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.

Too Fast

 

When I couldn’t find a product, a Costco staff member offered to look it up in the system to see whether it was out of stock or was gone for good. Relishing a few minutes of sketchwaiting time, I pulled out my brush pen and Field Notes to catch folks pushing their carts toward the exit. But the helpful Costco guy was too fast for me, and I only got these two.

These quick gestures reminded me, though, that the One Week 100 People sketching challenge is just around the corner: March 3 – 7! Check out Marc Holmes’ blog for details if you’re interested in playing, and see my sketches from prior years. This will be my ninth consecutive year participating!

Of Course, We Begin with Values

2/8/25 Faber-Castell Polychromos
(all sketches in Stillman & Birn Zeta sketchbook)

The first assignment in Sarah Bixler’s class was – surprise, surprise – an emphasis on values. Using only gray tones and black, we were to make four master copies of the image from the portrait shown at the end of the post. Sarah encouraged us not to worry about resemblance or even proportions. We were instructed to squint a lot, avoid details, avoid rendering with contour lines, and simply make large shapes of value contrasts. In addition, since most students were experienced painters but new to colored pencils as an art medium, the exercise was an opportunity to become familiar with the medium. (I may be unique among my classmates in that I have little painting experience but expertise in colored pencil geekery!)

2/9/25 Caran d'Ache Luminance

After having spent part of the first class discussing color and getting excited about colored pencils again, you can imagine how frustrating this exercise was for me (and probably all my classmates): We were all using freshly sharpened pencils, yet we were to avoid all detail – and color!

2/9/25 Prismacolor

Of course, I understood the purpose of such an exercise, so I soldiered on, and it was challenging as well as frustrating. To avoid rendering, I tried to shade loosely with my pencil held way up near the wrong end. Sarah equates this pencil method with painting with a palette knife instead of a brush. When doing the latter with oil or acrylics, you slather on paint, then scrape it off with the edge of the knife. Picky, little details are not possible – only large swaths of color. This is part of how we learn to think like a painter, regardless of actual medium. To make it more interesting for myself, I switched out the pencils.

2/10/25 Polychromos

Despite my grumbles, the exercise was low pressure because I wasn’t worried about whether my copies looked anything like the painting (what a mean grump I made this sweet girl into!).

You'd never guess from my studies that they were all from the same reference!

Colored Pencils are Back!

 

2/10/25 Seven Market & Cafe, Ravenna neighborhood

My most recent play date with pals Roy and Mary Jean was fun (which it always is) as well as another media shake-up. While we’re indoors for the winter, I’ve been using our sketch gatherings to play with media that are hard for me to use in the field. Last time I used Caran d’Ache Neocolor II. Another time I tried Caran d’Ache Neopastels and Derwent Inktense Blocks. Last week, inspired by my reunion with colored pencils in Sarah Bixler’s class, I put together a palette of Caran d’Ache Luminance pencils based on the colors I’m using in class. Even if the pencils are different, I enjoy using the same limited palette so that I can get accustomed to how the hues work together.

Caran d'Ache Luminance pencils in Sarah Bixler's recommended palette 

We met at Seven Market and Café, a small, eclectic venue in the Ravenna neighborhood in a former old house. Offering provisions like wine, canned fish, stationery, and their own roasted coffees, not to mention excellent pastries, we laughed about how we could live there for a long time! The sketch at top of post looks down the aisle of working antique refrigerators and wine.

Of course, I always like to record the outing in my sketch journal, which is currently a limited edition Field Notes containing turquoise pages. I thought this notebook would be an acceptable, temporary break from Uglybooks, but I must say that the latter’s 80-pound paper has certainly spoiled me. This Field Notes contains 24-pound Astrobrite, and I love the color, but I’m getting bleed-through with some markers and brush pens, and the surface pills under rough Posca markers. Unexpectedly, I’m also feeling cramped by the standard Field Notes size (3 ½ -by-5 ½ inches). You wouldn’t think losing a quarter-to-half-inch in page size would make much difference, but it does. I’ll finish this one up, but I’m already looking forward to going right back to my beautiful Uglies.

Breakfast at Seven Market and lunch at Isarn Thai Soul Kitchen 

I’d been neglecting my round robin Seawhite of Brighton concertina, so I hastily made a sketch facing the storefront with a window view of a Chinese pinwheel palm. After sketching in the book we each had that day, we made another rotation in our round robin. We already have plans for our next group project after the concertinas are full!

Through the front window

A learning opportunity: After I took my “trophy shot” (below) of the colored pencil sketch to share on social media, I frowned at how wimpy the colors and especially the values were. I thought the sketch was done, but sometimes I don’t see how easily I could improve it until after I take a photo. Something about a flat, digital image enhances flaws – which is very helpful! I went home and layered the same colors over different areas and added more contrast overall (the finished sketch at top of post).

Wimpy colors and values

One last highlight: In addition to colored pencils, guess what else is back in action? My beloved Peg & Awl mini Sendak (one of them, anyway)! My commitment to a small everyday-carry bag has prevented me from using any of my Sendaks regularly, which makes me very sad. On our mixed-media play dates, though, I always bring a larger sketchbook and enough additional media that I need to use an auxiliary tote bag anyway, so I’m thrilled to have a purpose for a Sendak again!

Mini Sendak back in action! (Photobomb by Weather Bunny adorning the cover of my concertina's slipcase.)