Double Luck on Trash Day

7/13/23 Maple Leaf neighborhood

After nearly 12 years of urban sketching, I am not at all self-conscious about sketching in public. The only time I feel a tiny bit strange is when I’m sketching an urban couch – I just don’t know how to talk about this to the general public.

Fortunately for me, I’ve never had to. Three people passed me as I sketched this. One muttered “Good morning,” but none made eye contact, let alone conversation. Saved again by the Seattle freeze.

7/13/23 Maple Leaf

Later on the same walk, I had a rare opportunity to sketch a trash truck coming toward me. Ten years ago last week in Marc Holmes’ workshop in Barcelona, I learned a helpful tip that I still use to this day (and which comes in especially handy during the annual One Week 100 People challenge): When sketching gestures of people walking, choose people who are walking away or toward you (instead of crossing in front of you). You will have more time to capture the general figure, which doesn’t change much even if it’s moving. This works with trash trucks, too.

A few blocks later, again on the same walk, I witnessed an unusual incident: Latona Avenue Northeast is one of those typical Seattle residential streets that are so narrow that one vehicle would have to pull out if another came from the opposite direction. Latona is so lightly trafficked, however, that it’s hardly necessary (I have sketched while standing in the middle of that street). On this particular morning, however, two trash trucks faced each other, and the only way to get unstuck would be for one to back down the block. I could hear voices shouting at each other, so I thought the drivers were arguing about who had the right of way (and certainly one of them was going the wrong way, since all the trash trucks are routed to prevent this type of thing from happening). When I got closer, I realized they were friends who were just chatting loudly. One eventually backed out.

I sure wish I had arrived early enough that I could have sketched the two trucks facing each other on that narrow street. But an urban couch and a trash truck on the same morning walk? I can hardly complain.