Fuzzy Portraits

 

4/5/25 Ernest Theodore

A recent gathering of friends included Ernest Theodore (whom I have sketched a few times before), one of the gentlest giants I know. He probably weighs more than I do, yet he has never tried to knock me over as other large dogs have. Upon arrival at the brewery’s patio, he just laid down and chilled for the rest of the evening, making this little gesture portrait easy.

Speaking of pet portraits, I think I never got around to sharing the one I made last December of Adorable (below), the lovely cat of a friend. I love drawing animals, from life or from photos.

12/26/24 Adorable (reference photo by Carol Ivan)

A gentle nose kiss from Ernest
(photobomb by Ernest's dad, Ali!)

Opportunities for Observation

 

3/19/25 Brian

Like my fellow light rail commuters, Greg’s cohorts at Aegis Living make great human studies and opportunities for observation. When I first started making these sketches, I hesitated to share them because I wondered if they would be considered invasive. But the more I draw them, the more I think of these small portraits as a way to honor individuals in the last stage of their lives. I try to capture them as unique people, not caricatures or generic figures.

3/22/25 Linda

3/22/25 Val

3/28/25

4/7/25 The spouse guy waiting for lunch.

During group activities, I’m usually sitting right next to the spouse guy, so it’s difficult to sketch him. Every now and then I take him outside the memory care area to the general diningroom so that we can have lunch together. This sketch doesn’t capture a good likeness, but it’s a rare sketch of him that I’ve made from life.

Meanwhile, at a nearby table, one of the kitchen staff came to talk to Russ about the utensils he seemed to be collecting in his pockets. With much gentleness and compassion, the staff member asked Russ to relinquish the tableware – and discovered an entire drinking glass in his pocket, too. I was amused to see that entertaining co-residents are on the assisted living side, too.

Technical note: After my Pentel Pocket Brush Pen ran dry during a recent cherry tree sketch, I decided to grab a prefilled Kuretake Brush Writer instead of taking the time to refill the Pentel. I really like the Kuretake’s brush tip, especially for life drawing gestures (I used it on the portrait of Ernest Theodore). Unfortunately, it has the bad habit of blorping out ink unexpectedly and making a mess, which happened as I pulled it out to sketch Greg. (I initially learned that lesson the hard way nearly 13 years ago!) That’s why I decided to use a purple Derwent Inktense pencil instead. I don’t know why, but I rarely consider using pencil for a life portrait . . . it seems too time-consuming for a gesture, I suppose. But sometimes I like the more sensitive quality of a pencil line compared to the bold, unforgiving marks of a brush pen (which I also appreciate for different reasons).

Reservoir Tavern and Other Walk-Sketches

4/2/25 Reservoir Tavern, Maple Leaf neighborhood

Although sporadic rainy days continue, it’s getting easier to take daily fitness walks as the temperature becomes more hospitable. On one of the sunnier days, I took a bit longer than I usually do to sketch a linden tree and the Reservoir Tavern (known colloquially by neighbors as “the Rez”), right next door to Macrina Bakery. Although I’ve never been inside this long-time Maple Leaf institution, I’ve been meaning to sketch it for a long time. Maybe on a warmer day this summer, I'll come back to make a more leisurely portrait.

3/19/25 Green Lake neighborhood

My barber is in the Wedgwood neighborhood, so as the weather improves, I’m looking forward to taking more fitness walks in that area after getting haircuts. Just like sketching, I am constantly looking for opportunities to combine fitness walking with anything else I already have to do. I guess that makes me a lifestyle fitness walker, just like I’m a lifestyle urban sketcher. 

4/6/25 Pink petals falling fast in the Wedgwood neighborhood

Bills and Other Studies

3/12/25 Link light rail northbound

 “Victims” on public transportation make ideal studies. On my light rail rides a few weeks ago, I took advantage of the many fellow commuters who were wearing baseball caps, which I find very challenging to draw – specifically, the bills. The are both rounded and curved, and they are almost always seen from an angle that shows a shadowed sliver of the inside of the bill on one side.

3/12/25 light rail southbound

A couple of weeks later, I got more practice on Roy’s cap, and I caught that interior shadow sliver, but I made the bill a bit too long.

3/31/25

Of course, public transportation is always a great place for small character studies accompanied by my observations (or speculations).

3/31/25

Daffies and Cherries on Dibble

 

4/4/25 Crown Hill neighborhood

Although the cherry trees on Dibble Avenue Northwest are on my regular petal-peeping route, it’s not a destination that I would consider for an Urban Sketchers outing. A narrow street full of parked cars, trash cans, basketball hoops, utility poles and other street stuff that I enjoy sketching, it’s probably not the kind of view most sketchers like. I did, however, encourage everyone who attended the Sunset Hill outing to at least peep the petals, if not sketch them, since Dibble in Crown Hill is only a mile or so east of Sunset Hill.

Dibble Ave. NW

With the top down, I cruised slowly down the block, looking straight up at the blossoms arching over the street from both sides. Then I turned around and came back to sketch from a spot I had sketched a few years ago that has become one of my favorite cherry blossom sketches: The pink blossoms as a backdrop to the daffodil-fringed traffic circle.

With bittersweetness, I must concede that our all-too-brief petal-peeping and -sketching season is coming to a close. But if this is its finale, I’m good with that. As a resident of the Sunset Hill street and I had just concurred, if we could have cherry blossoms all year round, they would no longer be precious and special.

Technical note: After all the trees I’d been sketching, my Pentel Pocket Brush Pen ran dry when I started this sketch, so I had to bring in a gray Faber-Castell Pitt Artist Pen for an assist. I like the way the gray ink made the cars and utility pole fade out more than compared to drawing and shading with the same Pentel ink. I’m going to try to remember that in the future.

Trunk Appreciation Day at Sunset Hill

 

4/4/25 Sunset Hill neighborhood

Peg & Awl Petra palette in action

For Day 2 of USk Seattle’s pink marathon, we headed west to Sunset Hill and my favorite street of cherries. Since I had already sketched them earlier in the week, I used this second opportunity to try – ta-da! – gouache again. (I even brought along my Peg & Awl Petra palette, still full of the gouache and watercolors I had filled it with last spring.) I was disappointed when I tried it last year, but this time I limited the paint to the blossom areas only (with a bit of Caran d'Ache Neocolor II for texture), and stayed with my tried-and-true Pentel Pocket Brush Pen for the trunks and shadows. I like this approach better.

That one done, I declared it Trunk Appreciation Day and spent the rest of the outing making small vignettes of some of the most amazing trunks. Many trees on this block are nearly a century old, and I always feel the need to honor and revere their beauty, whether or not they are in blossom.

As I sketched, I chatted with a resident who told me a bit of the trees’ history: About a hundred years ago, one of the block’s residents went around to her neighbors and encouraged all of them to plant cherries in front of their homes. They did, and that’s why we have these trees to enjoy now, a century later. Thank you, forward-thinking home owners!

It’s a good thing we went when we did, as the leaves were starting to sprout, and I could tell that the blossoms were past their prime. Although I had started out in my down parka and gloves, by the time we left at noon, I was ready to take the top down for the drive home!

Sunny sketching!

Blossom-Sketching Marathon on Capitol Hill

 

4/3/25 Capitol Hill neighborhood

Time’s a wastin’! With so many pink blossoms and so little time, USk Seattle offered a marathon of cherry tree-sketching opportunities on Thursday. First, in the morning, we met on a quiet residential block near Holy Names Academy. Petal peepers and sketchers alike could walk slowly down the middle of the street, where trees arched over from both sides. Although not as mature, these trees are of the pink (not near-white) variety similar to my favorites on Sunset Hill (above and below).

Near Holy Names Academy

Immediately following the throwdown outside Holy Names, some of us continued on to nearby Volunteer Park, where more sketchers met for the afternoon session. A few of us opted to walk just outside the park boundary to Lake View Cemetery (below), where we had heard about a large grove of cherry trees. None of us had sketched these gorgeous, mature trees before! Actually, I think I did when I sketched there years ago, but it was fall then, so I didn’t know they were cherries. You can bet I put this location on my perennial petal-peeping list!

4/3/25 Lake View Cemetery

It was a long, beautiful day of pink!

Just before the throwdown, I made a quick sketch of one of the two
dromedaries outside the Seattle Asian Art Museum.

4/3/25 A few more bits from my fun day on Capitol Hill!

Bring on the Pink

 

4/1/25 Green Lake neighborhood

I’m in full-on blossom-sketching mode these days, and for good reason: While dodging rain, I’m also trying not to miss the best of the pink. I’m not sure this tree near Green Lake was a cherry, but I’m not discriminating. It was already starting to shed petals – none too soon to sketch it.

Sunset Hill Before it Rains

3/31/25 Sunset Hill neighborhood

Pink pompoms!

I had heard that my favorite cherry trees on Sunset Hill were nearing peak, but several days of rain were in the forecast. Right after I got home from a play date with Roy and Mary Jean, it was still dry, so I dashed out to the west side.

Indeed, the blossoms were at 99 percent, I’d say – just a few visible buds within the huge, pompom clusters of pink blossoms! In addition to those huge, old, gnarly trunks, what I love about this block of cherries is that the blossoms are truly pink, not white, as many cherry blossoms are, including the ones at the UW Quad. I adore walking slowly through this fairyland, admiring each tree one at a time, then choosing one to sketch.

This is the tree whose trunk I sketched in my March 22 post when it was still in tight buds.

Exquisite, Confused Corpses

 

3/31/25 Exquisite corpses by Mary Jean, Roy and Tina

Exquisite corpses live again! Mary Jean, Roy and I got together to work on more exquisite corpses, which we had so much fun with last time. This time we chose an ocean theme. Somehow, though, we got the rotation mixed up, so we each ended up making both the head and the “feet” on the same piece! It was still a ton of fun, and we’re going to continue with more.

Afterwards, we had lunch at nearby Geraldine’s Counter, where our friend Allan Carandang has a show of intriguing paintings.

Some of Allan Carandang's paintings at Geraldine's Counter

A Joyous Celebration of Pink

 

3/30/25 UW Quad

Although USk Seattle meets at the University of Washington Quad every spring to sketch the glorious cherry trees, this year felt very different to me. Even the heavy crowds on a dry Sunday morning didn’t bother me as much as they sometimes do. With so much disgusting “leadership” going on in our country, and tragedy, horror and devastation elsewhere in the world, it was truly uplifting to be part of this joyous celebration of nature. Everyone seemed so happy! It was impossible to walk among those trees, even bumping into each other, without feeling a bond with humanity: All of us brought together by tiny pink blossoms.

Thank you, brilliant cherry trees, for giving us such joy.

At upper left, I tried to show some cosplay characters being photographed, but my sketch doesn't show them well. See photo below for what they actually looked like.

Technical notes: The past several years, I have used the Quad cherry trees outing to try various media, hoping to find the one that might help me successfully convey the billowing clouds of very pale pink (nearly white, actually) blossoms. As if the subject matter weren’t challenging enough, I wanted to add to the torture with uncertain media. Watercolor, gouache, dry colored pencils, acrylic markers, water-soluble crayons and blocks – you name it, I’ve tried it, usually with frustration and disappointment.

This year I decided to end the masochism and went back to basics: My favorite Pentel Pocket Brush Pen with a Derwent Inktense pencil (and a gray Faber-Castell Pitt Artist Big Brush Pen for contextual elements that I want to fade into the background). Familiar, reliable, satisfying in their simplicity.

These are the characters I saw being photographed. In addition, several groups of choreographed teenagers were being video'd, probably for their TikTok channels.

So much exuberance everywhere!

Wide Awake!

 

3/29/25 Maple Leaf neighborhood

Two days after I sketched the sleepy cherry tree that was still in buds, it woke up! Seemingly overnight, cherry blossoms are popping open all over town. Sadly, the weather forecast for the next few days is not looking good – so many blossoms, so few dry days ahead!

3/29/25 Wide awake!

3/27/25 Still sleepy

360 at Third Place Commons

 

3/29/25 Third Place Commons, Lake Forest Park

Five other sketchers and I tried something fun during Saturday’s USk Seattle outing. Sitting together around a table, we each sketched the slice of view directly in front of us, forming a 360-degree view of Third Place Commons. When I’ve participated in 360 sketches previously (once at the downtown public library and another time at the UW Quad), the participants sat in a circle facing out. For this one, we all faced each other toward the center of the table, which meant we all included fellow sketchers. Fun!

After I finished my first sketch that included Kim (at right), I turned around in my seat 180 degrees to sketch whatever had been directly behind. I like that sketch better (below) because I could see further out into the distance.

During the last half hour before the throwdown, I walked around a bit and sketched a few more people enjoying the Commons on a Saturday morning.

Our 360 throwdown was incomplete because a couple of participants had already left by the time we remembered to photograph all of them together!