Ace Garden Center

 

3/2/25 Ace Hardware's new garden center

Probably the Maple Leaf business that Greg and I patronized most regularly in our nearly four decades of living here was Reckless Video, where we rented movies every weekend. Formerly a house, the building remained empty after Reckless closed a few years ago. The family that owns the adjacent Ace Hardware store (which we’ve also patronized the whole time we’ve lived here) also owns the Reckless property. They tried to find ways to use the existing building as an extension of the store, but it didn’t work out.

I was sad to see the old building come down; its traditional architectural style is so emblematic of Maple Leaf. The good news, however, is that Ace has decided to use the space as a garden center that will open this spring. Although I’m unlikely to shop there (Me, garden?? I can barely keep a house plant alive), it might have colorful flowers to sketch someday. More important, it means that a family-owned neighborhood business is thriving and growing.

The Green Lake Sequoia

3/1/25 Green Lake neighborhood

Known as the Green Lake sequoia, a 121-year-old, 100-foot-tall, perfectly healthy tree will likely be cut down for a driveway as part of a development. This is happening all over Seattle because of city laws that allow it. The sequoia’s neighbors and other tree supporters gathered last Saturday afternoon to thank and honor this magnificent tree. The event also raised awareness of actions citizens can take to voice their concerns to city hall.

Looking up and down the block, I saw no other tree close to this one in fullness and height. According to Tree Action Seattle, a citizen activist group that organized the “birthday party,” this sequoia offers a regular resting spot for bald eagles, provides a much-needed buffer against heat and pollution coming from nearby Interstate 5, and filters stormwater that flows into Green Lake, which is only three blocks away.

D & D for R & R

2/28/25 Project 9 Brewing Co., Maple Leaf neighborhood

 After my busy week of packing and unpacking, Friday night’s drink & draw with USk Seattle was welcome R & R! Several of us were warming up for One Week 100 People (which begins today) so we became each other’s victims. I couldn’t resist one of the canines, too. (One of many reasons I like Project 9 Brewing Company for our drink & draws is that dogs are welcome.)

Three Lamps

 

2/24/25 Our three portable lamps. The floor lamp has moved to a different corner of the livingroom, the other antique has moved to my studio, and the contemporary one is now my bedside lamp.

To accommodate furniture changes from my move downstairs, I rearranged the three portable lamps in our home. Doing so made me realize that all three were selected and purchased by Greg, two before I even met him. Although we both love them, we hardly used them when he lived here because they weren’t on switches. The two antiques have cumbersome pull chains or a hard-to-reach knob under the shade to operate.

All that changed when I discovered smart plugs. In the dead of winter when I want as much light as I can get, the lamps are on timers, and I can easily enjoy their soft, warm illumination.

The spouse guy recently spent a few days in the hospital recovering from an infection (he’s fine now and back “home” at Aegis). Feeling sad and anxious, I reached for my usual remedy: my sketchbook. Drawing the lamps calmed me and reminded me that the lamps he bought still bring me comfort every day.

Double Celebration

2/27/25 Green Lake and Roosevelt neighborhoods

Many boxes are labeled "Keep upright" because they contain
mugs of pencils right off my desk!

As mentioned previously, I have finished moving my studio downstairs, which means Phase 2 of my eight-month (so far) downsizing project is done! The final Phase 3 will be removing all the remaining items from upstairs so that the carpet can be replaced, but I’m in no hurry for that. In fact, I’m giving myself the rest of the year to finish. I still have quite a few art supplies upstairs that weren’t ready in time for the movers, so I’ve decided to bring them down only as needed. It will be an interesting downsizing process by attrition: Whatever is still left up there by year’s end, unused for at least a year, will tell me that I don’t really need them. It will be easy to take the remains to the next Gab & Grab.

I still have a lot of unpacking to do, so it will be a while before my “new” studio is fully equipped (I will certainly show it off here when I’m ready!). But I’m already having fun starting fresh. All those empty surfaces and shelves waiting to be filled – but filled judiciously. I’m definitely not piling all the clutter back in. It will be interesting to see how accurately I gauged the amount of materials I’ve kept to fit the available space.  

Although I’m working on plans for a larger celebration eventually, I couldn’t resist a pastry reward for achieving this milestone. It was actually a double celebration: One for myself, and one for the unseasonably warm and sunny day. After one of the coldest winters on record, we Pacific Northwesterners deserved it!

While some things didn't get packed when I ran out of boxes, others I deliberately hand-carried myself. My moving guys were great, but nobody touches my jewels.

Majestic Brothers on Moving Day

 

The moving company was scheduled for Wednesday. The last several days prior had been a ton of work packing as much studio stuff as I could so that the movers could help carry it downstairs. After filling more than 30 boxes, I ran out, so the remaining stuff I’ll just carry down a little at a time. But the important thing was getting all the furniture moved: Three desks and three bookcases, now all in place downstairs! (And sadly, I had to say good-bye to Greg’s jukebox, which the same movers hauled to Ballard Consignment.)

After they left, I took a much-needed break. With weeks of cold followed by an atmospheric river of rain and wind, my daily walks had been miserable and certainly without sketches. By late morning, it was downright balmy – temperatures in the low 50s and sunny! The Olympic mountains were glorious; the Brothers majestic.

Good-bye, Rockola!

A bit of unpacking to do!

Not-Quite Comics

2/21/25 Sketch journal page

One of many small but necessary tasks related to moving my studio from upstairs to downstairs is that all the bookcases will need to be braced to the wall studs again (yes, we have to do that here in earthquake country). Greg did it himself decades ago for all my bookcases. I don’t remember anything about it because it was just one of those things he automatically took care of: Just one of many, many things I took for granted when he lived here.

Now that the bookcases occupy my new studio (the furniture move was completed yesterday! More on that soon), I’ve hired a handyman to take care of that and several other tasks. Most of the braces will be reused, but I needed an additional set. I went to the hardware store to get more like the ones Greg had installed previously. Ace offered several “kits” that cost quite a bit more, but the staff member who helped me said that they were easier to install. I was confident the handyman would know how to install the basic L-shaped braces that Greg had put in . . . but then I had doubts that I was getting the right type for the particular bookcase they are for. I have doubts about pretty much everything I’ve ever looked at or purchased at the hardware store because it’s all so foreign to me.

Two of my emptied bookcases shortly before they were moved downstairs.

I miss Greg every day in so many ways.

Process notes: Lately I’ve found myself making sketches with related text that in my mind do not really qualify as comics because I feel they require more writing to be complete. True comics should be able to stand alone without further explanation. To finish the story, I write here on my blog. Other examples are “Shoe Horn” and “Office Chair.”

For the past year, I’ve been working with varying degrees of success to make autobiographical comics mostly from imagination. On top of the supreme challenge of drawing from my head, it has also been a struggle to pare down stories so that they fit into three or four panels.

The fact is, I’m a writer. For four decades, I made my bread and butter with words. To make comics, I am constantly fighting against words that come so naturally to me and that I’m more adept at using than making clumsy drawings.

Eventually I found myself simply enhancing what I sketched with words as you just read in this story about the bookcase braces. I’ve accepted that it’s OK for text to enhance a drawing in the same way that illustrations can enhance writing. I didn’t plan it or think about it much; it just started happening organically. I appreciate and enjoy any creative process that happens organically, so I’m going to go with it.

Related insight: A while back, I had talked about how I initially had the idea to use the autobiographical comics format to tell stories about my caregiving experiences. Although some aspects of such a project appealed to me, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that to do it well, I’d have to keep my head in the painful, difficult past. I decided I didn’t want to keep my head there, even if the end result could be healing.

Interestingly, again in a very organic way, I’ve begun using comics – or these not-quite comics – to talk about learning how to live without Greg. Instead of looking back at the past, I look at the present. I can focus on all that I appreciate about him and all the years we have shared. I can also focus on my own growth as I learn new skills that I didn’t need before.

Temperature Study at PCC

 

2/23/25 PCC Green Lake (color temperature study)

Ching, Natalie and I got together for lunch and a play date at PCC Green Lake. The view from the café area is extremely blah, even by my low standards, but you know me – I’m always up for a challenge (especially with good company). My self-challenge of the day: Use the same color temperature principles I’m learning in Sarah Bixler’s class on location.

Facing the windows, the view was slightly better than the salad bar behind me. The seated woman left shortly after I started the sketch, but not before I had quickly blocked in the color temperatures. When another woman took her place, I knew the values would be the same, so it was easy to put those in even though the original woman was gone. It was another good reason to focus on color first before values, per Sarah’s recommendations.

This murky, hazy style that we are using in class for portraits is sort of the opposite of my hard-line comics style with markers that I’ve been using for a while, so it’s quite a leap for me. I’m not sure I like it, but I’m using it to nail down the concepts in my brain. Ultimately, I want to find a way to integrate what I’m learning with my own style.

Temperature Before Values

 

2/21/25 Prismacolors in Stillman & Birn Zeta sketchbook
(The triangle at the bottom is one way to mix three hues
to see the range of neutral shades available.)

The assignments in Sarah Bixler’s class last week were a fascinating exploration of values and color temperature. First, we were to make a values study of a face using colored tape in a collage-like way (see below). When I had taken her class previously, we did a similar exercise, so the concept wasn’t new to me, but I remember how much fun it was – and informative. 

And it was again! Tape, especially without using scissors to cut small pieces, is a crude medium, so it’s impossible to get fussy with details. In addition, the tape is straight, so you get angles instead of curves. It’s liberating to focus only on values and not have to look at proportions, features or anything else.

Using the collage as a reminder of values, I used the same reference photo to draw a portrait. She suggested we choose one warm and one cool (I chose orange and green) to establish the main color temperatures. Once the temperatures were blocked in at about the same middle value, we were to choose a third color fairly close on the color wheel to one of the other two chosen colors (I chose blue). The third color would push the other hues in the appropriate temperature direction.

Values study made with tape -- fun!

One big question I had from the previous week’s exercises was how to see color temperature independent of values. Despite the orange and blue I had chosen for those exercises being about the same values, I kept thinking of blue as “darker,” so I’d use it to apply darker values without paying attention to whether those areas were actually cooler. Sarah answered my question by saying she almost always establishes color temperature first before focusing on values. This was a bit of a mind-blower, as I’ve heard most instructors say the opposite – always establishing values first before color. I followed her suggestion for this exercise, however, and it definitely made it easier for me to avoid confusion between value and temperature.

Some Lines a Day: My Longitudinal Study

 

Although I don’t blog much about topics unrelated to sketching, one exception I made in 2020 was to talk about how I planned to use a new Leuchtturm Some Lines a Day five-year diary. Shortly after writing that post, I published a review of the product at the Well-Appointed Desk. A little more than a year later, I wrote a follow-up post at the Desk about how it was going (a bit spotty at times).

I’m now in my final year of using the diary, so I thought it was a good time to write one last follow-up on how it’s going. (If you’re interested, please go read about it at the Desk.) Despite my sometimes rocky relationship with Some Lines a Day, ultimately I’ve decided that it’s a rewarding way to keep a perpetual diary (and I think my mom would approve). It’s as close to anything I can think of that represents a longitudinal study, as it were, of my life.  

Wintergrass: Great to Be Back!

 

2/20/25 Wintergrass at the Bellevue Hyatt Regency

Wintergrass, the annual bluegrass festival at the Bellevue Hyatt Regency, has always been one of my favorite USk winter outing locations. With toe-tappin’ music everywhere and happy jammers jammin’, it’s irresistible if you enjoy sketching people. The last time I attended was in 2020 (just weeks before the pandemic hit), and I had sorely missed it. It was wonderful to be back this year!

On the first day of the festival when events were not yet fully under way, we had no crowds to contend with, yet just enough musicians were around to keep us busy. It’s a joy to sketch people who are so clearly passionate about what they are doing and enjoy doing it together (and we urban sketchers know what that’s about).

Happy Hour

1/28/25 (Although most quotations on these
 sketches are from song lyrics, this one was 
something one of the caregivers said.)

1/30/25

Since we still aren’t taking many walks in the cold and mostly inhospitable weather we’ve been having, my visits with Greg enable me to observe (and sketch) whatever activities are going on while I’m there.

2/6/25

My favorite time to visit is “happy hour” each week when a musician performs. I think they are asked by the staff to sing songs that will be familiar and appealing to this generation, and singing along is encouraged. My favorite recent vocalist, however, was Ali (top left), a young woman who included music from several eras, including contemporary. I wasn’t familiar with the newer songs, and I doubt the residents were either, but I enjoyed being introduced to fresher music. (I don’t need to hear “Que Sera, Sera” as often as some people seem to want to sing it. I mean, just because you’re an octogenarian doesn’t mean you love Doris Day.)

By the way, have I said lately how much I love my Pentel Pocket Brush Pen?

2/6/25

2/8/25

2/11/25

2/14/25

Color Temperature: Clicking into Place?

 

2/15/25 orange/blue only
(all exercises done with Prismacolors in Stillman &Birn Zeta sketchbook)

In the second session of Sarah Bixler’s class, Sarah gave us a lengthy demo of her portraiture style using color temperature as the focus. As I had felt in her earlier workshops, I’m both intrigued and perplexed at the same time, and I jumped into the homework eagerly.

Two challenges collided: The first was the same as in the initial exercise (when we focused only on values by using black) – the difficulty of “painting” only the abstract value shapes instead of rendering with a contour line. The second challenge was simultaneously paying attention to color temperature and its relativity.

Assigned to draw three portraits using reference images of our choice, I went to my favorite portrait go-to, Earthsworld, for two. For the first (at right), we were to use only orange and blue for the color temperature range. The gradient under the portrait shows the range from warm (pure orange) to cool (pure blue) and everything in between. The middle of the gradient bar should be close to a neutral gray.

A trick I used was to first identify the coolest area (his shirt) and the warmest areas (the sunlit side of his face near the highlight) and make those pure blue and pure orange. From there, as I moved around the drawing, I kept asking, Is this spot warmer than the shirt? Cooler than the sunlit side of his face? I’m not sure whether she would recommend this tactic, but it seemed to help me.

For the second exercise, we were to begin with brown (warm) and black (cool) to establish values first. After that was done, we added orange and blue to indicate temperature more clearly. This version was easier for me because I could look at values without confusing the issue with hue (below). I remembered to take a photo right after I made the initial block-in of “value shapes” – so challenging without drawing a contour line! But it does help to hold the pencil loosely and use the broad side of the point so that color goes on as widely as possible – like paint.

"Value shapes" during initial block-in

2/16/25 Brown/black used first to establish values

The last exercise (below) – similar to the first except using burnt ochre (warm) and peacock green (cool) – I had to laugh through most of it! Sarah had suggested using a selfie for one, so I chose a very unflattering, harshly lighted photo with a three-quarter view that I find especially daunting. I actually thought the unflattering photo might help me to abstract the shapes more easily! HA! I’ll tell you what was helpful, though: For the initial block-in, I turned the reference photo upside-down!

2/18/25 burnt ochre and peacock green (Brownie points for me
that I even turned this one in!)

Although that last one was painful and humbling, that’s when things started to click into place for me. In the first one, I felt like I was automatically thinking of blue as “darker” than orange and relying on it to darken the values without regard to temperature, which then confused me. As you can see from the gradient bar that I converted to grayscale below, in reality, both orange and blue are about the same value (in fact, the whole gradient is). By the time I got to the selfie, I started “seeing” that darker areas can be warm, and lighter areas can be cool – temperature is not the same as values. Holy heck, am I really starting to get it??

I remember sort of arriving at this point toward the end of her previous workshops, but without more practice and feedback, it felt slippery, and I was never confident that I understood enough to internalize what I learned. I hope that the remaining three classes will help me solidify what feels like I’m just beginning to grasp.

Orange/blue gradient from first exercise converted to grayscale

Play Date at Third Place Commons

 

2/17/25 Third Place Commons in Lake Forest Park (Caran d'Ache Luminance and Museum Aquarelle pencils in Stillman & Birn Zeta sketchbook)

The day after the Suzzallo Library USk outing, I had another opportunity to practice warm/cool color studies on location at an art play date with Roy and Mary Jean. I also got an idea to use watercolor pencils and non-soluble colored pencils together in a strategic way. I had tried it years ago but then forgot about it until my current colored pencil class reawakened old ideas.

Same pencils in one of our round-robin Seawhite of Brighton concertina books

The strategy is to use non-soluble pencils first for the drawing and the main coloring. Then in areas where I want more saturated coverage, I used watercolor pencils with washes, often in the opposite color as the initial layer. The non-soluble pencil marks show through, retaining the “pencil look” that I often miss after I’ve activated watercolor pencils too smoothly.

So exciting to be using and thinking about colored pencils again!

Color Studies at Suzzallo

 

2/16/25 Red Square and Suzzallo Library, UW campus

Warm, cozy, artistically challenging – Suzzallo Library on the University of Washington campus is a winter mainstay for USk Seattle. If the size of our group last Sunday is any indication, we have high pent-up demand for comfortable sketching opportunities – what a turnout!

While I waited for others to show up at the library entrance, I made a couple of quick sketches of Red Square to set the location (above). Once inside, I wasn’t in the mood to challenge myself with daunting architecture. Instead, I picked one of the elegant pillars flanking the stairway to finish the page.

That done, I spent the rest of the outing pulling out different media to experiment with tone and color temperature (which have been on mind with Sarah Bixler’s class). The small monochrome of Suzzallo’s main reading room entrance (left) was made in the round-robin concertina book I’m sharing with Roy and Mary Jean.

Elsewhere in the library, I found quiet spots to study color temperature using watercolor pencils (below). At lower right, the strong diagonal is one of many internal supports throughout Suzzallo. They look jarring mixed in with the stately Collegiate Gothic Revival architectural style, but it’s reassuring to know that the centenarian building is seismically safe.

Pent-up demand!

Single-Panel Comics

1/31/25 Cloud City Coffee

When making small, quick sketches on my walks, I often think of them as single-panel comics. They don’t usually have much story to tell, but I try to tell as much story as possible in one frame. The one at right seems to be the most successful as a single-panel story: I couldn’t draw much less to convey the story, but I don’t have to draw more, either.

2/3/25 Maple Leaf neighborhood

When I think of them as comics, I also become more aware of the frame – whether it’s needed or not. Almost always, I think a frame helps to give the story and composition a place in space. The garbage trucks (below) were gesture sketches that I was able to get only because I was chasing them down the street and around corners (with thawing slush still on the sidewalks! Treacherous footwork!). I didn’t have time to frame them or even think about the compositions, and the result is less finished. (My handwriting shows how cold my hands were, even with fingerless gloves on.)

2/7/25 chasing trash trucks in Maple Leaf

The overall story of this post is how unhappy I am with the bright turquoise Field Notes I’ve been using. Although I love the hue, it’s just a bit too pale as a midtone to make white pop. The smooth surface is great for ink (although some inks are bleeding through), but I sure miss Uglybooks’ ideal tooth with colored pencil. At this point, I’m just trying to burn through pages quickly and skip the back sides of pages where ink bled through. I can’t wait to get back to a beloved Uglybook.

2/9/25 Green Lake (Every medium I used was fighting me!)

2/12/25 Roosevelt neighborhood

2/12/25 Two peaks on one walk

One more story from a walk that happened too fast to sketch, even for me: I spotted a coyote! I keep hearing about coyote sightings in my neighborhood, but I had never seen one with my own eyes until this one. I know pet and chicken owners see coyotes as their enemy, but I sympathize with these wild carnivores. They’re just trying to make a living like the rest of us. One reason they are coming into urban areas is that humans have encroached on areas that used to be their habitat. What a beauty.