An Historic Meeting in Tacoma

 

5/28/25 Downtown Tacoma

For the first time ever, the four admins of USk Seattle met in person! Before Kim joined the team a couple of years ago, the other three of us had business meetings in person at least annually, but the pandemic ended that. We got so used to conducting business by email and occasionally on Zoom that it seemed like such a novelty to meet over an actual café table – followed by sketching, of course. It's a pleasure and privilege to work with such dedicated, hard-working women!

Tina, Kim, Jane and Kate

Since Tacoma is about halfway between north Seattle and Olympia, it was a sensible meeting location. Driving south with Kim, I was trying to remember the last time I sketched in Tacoma, and like so many things, it was before the pandemic. It was high time to get back there, especially on what turned out to be our one day of summer in May! I picked out a few favorite icons in downtown Tacoma, which is rich with interesting architecture.

Two Stories from Green Lake

 

Not Much Breeze

 

5/24/25 Sunset Hills Memorial Park, Bellevue

Every Memorial Day weekend, I visit family members’ grave sites at Sunset Hills Memorial Park. My personal tradition is to sketch the rows of dynamic flags – always a fun challenge. This time there wasn’t much wind, so the flags hung limply. It should have been easier somehow, but I still found the patterns of stripes difficult to capture.

If you’d like to see the various ways I’ve attempted this challenge over the years, check out the posts with this link.

Meditative Observation (Plus Holbein Graphite Wannabe)

 

5/23/25 Maple Leaf neighborhood

Fran Gallo begins every yoga class with a dedication inspired by a poem or quotation. This day’s class, dedicated to meditative observation, began with a passage from Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. As Fran read, I thought about how every sketch I make on location is a type of meditative observation that empties my mind of everything except what I am trying to capture from the moment.

On this day, I observed: Even when you can’t see most of a tree, you can learn about its size by looking at its shadow.

Pencil note: This Holbein colored pencil is the first of three I am auditioning to find the best graphite wannabe. I’ll be talking more about all of them, of course, after making several sketches with each, but right out of the gate, I must say that Holbein is a strong candidate!

The Best of Collecting

 

The keepers from my well-used random lot

Several years back during the pandemic (when I had time to do most of my heavy-duty colored-pencil geeking – one of the few positive outcomes of that era!), I wrote a lengthy post about Canada-made Eagle and Berol Prismacolors. At the time, the only Canadian Prismacolors I owned were a heavily used, random lot I had purchased on eBay plus a few that were given to me. The lot was sort of a placeholder that I could use and test until I achieved my goal, which was to eventually find a reasonably priced, complete set made in Canada.

The full Canadian set

By the end of the pandemic, I did manage to find such a set – intact, unused and fully made in Canada. It’s a prize specimen that I cherish!

One of my main downsizing criteria has been to eliminate duplicates. It was time to offload the random lot I had enjoyed sketching with and had also used to make informative comparison tests with US-made Prismacolors of the same era. 

Before donating most of them, I took the time to appreciate each pencil and pick out a few favorite colors. I also picked out at least one each that had been self-ID’d by MB, Sylvie and Alex. I enjoy imagining these (probably) Canadian children or their parents diligently knifing off the paint on each pencil so that their names could be written (Alex seemed to prefer carving directly into the paint with a ballpoint pen). I sharpened up the handful and put them in a jar for display.

Hard work getting those names on!

One of many things my downsizing project has taught me is what “collecting” is about (at least for me). Early on, it was about my growing fascination with learning about vintage pencils, which rapidly developed into obsessive (and sometimes indiscriminate) acquisition. Eventually I learned what I wanted to collect, which made me more judicious, but by that time, the acquisition phase had gotten out of hand. Now I’ve come full circle to the best part of collecting: Letting go of the excess so that I can appreciate what I’ve chosen to keep.

I don’t feel guilty or regretful about any of it; it’s a process, and I enjoyed and learned from every stage while I was in it. Someday I’ll probably have to part with most (or all) of my collection, but until then, I can enjoy this best and final stage.

Cybertruck

 

5/22/25 Feel free to avert your gaze.

I don’t usually have strong opinions about most vehicles, one way or the other. The exception is the Tesla Cybertruck, which I believe to be the ugliest vehicle ever to deface planet Earth.

Seeing more and more of them the past year, despite my low standards for acceptable sketching subjects, I refused to sketch one (if only on principle) because I didn’t want to look at one long enough to sketch it. Sketchwaiting near University Village recently, however, I spotted one parked near the sidewalk. I still had 10 minutes to kill – the maximum length of time I could tolerate searing my eyes.

As I sketched, trying to dredge up something positive about it, I had to admit it’s relatively easy to draw: It’s entirely made up of straight lines.

Sterile Pacific Place

 

5/21/25 Pacific Place, downtown Seattle

Although it wasn’t necessarily a favorite, Pacific Place retail center used to be a reliable wintertime location for sketching. USk Seattle met there once or twice, and I especially enjoyed sketching Santa there for several years.

That was long before the pandemic. Then sometime during the pandemic years, Pacific Place underwent a major renovation, raising eyebrows among local business writers and other critics. With retail business down all over the country, and downtown Seattle trending downward even before 2020, was putting a ton of money into Pacific Place really a good idea?

I don’t know the answer, but I realized that I had not yet been inside the retail center post-pandemic. Roy and I decided to check it out to see whether its sketching potential had changed with the renovation.

Probably some sketchers would enjoy sketching
this restaurant mascot, but it's not placed in an
ideal location for sketching it.

You already know that I have a high tolerance for “nothing” views and tend to believe that, with the right attitude, anything is sketchable. Roy has as similar attitude, and we both typically sketch a lot of “nothing.” Although we had fun anyway, we concurred that Pacific Place wouldn’t have much appeal for most sketchers. The term that kept coming to mind was sterile – everything looked tidy, fresh and colorful but also had no life. We nearly had the place to ourselves. The mall still has lots of empty spaces waiting for stores to move in – if they ever do.

On the upside, plenty of public seating (with uncomfortable chairs) was available on most floors, but somehow, it didn’t feel inviting. As I said, we both enjoyed sketching “nothing,” but I don’t need to go there again (though I may give it one more chance during the holiday season to see what the Santa situation is). It’s a pity because USk Seattle is always looking for good indoor locations for the long winter months.

The highlight of our outing was lunch at nearby Urban Sushi Kitchen. As usual during meals, my sketch was hasty due to hunger, but I couldn’t resist scribbling the multiple compartments of colorful food in my bento box.

5/21/25 Urban Sushi Kitchen

A Square in Bryant

 

5/20/25 Bryant neighborhood

Before I began my daily fitness-walking/sketching regimen years ago, I did most of my cold-weather sketching from my mobile studio. Now that most of my urban sketches occur while I’m out on walks, I hardly sketch from my car anymore, but it’s still a handy tool. After picking up a few groceries in the Bryant neighborhood, it was still cool and blustery, so I pulled over and made a sketch exactly like I often used to: Just a random street where I saw some compositional potential.

On my mind was a blog post I had just read by Mark Alan Anderson. Like my composition hero Ian Roberts, Mark believes strongly that even a beautifully executed painting cannot overcome a weak composition. Here’s how he puts it: “It feels like dressing a house with fine furnishings when the foundation is cracked. Back in my ad agency days, we more crudely said it as ‘gold plating a turd.’”

Value/compositional study

He’s also a fan of square compositions. I used my Uglybook to first make a thumbnail composition and value study (at right). Then I pulled out my favorite secondary triad (with the addition of yellow) to execute the “final” version, as if it were a painting. (Typically, I skip the thumbnail step because I consider most of my sketches to be the “final”!)

All of this reminded me of how much I enjoy making small compositional studies just for the sake of studies as I did three years ago for Roberts’ 30-day challenge. I wonder if I can stand to do that again for 30 days – this time all in squares? (I’m just muttering an idea here. . . it’s not a commitment!)

Incidentally, the day I sketched these was my 13^th anniversary since I joined my first Urban Sketchers Seattle outing (which I had intended to commemorate at our last outing, but forgot). Ever grateful that I found my tribe, I’ve been happily sketching ever since.

Colored Pencil as Sub for Graphite?

 

5/12/25 Maple Leaf neighborhood (Inktense and Museum Aquarelle)

On my golden-hour walk one evening, bright yellow Uglybook at the ready, I wanted to try to capture that lovely, low light. Although my usual brush pens would have been faster, I wanted the subtler gradations of pencil but wasn’t in the mood for smudgy graphite. On a whim, I grabbed a dark purple Derwent Inktense. Halfway through, I put it back – I didn’t like the “stickiness” of Inktense cores, which slows me down. Next I tried a dark green Caran d’Ache Museum Aquarelle, and although it wasn’t “sticky” like the Inktense, it still didn’t feel as fast as a soft graphite pencil, which glides effortlessly like ice skates. (Graphite lovers, you know that feeling that can’t be replicated by any other medium.)

I’m not sure I captured the lovely light as I had hoped, but the sketch got me thinking about using colored pencils in tonal thumbnails when color isn’t important. Graphite pencils have no substitute for certain types of drawings, but for a quick value study when speed is of the utmost, colored pencils can be a less smudgy option. Using one of the water-soluble colored pencils already in my bag would be ideal, but maybe there’s a better choice.

For the sketches of Jack and Greg, I tried a Black Grape Prismacolor, which is both soft and not “sticky,” and purple makes an interesting brown against the yellow paper. (The background behind Jack is a magenta Museum Aquarelle and a red Inktense.)

5/14/25 (Prismacolor, Inktense, Museum Aquarelle)

5/17/25 Prismacolor

Now I’m on the hunt through my stash of colored pencils to answer this question: Which colored pencil makes the best stand-in for graphite? Incredibly, I don’t think I’ve ever done this kind of test before! Stay tuned.

(At the risk of becoming tiresome, I will again proclaim the joy – ecstasy! – of downsizing: being able to easily grab all the colored pencils I want to test without having to dig through, search for, stack and restack so many boxes. Ahhhhh!)

My Symposium Tin Collection in the Limelight

 

If you follow the global Urban Sketchers organization’s Instagram account, you may have noticed something vaguely familiar: My symposium pencil tin collection! A sponsorship coordinator contacted me recently because she had heard that I owned a complete collection of the Cretacolor tins. They were promoting long-time symposium sponsors, she said, and a photo of my tin collection was just what they needed!

Of course, I was more than happy to oblige. How often does one’s pencil tin collection receive international attention?

A St. Spiridon Opportunity

 

5/16/25 St. Spiridon Orthodox Cathedral, South Lake Union

Whenever I shop at REI, I try to use whatever time I have remaining in my hour of free parking to sketch some part of St. Spiridon Orthodox Cathedral (the opportunistic sketcher strikes again). As I was checking out, I saw that I had 19 minutes left – but that would have to include walking a couple blocks to the cathedral, walking back, and then spiraling out of REI’s tight parking ramp. Easy-peasy.

Sometimes I enjoy self-made, high-pressure situations.

Lots of History Behind U-District Street Fair

5/18/25 U-District Street Fair

In its 54^th year, the U-District Street Fair is the longest-running festival of its kind in the country. Although I’ve sketched at it only a few times, I’ve been attending regularly since the late ‘70s when I was a University of Washington student. The fair has a long history, and I learned a bit more of it on Sunday with USk Seattle.

Shiga's Garden at 55th and University Way NE

As I walked slowly up and down the 10 blocks of the fair, I stopped occasionally to capture snippets in my sketchbook. Most fun was the Bellingham juggler who said he has been performing at this street fair for 15 consecutive years. With a continual comedic patter, he juggled a variety of props for his captive audience circled around him. Related trivia: Jane’s son went to school with the juggler!

During the throwdown, I learned from Noel (a Seattle native and current member of USk DC) that a nearby P-Patch was named for Andy Shiga (1919 – 1993). The longtime U-District merchant and owner of Shiga’s Imports was also the founder of the U-District Street Fair in 1970. On my walk back to my car after the outing, I happened to pass the P-Patch, which was an appropriate final sketch for the day. (The shop’s website includes interesting history on the Shiga family in Seattle.)

Downsizing, Phase 2: Done! Really Done!

 

This part of the livingroom has been transformed into my personal museum plus a much-needed utility table (at right). The desk at left, which I've had since I was a teen, blocks the fireplace that we stopped using decades ago for safety reasons. The drawers are filled with vintage pencils and contemporary stationery supplies. The two clocks on the mantel are family heirlooms: Greg's (on the left) and mine (on the right).

The last mile isn’t the longest. It’s the last 10 feet.

Despite being enough “done” with my massive downsizing project to celebrate with a trip to LA last month, I still had three boxes of randomness to contend with – all the dribs and drabs that I didn’t have a proper home for, yet wasn’t quite ready to get rid of. I’m still packing boxes that will go to Seattle ReCreative, where I’ve been donating art and craft supplies that weren’t ready for the last gab & grab. Most, though, wasn’t supplies; it was artifacts from my past that are just so hard to let go of. I finally managed to fit the vast universe of indecision into one box – and hauled it to the basement for further procrastination. “Someday” I’ll have to reopen that box, but that’s not bad for nine months’ work!

Although it's not as fun as my "museum," this utility table (formerly my drawing table) is something I have been wanting forever -- a dedicated space for my paper cutter, postage scale and shipping supplies. I used to have to haul each of these things out whenever needed, and then clear space on my drawing table to use them. Not anymore!

Meanwhile, I’ve been thoroughly enjoying displaying and arranging my remaining pencil collection – the part that actually sparks joy instead of just taking up space – and lots of personal memorabilia and family heirlooms. I’ll probably continue tweaking endlessly, as my intention is to rotate the vintage pencils on display with the ones stored in drawers so that they all get a chance to see the light of day once in a while. But as of today, I am really and truly done done with Downsizing, Phase 2! (Details in the cutlines.)

This image and the one below are the two built-in bookcases flanking the fireplace. My very judiciously culled books remain on the bottom shelves, and the upper shelves hold some of my more picturesque vintage colored pencil specimens. The rustic broom was handmade in Kyoto's last remaining craft broom shop (which has since closed).

I have a couple of vintage Japanese desktop drawers. . . .

. . . these drawers hold most of my remaining fountain pens . . .

. . . and yes, a whole drawer just for erasers!

The inlaid-wood tray was made by my maternal grandfather while he was incarcerated in Tule Lake internment camp during WWII. My family owns several other items that he made during that time. (In case you're concerned, the vintage and heirloom pieces are secured to the wall and mantel with museum putty. I do live in earthquake country.)

My childhood piggie bank, bronzed baby shoes and beloved Spirograph set (all pieces still intact)!

I'm not clear on who made the shogi (similar to chess) board and pieces (displayed in a drinking glass behind the board) -- either my grandfather or an uncle. I have fond memories of my dad playing this game in the evenings with our neighbor for many years.

These are mostly contemporary pencils that I don't use but that hold special interest.

Vintage stationery items, Century 21 World's Fair stamps, and my father's Eagle Scout ribbon are visible here.

A handmade teddy bear and some colorful vintage sets, plus a vintage Nicholson's Peerless watercolor set in front.

On the facing wall is the TV console and matching credenza (we got both pieces at our neighbors' moving sale years ago for a hundred bucks! So much storage space!). The drawers are full of my vintage colored pencil collection and watercolor supplies. Also visible: hand weights and yoga props, since this room is also my gym and yoga studio. On the wall is a beadwork piece I made in 2008. My plan is to move this large piece to a back hallway and replace it with several artworks I've purchased from urban sketchers. The hold-up is that I still have to get them framed.

Here's a peek inside the largest compartment, where vintage pencils must share space with the dang DVD/BluRay player, which I still can't quite let go of -- yet.

Last Resort Fire Museum

5/15/25 Seattle Fire Department Headquarters and Last Resort Fire Museum, Pioneer Square

Pioneer Square, where some of Seattle’s oldest buildings stand, is an apt home for the Last Resort Fire Museum. Housed within Seattle Fire Department’s Headquarters and Fire Station 10, the free museum holds a fascinating collection of historic fire rigs, other fire-fighting apparatus, old photos and vintage artifacts. Used in 1907, the oldest truck was originally a horse-drawn steam pumper that was eventually motorized. Although no longer in service, the vintage rigs are maintained so that they could, in fact, be used if needed in a pinch; hence, the museum’s name.

In the drizzle during the throwdown outside, I discovered that this Pilot brush pen's ink isn't as waterproof as I thought it was!

Staying dry and comfy on a cool, drizzly day, USk Seattle had a challenging time figuring out ways to squeeze the enormous rigs into our sketch pages. I kept trying to back up in the crowded museum so that I could get enough distance to see entire rigs, but that was usually impossible, so I focused on capturing small pieces of what I saw.

Thanks to Kate for discovering this gem of Seattle fire service history for USk Seattle. Supported by volunteers, the non-profit, free museum appreciates donations.