The Seattle Sketcher’s Path through Ballard

 

7/3/24 Ballard

Back in March, Gabi Campanario published a fun feature in The Seattle Times for a special section about the Ballard neighborhood. (Seeing it made me miss his Seattle Sketcher column all over again.) Walking the mile or so from the Locks to the Marvin’s Garden Centennial Bell Tower, he made 11 sketches of notable attractions and historic points along the way. His hand-drawn map with the locations called out made it easy to follow his route. Ever since I saw the article, I’d been wanting to take that literal sketchwalk myself, but I had waited for warmer, drier weather. In the meantime, I started talking to other sketchers who might be up for doing it with me. They had to be both fit for the walk and relatively fast sketchers, since we had a lot of ground to cover – and Roy and MaryJean were in!

Ballard Locks

Reversing Gabi’s route, we started at the Bell Tower (since campanario means bell tower in Spanish, I thought it was appropriate to begin at “the Ballard campanario” in Gabi’s honor) and ended at the Locks. Though we didn’t get to all 11 sketches as Gabi did (and if the truth were known, I bet he didn’t do them all in one day!), we did get to eight – not bad for amateur sketch journalists!

7/3/24 Kiss Cafe, Ballard

Halfway through, we stopped for lunch at the Kiss Café, which Roy and I had discovered the month before with Kim. (And like that time with Kim, Roy ordered bread pudding for dessert and shared it – this time with whiskey ice cream instead of vanilla!)

Ballard Locks

MaryJean had to leave before we got to the end, but Roy and I carried on through the afternoon. We all had so much fun that we’re inspired to make up our own sketchwalks of other areas before we run out of good weather this year!

Roy and MaryJean are holding the original article that Gabi published in the Times, the source of our inspiration.

Roy and I carried on at the Locks!

Process notes: Although I had sketched most of these scenes before, it was surprising to find that my comics approach made the familiar seem fresh again. Instead of leisurely rendering in color as I did Frankie Feetsplinters last October or the Salmon Bay Bridge nearly every time I’ve visited the Locks, my goal was to make simplified panels like a sequential comic strip, scene by scene. While the actual sequence wasn’t important for the story, together the panels express the passage of time over the course of one day, sketching with good company.

Material notes: I used to think A5-ish sized Uglybooks inlandscape format would not be conducive to sketching while standing. However, I wanted a long, horizontal format to evoke the passage of time from left to right the way a comic strip does, so I gave it a try. With one side folded back, I hardly noticed a difference from my usual A6 size. (I had tried it in Portland in the vertical direction, and that had been a bit more awkward to hold.) When I have longer stories to tell – like ones that take all day to sketch! – I’m going to use the larger size.