Jimi Hendrix Park by Rail

 

5/27/26 Jimi Hendrix Park

I don’t get around to Jimi Hendrix Park often (the last time was two years ago); the sometimes grueling drive through the worst of traffic has only gotten worse. Since the latest stations in our light rail system opened in March, though, the park is now an easy train ride away!

Roy hadn’t yet ridden the Eastside line across Lake Washington, so Mary Jean and I decided he should experience it. After riding one stop to Mercer Island, we turned right back around and rode to Judkins Park Station, which is across the street from both adjacent parks.

On this brilliant, nearly cloudless morning, temps in the mid-60s, I was able to stand in full sunlight to sketch the prominent red sculpture in the middle of the park. Before writing this post, I had checked my blog from my first visit to Hendrix Park in 2017, and I had to laugh – a composition I had chosen then was almost identical to this one! I had even chosen the same quotation from the purple trail of song lyrics circling the park. My approach hadn’t changed much in nine years, either, but at least I could tell that some trees had grown.

Part of a sculpture honoring Jimi Hendrix's life

Filling a few minutes before meeting up again with MJ and Roy, I sketched the cutout silhouette of Jimi in the sculpture honoring his life (at right).

After lunch at Seattle Fish Guys, we made a nearby stop that had been on our radar: Temple Pastries. With delicious treats and good coffee, the café has one more appealing feature: Outdoor seating with a view of the Central District neighborhood.

That’s where I made my first page-spread sketch journal entry in my handmade UglyPads sketchbook. Although I like the striking appearance of two high-contrast colors as adjacent pages, the spread looks less cohesive – the two pages don’t “read” like they are part of the same entry. I think I’d like to draw more across the gutter to bring the pages together better. I do appreciate the slightly larger page spread, though, compared to commercially bound Uglybooks.

Temple Pastries, Central District neighborhood

Maybe in the next book I make, I’ll stack a few sheets of the same color so I’ll have some same-color page spreads. Hmmm . . . so many options when you bind your own!

Animal Heads and a Surprise at Sculpture Park

 

5/30/26 Ai Weiwei's Circle of Animals/Zodiac Heads, Olympic Sculpture Park

After a long delay and much anticipation, Ai Weiwei’s monumental installation, Circle of Animals/Zodiac Heads, officially opened at a community event May 30 at Olympic Sculpture Park. According to the Seattle Art Museum, “The works reconceive the 12 zodiac heads that decorated an 18th-century Qing imperial fountain before they were looted during the Second Opium War (1856–60). Seven are based on the original heads that have survived, and Ai researched and reimagined the five animals still missing to complete the zodiac.”

Lunch sketches

Despite the cool, cloudy morning, USk Seattle came out in full force to sketch the bronze animal heads, each standing 10 feet tall and weighing 1,500 pounds. I sketched different parts of it twice from different angles. Then later while eating lunch outside, I still had a good view of the sculptures, so I sketched a few more heads, this time with Jane in the composition.

Sponsored by SAM, the community event included live music and dragon dance performances by Wei Dai. The page below is a composite of Dai’s performance (lower right) and park visitors playing with long, colorful dragon streamers similar to the one Dai used.

Dragon dancer Wei Dai (lower right) and park visitors 

After lunch, I still had an hour before the throwdown, so I took a walk down to the waterfront. To my surprise, while I’d seen the fountain before, I discovered a figure in the fountain that I had never noticed. Not finding a placard, I had to do some online digging to learn about it, and it turned out to be an intriguing story:

Father and Son, a fountain with sculptures by Louise Bourgeois, was the result of a bequest to the city by a Seattle man, Stu Smailes. The avid art supporter stipulated in his will that the $1 million gift be used to build a fountain in Seattle. “The fountain(s) shall include one or more unclothed, life-size male figure(s) designed in the classical style, i.e.: realistic,” were the requirements, according to the Seattle Times.

Father and Son by Louise Bourgeois 

Eventually, the bequest was assigned to Seattle Art Museum, and Father and Son was installed at the western park entrance in 2005. According to Wikipedia, “The 15-foot fountain and sculpture depict a na    ked man and a naked boy reaching out to each other. At timed intervals, two separate sides of the fountain will either rise or fall to reveal or obscure one figure or the other.” Interestingly, I never saw the “son” appear the whole time I was sketching, and the water level didn’t seem to change.

The Wikipedia article goes on to say that “Father and Son is the first public sculpture in Seattle featuring nude figures. While the SAM’s statement on the artwork focuses on the emotional distance and vulnerability of the two figures, others in the local community saw the sculptures as overtly sexual and pedophilic.” I don’t recall any of this controversy from 2005 – and it took me more than 20 years to discover the figure!

One of many benefits of being an urban sketcher is all that I keep learning about my native city, one sketch at a time.

Colored Pencils with Woodward

 

5/26/26 Derwent Drawing pencils in Stillman & Birn Zeta sketchbook (Colin Woodward's colored pencil workshop)

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I’ve been enjoying bingeing on Colin Woodward’s relaxing YouTubes that are part travelogue (with drone videography), part camper van life, and part sketching demos. Although he mostly uses watercolors and water-soluble pencils and crayons, I viewed one demo in which he used non-soluble colored pencils. When he offered a 90-minute mini-workshop on this medium, I knew it would be a good opportunity to ask questions and learn from him live on Zoom.

Almost all his demos, from both reference photos and plein air, are of northern Irish landscapes that are completely foreign to me. Trees, especially, seem like airy, formless hazes of foliage – so different from the strong, sculptural shapes of Pacific Northwest conifers. Regardless of medium, I knew the subject matter would be challenging.

Since Woodward didn’t specify a pencil brand, I decided to use only Derwent Drawing pencils. I know from his videos that he likes to use lots and lots of colors – a far wider range than I would typically use in the limited-palette fashion I tend to favor. He has a sharp eye for seeing tiny bits of color in his subjects that I don’t notice until he calls them out with a fistful of materials, often including some unexpected hues. I even wondered if the muted, nature-based Drawing palette would be too limited for his methods and whatever landscape he chose, so I wanted to put that to the test.

Look at all the colors in this sketch -- way more than I would typically use! But I did need some of them just to mix hues that I found lacking in the Derwent Drawing line.

Indeed, that was my first challenge: None of the greens in the Drawing line were warm enough for the greens I saw in the reference image (a field of bluebells in Killynether woods). It was a good challenge to use the Drawing palette’s inadequate yellows (two are quite similar, and both are warm) to warm up the greens.

This formless mass of "stuff" is the kind of scene I usually run from!
(Reference photo by Colin Woodward) 

In addition, this type of composition, which he tends to favor, is also foreign to me: With no central focal point other than the varying angles of distant trunks, the picture is more about capturing a mass of “stuff” than identifiable forms – the kind of view I usually run away from because it’s so . . . so formless!

The colored pencil Woodward uses most in his demos is Derwent Inktense, which, as we all know, explodes with vibrant, saturated hues with just a drop of water. It’s not difficult to get high contrasts and deep, dark values with those pencils quickly. That made me especially interested in seeing how he would use non-soluble pencils when he couldn’t rely on water to bring out their vibrancy. (I wasn’t the only one with this interest; nearly all my classmates brought it up, too.)

The answer is what I suspected: It just took a lot longer to apply all the dry pencils without the help of water. He makes many tiny marks to create a nearly Impressionistic result that’s unexpected for colored pencils. Instead of solidly blending layers of color, his approach relies more on optical blending (my term, not his) that evokes pointillism.

It was a thoroughly enjoyable, even relaxing workshop working in a way that I’ve not tried before with very different subject matter than I am likely to encounter in these parts. And I actually like my result (not often true of class projects)!

Pencil notes: In my review of the expanded Derwent Drawing line, I wondered out loud whether the muted, natural color range could suffice as someone’s sole pencil set. With this completely natural landscape as the subject, I still found Drawing’s palette lacking. (One of these days, I’ll get to the post I’ve started making notes for: If I had to give up all colored pencils except a certain limited quantity, let’s say 75, which would I keep? It would be convenient to simply keep 72 Derwent Drawing pencils, but I know that wouldn’t do. Which colors would stay, and which other brands and colors would I add in?)

Paper Review: UglyPads

 

New UglyPads -- glue-bound sheets just right for making sketchbooks!

Way back when I first started using colorful Uglybooks, one of my first thoughts was that I wished they made an edition that included multi-colored pages in one book. I suggested as much to my contact there, and they liked the idea, but they wanted to see how well their then-new product line would go before developing new products. Fair enough.

Now, four years later, it hasn’t happened yet, but the next best thing has: UglyPads! In a 9-by-12-inch size, the glue-bound pads contain the same richly colored, 175 gsm paper as the Uglybooks sketchbooks I love so much. Each pad contains five sheets each of five colors, and four colorways are available.

Juicebox contains most of my favorite midtone colors.

Uglybooks offered to send me one pad of my choice, so I chose Juicebox, which includes most of my favorite Uglybooks colors (the ones that work well as midtones against black and white inks). With much excitement, on the day the pad arrived, I cut a few sheets in half, then folded and stapled them into a 4 ½-by-6-inch book. (Although I have a corner rounder, it’s tedious to use, so I didn’t bother with this first book; perhaps eventually). I’m thrilled to have the multi-colored book I have always wanted!

In addition, the finished size is a smidge larger in each dimension (closer to a true A6) than Uglybooks, which gives me a little more page real estate. Nice!

Finally, the multi-colored Uglybook I have always wanted!

My only complaint is that the glue binding is a bit coarse, so when sheets are removed, the edges end up rough. Although it’s not a deal-breaker, I had to trim off the edges before binding.

Cover sticker by Draplin Design Co.

Even more important than being able to make my dream Uglybook is that this solution resolves a larger issue I’d been worrying about for a while. Despite the large stash I had acquired, I am now running low on the original saddle-stitched (stapled) books I fell in love with. In 2024, much to my initial horror, Uglybooks switched to a perfect binding. To my relief, the binding does open flatter than most perfect-bound notebooks, but it doesn’t stay open (annoying during USk throwdowns). Although I can tolerate them, I have never fully embraced them as a replacement for simple, stapled books.

After my supply of saddle-stitched books runs out, would I be forced to settle for perfect-bound books or – heaven forfend – stop using colored paper!? No! Now that I can staple together my own books using the same beautiful papers, that dilemma has been eliminated. Whew! Another first-world sketcher problem evaded!

Just Like That at Green Lake

 

5/24/26 Green Lake

After walking around Green Lake with a couple of friends, I stayed behind after we parted to make a sketch. Standing just off the path near the water, my presence prompted two conversations. One was with a woman, a watercolor painter herself, who saw from a distance that I seemed to be using a brush, she said, yet she stopped for a closer look because she couldn’t believe I’d be painting standing up! I showed her that I was using water-soluble pencils and crayons, and she thanked me for inspiring her. She seemed eager to get her paints out.

The second conversation was with a couple who seemed astounded. “You just did that standing here? Just like that?” That question again.

I’m always amused. Yes, just like that.

Bob Blast’s Painterly Tips

 

5/21/26 photo reference

Bob Blast’s YouTube channel recently came to my attention. Scanning through his titles, I can see that he is a painter, not a sketcher, but as I always do with painting instruction videos, I try to apply his approach to any medium I might use. That’s how I use oil painter Ian Roberts’ extremely informative videos about composition. It’s usually a little more difficult to use pencils, crayons or markers in place of paint, but I enjoy the challenge of attempting it anyway. And almost always, the exercise reconfirms that basic art and design principles apply to any medium.

In the video I viewed recently, Blast (Bob’s real last name is Burridge, but I like that he uses “Blast”) shows how he designs paintings around figures by putting the highest contrast around the area of the focal point. He also uses negative space to clarify and design shapes. Finally, he stresses the importance of showing the direction of light. His style is more abstract than I would typically use for urban sketching, but its visual appeal made me want to try it.

Using a reference photo I had snapped on a walk, I picked out some primary colors in water-soluble markers and crayons. My color choices were based on values, not the photo, and I grabbed basic hues so that I wouldn’t get distracted by trying to “match” what I saw.

Although this approach is very different from the way I usually think, I like the result. I’m especially pleased with how the dark negative space defines the left figure’s lighted side. (I would have liked the way the high-contrast negative space defines the dog’s lighted side if I hadn’t inadvertently drawn the ground shadows through its body!)

5/23/26 Statue of Lenin, Fremont

Anyway, this exercise was a lot of challenging fun. It motivates me to take more high-contrast reference photos so that I can practice this exercise again. 

Could I ever do it on location? It’s often difficult to find a high-contrast scene with ideal lighting that would make this exercise easier, but now that I’m aware of what to look for, I see more potential. Last week in Fremont, I was thinking about Blast’s tips as I sketched the statue of Lenin. Several dense trees are behind Lenin’s head. I made the tree on the left (the lit side of the statue) darker to have higher contrast against the focal point. On that overcast afternoon, I also exaggerated the contrast between light and shadow on the whole statue and made the direction of light more obvious -- something I became more aware of because of Blast’s videos. 

Neppy

 

5/22/26 Neptune (reference photo by Linda Lee)

From the many stories I’ve been told about the pets I’ve drawn, I gather that rescue pups are a hardy lot. They’ve already survived untold hardships before finding their forever homes. Once they know they are safe and loved, they have reason to keep on barking.

A Papillon and Chihuahua mix, Neptune lived to the ripe old age of 14, despite numerous health issues. A friend commissioned this drawing to give to her aunt, Neppy’s mom.

RIP, Neppy.

Each Day

 

5/22/26 Mt. Rainier from Maple Leaf Park (I tried something a little different with this sketch: Instead of "drawing" the mountain first, I simply painted the sky around it, then smeared through the middle to capture the intriguing cloud formations.)

Mysterious mountain,

a song sparrow’s call,

a bunny munching grass for breakfast:

Each day a fresh opportunity

to miss you.

This Time, Lenin and the Bridge

 

5/23/26 Fremont Bridge and Lake Washington Ship Canal, Fremont neighborhood

Sketching in the Fremont neighborhood is always a game of “choose your icon.” The Troll, JP Patches & Gertrude, Lenin, Saturn, the Rocket (bonus points if you can get both Saturn and the Rocket in the same composition), the Fremont Bridge, the topiary dinosaurs – did I miss any? USk Seattle hit them all last Saturday on a cloudy afternoon.

Although I’ve sketched all of them multiple times, I picked an icon that I may not have sketched as often. It was breezy and chilly by the Lake Washington Ship Canal, but I wanted to start with a peek-a-boo view of the brilliantly blue Fremont Bridge.

After walking around Fremont for a while to warm up, I ended up at the statue of Lenin, where several other sketchers were already settled in at the former Soviet Union leader’s feet. Always a bit daunted by the formidable monument, I walked across the street for a more distant view. I chose a purple and green palette that would contrast strongly with Lenin’s red hand.

In fact, the red hand was just what I needed to fill the short time remaining until our throwdown, when the sun finally came out.

Statue of Lenin

Thornton Creek

 

5/21/26 Thornton Creek water quality channel, Northgate neighborhood

Northgate’s Thornton Creek water quality channel is less than a half-hour’s walk from home, yet I’ve sketched there only a few times. Although the freshly landscaped channel, new in 2009, was still growing in when I first sketched there in 2013, it’s now lush with mature plantings. This time of year, it’s a zillion shades of green with spots of colorful blossoms.

Kim and I take advantage of the sunshine.

I think the main reason I avoided sketching there for many years was that I was intimidated by all that green. In that 2013 post, I drew the landscaping but avoided painting it, knowing that I’d end up with “a huge, dark green mess.” A month later, I was brave enough to get my green paints out (see below), but the foliage was no less daunting.

Kim had never been to Thornton Creek channel before, so I took advantage of a gorgeous afternoon to introduce her to it. Somewhere in the 13 years since those previous visits, sketching layers of lush greenery became less formidable. It probably happened around the time I quit watercolors and embraced pencils! This time I added water-soluble crayons to the mix. While it’s not without challenges, I’m relieved that I’m no longer intimidated by layers of green.

I bravely got my watercolors out for this sketch in 2013.

Sidewalk Stories

 

4/12/26 Maple Leaf

If you walk north of Northeast 95th in Maple Leaf, the sidewalk abruptly ends, and the pavement turns to gravel, which cars park on haphazardly without a curb to guide them. Pedestrians must then walk the slalom of parked cars or negotiate the road with moving vehicles. I always wonder, did the city's tax money suddenly run out?

Even sidewalks can have stories.

If you note the temperature as the days move forward, you'll see them gradually getting warmer. My walk-sketches become a record of spring's optimism.

4/8/26 Green Lake

4/24/26 Green Lake

5/5/26 Maple Leaf Park

5/8/26 a Maple Leaf garden

5/8/26 Maple Leaf

5/11/26 Maple Leaf

5/20/26 Maple Leaf

SLU Study (and Bonus Banana Stand)

 

5/19/26 South Lake Union

Before meeting Ching for happy hour, I arrived a little early in South Lake Union to try a color temperature/values study. One thing I really like about the area around the Amazon Spheres is the stark contrast between the harsh, glassy surfaces of buildings and the soft, organic textures of the trees and other vegetation. Influenced by Colin Woodward’s abstract approach, I tried not to think about “drawing” the Spheres and other buildings. Instead, I focused on shapes, values and especially color temperature (my usual focus, especially this time of year) using only three crayons.

Although I don’t usually like to show a photo of something I’ve sketched, since this is a study, I thought it might be useful, since it’s probably hard to tell what the scene actually looks like in the sketch. I’m planning to do more studies eventually from the photo.

A minor distraction in my study was Amazon’s Community Banana Stand (free bananas are distributed here daily to anyone who wants one). I was planning to sketch it later, but just as I had looked up, I saw that some workers had come by with ladders and a large tarp to wrap up the stand for the night. It got covered so quickly that I didn’t get a chance to draw the window or any details on the stand except one wheel.

Amazon Community Banana Stand

Skagit River

5/18/26 Skagit River, Rockport, WA.

Some of my family were in town for a few days last weekend for an extended family event. I joined a few of them for a short road trip to the small town of Rockport about a hundred miles north of Seattle. Although Howard Miller Steelhead Park in Skagit County is known for its winter eagle feedings in the Skagit River, not many eagles were sighted the day we went. My brother, a wildlife photographer (I have sketched from some of his photos taken in Kenya), wanted to check it out for future reference.

Walking out onto a bridge across the river, I caught this lovely spot with the North Cascades looming behind it. If you zoom in closely, you might see that the tiny dot in the water is a fly fisherman. 

Although I've gotten rides before in my nephew's Tesla, this 
was my first experience in a charging station.

Technical notes: I’m not sure how evident it is in the results, but the color sketch was inspired by Colin Woodward’s techniques with water-soluble materials. His primary method is to apply relatively little pencil or crayon and instead employ the water to do more of the work. Using Caran d’Ache Neocolor II water-soluble crayons and Museum Aquarelle pencils, I did the same. I must say that the waterbrush hack I’ve been using lately is definitely efficient with his method. It’s easier to control the direction and density of water than spritzing, and the flat, broad brush edge is faster than a typical round waterbrush. I finished this sketch in the time it took my brother to take a few photos, and I didn’t keep anyone waiting.

375 and Onward

5/20/12 Magnuson Park, site of my very first USk outing

 A while back, someone in the global USk group had shared that she had reached a personal milestone of USk outings attended. That made me curious about how many I've attended, but I didn’t know how I would count them. Then I realized that I have posted on the USk Seattle blog every time I’ve participated – that made it easy. I went back through all my posts and made a spreadsheet of all the outings I’ve attended. It took a while to log them all, but now it’ll be easy to continue adding to the spreadsheet as I attend more.

Today, the 14^th anniversary of my very first USk outing, is a good day to commemorate the total to date: 375 outings!

My personal best was in 2025: 44 outings. Second best was 2017 with 39 outings. The worst year, of course, was 2020, when we met only for the first two-and-a-half months – five outings.

I’ve missed some outings, especially during the years I traveled heavily, so the spreadsheet is not comprehensive of all USk outings. Now that I’ve logged them all, though, I have a useful list of ideas, including some locations I’d forgotten about.

It’s funny now to read the blog post about that first outing, which took place only a few months after I had begun sketching. Here’s what I wrote:

On a rainy Sunday morning – the kind that would usually see me in my recliner with a second cup of coffee and the Seattle Times’ funnies – I drove out to Magnuson Park to join the Seattle Urban Sketchers at my first sketchcrawl. Introvert that I am, going alone to a social event like this – where I wouldn’t know anyone and I wasn’t sure what it would be like – is usually hard for me. The rain, the coffee and the recliner were all telling me I should skip this and go another time.

 But two things pushed me out the door: One was the Seattle Times’ full-page spreads that very morning of Gabi Campanario’s vibrant sketches of the new Chihuly Garden and Glass exhibition. Talk about inspiring!

 The second was the commitment I had made to myself to give this sketchcrawl thing a try. It’s part of becoming an urban sketcher and getting out into the world – and really seeing the world.

 I’m glad I got out the door! Being part of my enthusiastic, supportive USk community has led to many friendships that I cherish. It feels good to be part of a tribe. (The sketch above is from my first USk outing on May 20, 2012.)

Captive

 

3/15/26

Something about being captive on a bus or train invites me to make editorial commentary about my fellow commuters. Public transportation is made for on-location comics: So many humans (and a canine) to observe and eavesdrop on. I also find myself having more time for self-critiquing, too.

3/17/26

4/18/26

4/19/26

4/25/26

4/30/26

5/9/26