regard). 

Bothell Dogs

 

7/26/25 dogs at Bothell street market

After Natalie, Ching and I met for lunch in Bothell, we checked out a nearby street market to sketch. It must be a dog-friendly market and neighborhood, because many well-behaved, leashed dogs were strolling through the market along with their humans. The dogs I had sketched at Phinney Farmers Market the previous day got me in the mood to keep going. Meanwhile, I eavesdropped on a conversation and quoted the most interesting line I heard.

Alexa's Cafe, Bothell