Back End of a Camel (and a Wandering Sketchbook)

1/25/19 Marble camel sculpture, Seattle Art Museum

1/25/19 Hammering Man at SAM

When I was growing up, the marble camel sculptures that are inside the Seattle Art Museum used to be outside the original museum (now the Seattle Asian Art Museum at Volunteer Park, where replicas took their place in 1991). I’ve sketched the replicas a few times, but I couldn’t remember ever sketching the original camels at the downtown SAM, so I made one of them my objective at Friday’s USk Seattle outing. (See this post for a photo of why the camels are special to me.)

Now protected from the elements, the camels guard a long, windowed stairway. Instead of choosing the more common front view, I went around to the back end of a camel and found a handy seat in the museum’s classroom. About an hour into the sketch, I was informed by museum staff that a class of middle schoolers would be showing up within minutes, so I reluctantly gave up my seat. Fortunately, I was mostly done. Eavesdropping on their lesson in perspective, I finished up standing a short distance away.

Next I braved the cold to complete another objective: Filling a page in a wandering sketchbook! USk Boston co-admin and avid sketcher Andre Behrens has released several “wandering sketchbooks” into the wild by giving them to members of other Urban Sketchers groups. He doesn’t want the sketchbooks back; he asks only that we fill their pages and use the hashtag #wanderingsketchbooks when we post images of the sketches on Instagram. I love the idea of sketchbooks wandering around the world, collecting sketches!

1/25/19 Pike Brewing Co.

I thought that the iconic Hammering Man kinetic sculpture outside SAM would be an appropriate symbol of Seattle to put into the book. I’ve passed the book along, and I hope it keeps going far and wide on its travels.

To end the fun morning, some of us went to Pike Brewing Company for lunch. Amusing, eclectic décor surrounds the diningroom, and the hanging beer bottles were among my favorite. I didn’t get too far with color on this sketch, though, because then my delish fish tacos arrived.

Yummm... and a teeny-tiny stout to go with the tacos.

Daffodils

3/22/13 Platinum Sepia ink, watercolor, Hand Book journal

I was planning to meet a few friends to sketch at Sky Nursery this morning, but the snow flurries kept me out of the hockey puck I drive. Instead, I got a cup of tea and stayed warm at home. By afternoon, the sun came out and said that this morning’s snowstorm was just a joke.

 

I can take a joke! I jumped into my car and drove in the direction of the Wedgwood neighborhood, where I spotted this house surrounded by a rockery and lots of cheerful daffodils leaning toward the street.

 

(Technical note: I’m getting more and more disgruntled with the paper in Hand Book journals, which I have been using happily as writing and collage journals for years. Even fountain pen ink with a wash isn’t bad, but it can’t take watercolor the way I want it to. I have only a couple of pages left in this volume. When it’s full, I’m going to stick with Stillman & Birn sketchbooks exclusively, regardless of media.)

An Urban Palette

Kuretake Zig Clean Color Real Brush markers

I love markers.

Who can resist the eye candy and creative potential of a huge palette of colors, like that of Pitt Artist Pens (48 colors), Tombow Dual-Brush Pens (96) or Copic markers (a whopping 214!)? (Actually, I have no problem resisting Copic markers, for a couple of reasons.) It’s like being a kid with a brand new box of Crayola crayons (64 was the biggest box in my day, but now it’s up to 133), but better, because markers don’t break or melt.

12/16/12 Platinum Carbon ink, Zigs, S & B Gamma

Unlike paints, markers are harder to blend, so I end up wanting more colors than I can realistically carry in my bag, which I’m always trying to lighten.  So as difficult as it is, I do try to resist collecting the entire available set of any marker I’m in love with, including the Kuretake Zig Clean Color Real Brush marker (60 colors), my current favorite.

2/26/13 Zigs, S & B Gamma

My bag now contains a careful selection of Zigs, which I think of as an urban palette that will take care of grass, trees, cars, buildings and people. The colors are (shown left to right in photo): Geranium Red, Bright Yellow, Yellow, Olive Green, Deep Green, Blue Gray, Gray, Mid-Gray, Oatmeal, Light Gray. (Ten markers – not bad for a girl who usually picks out purple, pink and lime green first from any retail marker display!)

12/28/12 Eclipse ink, Zigs, Pitt Artist Pen, Hand Book

I get a decent range of values from the shades of gray (the pickup truck and the interior value study are examples), which I consider essential, especially when paired with fountain pen inks. The Light Gray alone, which seems too light to be useful, is surprisingly versatile for shading and ghosting in background objects (the musicians and mom and kid scene). Oatmeal gives me a warmer shading color with brown inks, and Blue Gray pairs well with blue-black inks.

11/30/12 Black Velvet ink, Zig, S & B Epsilon

The five optional colors are mostly for convenience: Sometimes I don’t want to get out my watercolors just to put two small spots of red and amber on a car’s tail lights or to indicate a tuft of grass or a few flowers. I’ll probably pare these down over time and replace them with more essential tools.

Edited 4/26/14: See the results of a longevity test I did on these markers and some philosophical comments about lightfastness and sketching.

A Tangle of Trees

3/21/13 Platinum Carbon ink, watercolor, Zig markers, opaque white pen, Hand Book journal

Most of the trees haven’t gotten the memo that spring is officially here. If you squint very closely at their branches, you can see the tiny lighter-colored tips of their buds, but not many leaves are out. Of course, a few plums have been blossoming for weeks, but they’re just showing off.

 

Parked on a side street facing Green Lake, I could see clouds and small bright spots of blue through the tangle of bare branches. One day soon I won’t be able to see much of the lake or sky from this point because the trees will be dense with foliage. One day soon I might not have to sit in my car to sketch this view.

 

Unfortunately, not soon enough.

Nonindigenous

3/19/13 Platinum Sepia ink, watercolors, Zig marker, Hand Book journal

Palm trees are about as indigenous to the Pacific Northwest as pineapples, tiki huts and toucans. Yet I’ve sketched two palms in as many months – one in February at the Wedgwood Top Pot, and another this morning at a small Northgate strip mall. Given that it was 40 degrees, I stayed in my car to sketch the palm, which I think is leftover from the tropical-themed restaurant that used to be where Green Lake Jewelry Works now stands. On the back side of the building facing the parking lot is another remnant: a sign that reads “Thank Y’all for Coming.”

 

I do my share of complaining about the long, dark winters here, but imagine how those palm trees must feel. Thank y’all for tolerating the cold.

Edited 3/20/13: I was told by a landscape gardener friend, after he saw the sketch, that this is a Chinese windmill palm, which actually does well in Seattle.

Library Parking Only

3/18/13 Diamine Chocolate Brown ink, Zig markers, Hand Book journal

Between other errands and appointments, I made a quick stop at the Green Lake library to return a few books and pick up a few others that were on hold. I got back into my car and was about to turn on the engine when I looked up and saw a huge tree on the far side of two fences. The tree was so tall that I couldn’t see its top through the awkward angle of the windshield. I considered taking the Miata’s top down to get a full view, but just then it began to rain.

 

I decided to sketch the tree anyway from the view I had. It took me longer than 10 minutes to finish the sketch, but no tow truck or library police appeared. I drove home with a stiff neck.

Calvary Christian Assembly



3/15/13 Platinum Sepia, watercolor, Hand Book journal

They say three’s a charm.

 

I’m not sure this sketch is exactly charmed, but I’ve said before that I can be stubborn even as I’m intimidated, so I decided to tackle the Calvary Christian Assembly yet a third time (at right).

 

It helps that it was a balmy 55 degrees today, so I could get out of the car and view it from a different angle. The first time I tried sketching the tower was last November on a cold day (below left), and no matter where I parked, the cross looked like a straight line, and the tower was overpowered by a tall fir tree. The second time, from a better parking spot, I could at least see the cross (below right), but let’s just say I was having a bad sketching day. I gave up quickly.

 

Note that today's sketch includes all three of my current and previous sketching nemeses: architecture, cars and trees.

 

Can I go home now?

11/10/12 Omas Sepia, Zig markers, Stillman & Birn Gamma

2/19/13 Platinum Carbon ink, S&B Gamma

Metropolitan Market Produce Section

3/15/13 Platinum Sepia ink, watercolor, Zig markers, Hand Book

Eager to try out my latest watercolor mixing palette, I went to a place where I knew I could get a big dose of color. The mezzanine level of the Sand Point Metropolitan Market looks down over the produce section. Color, indeed! And the new mixing palette works perfectly as I had hoped.

 

All is right with the sketching world.

 

Book Review: An Illustrated Journey

7/2/12 water-soluble ink, Hand Book journal

Danny Gregory’s eagerly awaited book, An Illustrated Journey: Inspiration from the Private Art Journals of Traveling Artists, Illustrators and Designers, came out a few weeks ago, and after all the anticipation, it does not disappoint. The book is a rich treasury of travel sketches and personal profiles of many inspiring artists.

 

Very similar in format to Gregory’s 2008 book, An Illustrated Life: Drawing Inspiration from the Private Sketchbooks of Artists, Illustrators and Designers, his latest book profiles 43 travel journal keepers from many countries. Each artist has written a first-person account of his or her background in art and travel, how travel sketching is inspired, and techniques and tools used. Photos of some artists are included, showing them sketching on location. It is particularly illuminating to see the common threads among nearly all the artists – that drawing what they see while traveling enriches their travel experiences, bridges gaps in understanding about other cultures, and evokes memories like no photographs can. It’s clear that sketching and traveling have become integrated creative processes for these artists: Seeing new places motivates drawing, and drawing motivates observing more carefully the new places they experience.

 

The meat of the book is a beautiful collection of large, full-color reproductions of art from the artists’ travel sketchbooks. These unique, spontaneous views of the world make me want to hop on a plane right now to fill my own sketchbook with the places I visit.

 

Most of the artists included – Miguel “Freekhand” Herranz, Nina Johansson, Cathy Johnson, Tommy Kane, Lapin, Veronica Lawlor and Liz Steel, to name a few – are well-known in the blogosphere of the urban sketching/on-location drawing community. A few are less-known discoveries with fresh, surprising perspectives.

 

In fact, if I have any complaints about this beautiful book, it is a tiny one: I wish it had included more travelers who are not professional artists, illustrators or designers, and who are perhaps less well-known. Almost every participant either has an art degree or makes a living using their artistic skills. I have seen online the amazing on-location sketches of so many people who work at “regular” jobs and do not have any kind of art background. I would have loved to see more of them included. Better yet, a whole volume devoted to the on-location work of non-professional artists would be equally inspiring as this one. How about it, Danny?

 

(The sketch above, made at the New Bedford Whaling Museum, is from my own travel journal during a trip to the Boston area last July.)

 

(This book review also appears on Amazon.com.)

Back to the Burke

3/12/13 Pilot Iroshizuku Yama-Guri ink, Hand Book journal

Ever since I visited the Burke Museum with a few sketcher friends, I’ve been wanting to return to sketch more prehistoric skeletons. Last time I had only a few minutes to spend on the Hoplophoneus, so I sketched the forest-dwelling feline’s skull. This time I devoted a full hour to sketch its entire 25-million-year-old skeleton.

 

The Hoplophoneus lives in the education room that was empty when I started sketching, but a few minutes later a classroom of first graders, their teacher and several moms came in for a presentation by a Burke staff member. They didn’t shoo me out, so I stayed, and as I sketched, I learned the criteria for something to be identified as a fossil – it must be natural (not a buried Barbie doll head), it must be previously living (not a rock), and at least 10,000 years old – and other interesting facts about very old creatures.

 

3/12/13 Private Reserve Velvet Black ink, Hand Book

On my way out, I sketched the head of a Xiphactinus audax, an 85-million-year-old “Daring Sword-Ray” that was found in Kansas.

Northgate Trees

3/7/13 Kuretake Fountain Brush Pen, Pitt Big Brush marker, Hand Book journal

Although the Northgate Branch of the Seattle Public Library doesn’t showcase stately Carnegie-style architecture, it’s probably one of the best branches in the city for scenic seating. In addition to the usual carrels and desks, the branch offers a long line of lounge chairs facing floor-to-ceiling windows that look out over a park. You can sit in one to read a pot-boiler novel and pretend you’re on a cruise ship.

 

I left my pot-boiler at home and instead sat in one of the lounge chairs to sketch a stand of tall trees lining the perimeter of the park. On the other side of the trees is the Pacific Medical Center’s Northgate location.

Deductive Reasoning

3/7/13 Private Reserve Velvet Black ink, Hand Book journal

This week’s Urban Sketchers Flickr group theme is “Students.” As we all know, I spend a lot of time sketching people of all ages in coffee shops, some of whom are probably students. But to be more precise in fitting the theme, I decided to go to the Northgate branch of the Seattle Public Library, where I thought my chances of catching a student actually studying (as opposed to simply surfing on the free wi-fi tide) would be higher.

 

My subject in question fit the profile: increasingly slumped posture, frequent yawning and stretching, laptop on the table, backpack on the floor. My keen powers of observation and deductive reasoning zeroed in on the key clue: On the laptop screen was a text-based document – not Facebook. Bingo.

Book Review: Drawing from Within

1/2/13 Kuretake brush pen, S & B sketchbook

“The drawing surface has been and always will be where the artist’s real education takes place. So if it’s learning you’re after, close this book and open to the pages that will really teach you what you want to know. Your own sketchbook.”

 

Those are the closing words of Nick Meglin’s book Drawing From Within – Unleashing Your Creative Potential, and that’s also the philosophical viewpoint that forms the basis of the book.

 

Meglin’s book was one of several drawing books that I had checked out from the library. After reading the others, which were typical “how-to” instruction books, I was surprised and delighted by Meglin’s completely opposite approach. If you are looking for step-by-step instructions, you will not find them here. Instead, you will find the author’s firm belief that drawing skills cannot be taught, followed by numerous drawing exercises intended to instill the pleasure of drawing for its own sake, which ultimately leads to self-expression.

 

2/7/13 Velvet Black ink, Hand Book journal

A former instructor at the School of Visual Arts in New York City as well as a former editor of MAD magazine, Meglin writes with humor, outrageous puns and a sheer love for drawing. “No one can teach you to draw,” he insists. “Where art education often fails is in the premise that drawing can be taught. It can’t. Then how does one learn to draw? One doesn’t! One draws! The education of an artist is the result of his or her experiences of drawing.”

 

The statement above was immediately followed by Meglin’s account of how this message was always met with groans from his School of Visual Arts students. Nonetheless, his “method” of helping students learn through experience led to more expressive work that also gave the students greater pleasure.

 

On every page are reproductions of works from sketchbooks of Meglin’s students, contemporary artists, Rembrandt and other old masters, and Meglin himself. The sketches are all so fresh, spontaneous and evocative that their makers’ joy in drawing is obvious.

 

The how-to-draw books I returned to the library. But after reading Drawing from Within, I went to Amazon.com and purchased a copy. Although I’ve always known that the only reason I draw is for fun, Meglin’s wisdom and bad puns will cheer me up whenever I got discouraged about my drawing skills. I also want to enjoy viewing the sketches again and again as examples of what results when drawings come from within.



(This review also appears on Amazon.com.)



2/14/13 Platinum Carbon ink and ink wash, Stillman & Birn Epsilon sketchbook

7 and 12 Minutes

3/2/13 Diamine Grey ink, Pelle journal

What can you draw in five minutes?

 

I’ve recently seen challenges like this on various websites such as The Sketchbook Project, intended to make the point that you don’t need a lot of time to draw. The important thing is to draw in whatever time is available.

 

3/2/13 Diamine Jet ink, Zig markers, Hand Book

I wasn’t consciously thinking about this prompt yesterday, a busy day, but as it turned out, that’s about all the time I had for a couple of sketches I squeezed in. After scarfing down a panini during a short lunch break at the Central District’s Starbucks, I sketched an outdoor umbrella’d table and the ghost of a car that pulled in after I started sketching. It took about seven minutes.

 

Later the same day, we arrived a little early for dinner at Fuji Sushi. Parked in their lot on Sixth Avenue South in the International District, I had an obstructed view of the Smith Tower that I sketched in 12 minutes.

The Burke Museum



2/22/13 Private Reserve Velvet Black ink, Platinum Carbon wash, Zig marker

We urban sketchers in the northern hemisphere have to be creative in finding places to sketch during the cold, wet winter months. While my typical retreat is the coffee shop because I favor sketching people, Larry Marshall, a sketcher in Quebec, spends most of his winter sketching time at the Musee de la Civilisation (check out his collection of samurai helmet sketches). Although I have a SAM membership, I’m not inclined to take the bus downtown to sketch there for only a half-hour, which is often all the time I have between work and other commitments. But I may have found my own “winter salvation” that Larry speaks of.

 

I’m not sure why I haven’t spent more time at the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture, which is tucked into one end of the University of Washington campus. Ten minutes away by car and 20 by bus, it’s an ideal place for me to pop in for a quick sketch between appointments, yet it’s never been on my radar. So I was all for it when a few Seattle Urban Sketchers decided to meet there.

 

2/22/13 Private Reserve Ultra Black ink, Platinum Carbon wash, Hand Book journal

Bones, bones and more bones! While some of the stuffed, lifeless birds and animals made me a bit sad, I found the skeletons thrilling! I summoned my inner paleontologist to sketch the huge Paraphysornis brasilienis, or Terror Bird from Brazil, a cast replica of a 22-million-year-old skeleton. And talk about timing – I finished my sketch just as a billion children on a field trip suddenly surrounded the Terror Bird.

 

Tucked behind the main exhibits is an education area that wasn’t in use today (a quiet respite from the field trip). There I spotted a case with a full skeleton of a Hoplophoneus, a cat similar to a saber tooth that lived 25 million years ago. We were meeting to share sketchbooks in 15 minutes, so I focused on the skull. But next time, I’m going to tackle the whole cat.

 

By the time I sketch every bone at the Burke, maybe it will be summer.

Photo by Kate Buike

Book Review: The Art of Urban Sketching

4/29/12 Pitt Artist Pen, Tombow markers, Hand Book journal

Note: On March 8, 2012, I wrote and published this book review on Amazon.com shortly before this blog went live. I wanted to make the review part of my blog, so I am republishing it here. I’m also republishing a sketch I made of Gabi when he gave a presentation about urban sketching at the Seattle Public Library in April 2012. Going to that presentation and seeing so many enthusiastic sketchers and sketcher wannabes in the audience helped pushed me out the door toward my first Seattle Urban Sketchers sketchcrawl the following month. The rest, as they say, is history.

I have admired the sketches of author Gabriel Campanario ever since they started appearing weekly in The Seattle Times. Known as the Seattle Sketcher, Campanario takes even the most commonly photographed, iconic Seattle scenes, such as the Pike Place Market, and gives them his fresh, personal perspective that no camera can capture. I was so inspired that I became an urban sketcher myself. As I dug for more of his work on his personal blog, I was led to the local and then the international Urban Sketchers blogs (initiated by Campanario), which showed me the world “one drawing at a time” – and further compelled me to explore my city (and any city I visit) with a sketchbook. Now The Art of Urban Sketching: Drawing on Location Around the World brings to print the same types of visual expressions that I have been admiring online.

The 300-plus pages are divided into three parts. The first helps beginning sketchers gather the right tools and attitude to adopt the urban sketchers’ manifesto.

The second, and largest, section, the meat of the book, compiles the work of more than a hundred artists worldwide giving us their unique urban views. It’s nothing short of amazing to see the variety of styles, media and perspectives. Some sketches are casual and loose, while others are intensely detailed. Some are completed in minutes; others in many hours over the course of weeks. All are the result of careful observation and the desire of the artists to truly know a place by sketching it.

I especially enjoyed the artist profiles, their first-person anecdotes about the scenes they sketched and the photos of those artists sketching (usually standing on a street corner, sitting against a building or on a bench). I also appreciated brief technical tips the artists offered to make outdoor sketching more comfortable or make drawings more interesting, and information about how long the sketch took and media used. Some sites depicted are easily recognizable because they are widely photographed, yet the sketches are more intimate and personal than most photos. Other cities are less-often seen in the media, so these glimpses of faraway neighborhoods seem led by personal tour guides.

The third section covers themes – architecture, seasons, nighttime sketching – that urban artists are compelled to sketch. “People in Action” – my personal favorite sketching subject that I also find most challenging – includes helpful tips on how to capture movement, mood and energy when you only have a few minutes or seconds before the “model” is gone.

As a long-time wannabe sketcher, I have read and admired many books on nature sketching (Hannah Hinchman’s fine work comes first to mind), but as a city dweller, I don’t often or easily see the breathtaking landscapes and wildlife shown in those books. Finally, here’s a book of sketches for the rest of us that makes it clear that the urban landscape can be as compelling, moving and ever-changing as nature. If you have any desire to capture your urban life in a sketchbook or view how others have captured theirs, you will love this book.

(This book review also appears on Amazon.com.)

Ben Franklin in Drag

2/11/13 De Atramentis ink, Hand Book journal

As far as coffee shops go, I know I keep saying that most Starbucks stores aren’t ideal. Despite that, I find myself sketching there because there’s always one or another conveniently located, no matter where my errands take me.

 

In today’s case, it was the Wedgwood neighborhood, where I found the tables to be a little too close together for sketching comfort, as usual. On the other hand, I liked the natural light, the distance between the tables and the counter and other spatial elements that made the interior challenging to sketch, but not overwhelming. An unexpected challenge was the way a young man was sitting, affording me a view of a foot that I don’t get often.

2/11/13 Kuretake Fountain Brush Pen

 

A nicely placed chair gave me a square view of a texting man and later a woman scrolling through her smartphone. Although I doubt she will ever see my blog, I publicly apologize to her here for making her look like Ben Franklin in drag. Something about the Kuretake Fountain Brush Pen, which I am really getting into as a sketching medium, brings out the “character” in people, flattering or not.

2/11/13 Kuretake Fountain Brush Pen



The Brush Pen Approach

2/7/13 Kuretake Fountain Brush Pen, Pitt Big Brush marker

A few weeks ago I did some brush pen portraits from old photos of my mother and father. The broad, relatively imprecise stroke of the brush pen forced me to look for the essence of the face and character of the person instead of obsessing about resemblance.

 

In the past when I’ve used brush markers in the field, it was usually to capture the essence of a landscape or eliminate the details from a wide open view that would otherwise overwhelm me. I decided to take out my brush pen again – this time to try for a few portraits from life. Interestingly, even though the brush still didn’t allow much detail, I think I captured the resemblance of some of these people better than I sometimes do with the fine point of a fountain pen.

2/7/13 Kuretake Fountain Brush Pen, Pitt Big Brush marker, Hand Book journal



2/7/13 Kuretake, Pitt Big Brush

Hair Studies



2/5/13 Diamine Chocolate Brown ink

Among the 10,000 challenging things about drawing people is hair. If you try to draw its shape, it can look like a helmet. And the way light reflects on its varying surfaces plays such an important role in showing its texture and volume.

 

Waiting at a Starbucks while my car got its oil changed, I found two “victims” with interesting hair to use as studies.

2/5/13 Caran d'Ache Grand Canyon ink, Hand Book Journal

Honey Bear Bakery

1/29/13 Private Reserve Velvet Black ink, Hand Book Journal

Back in the ‘90s, when I was still running on the 8-to-5 hamster wheel, the Honey Bear Bakery was located near Green Lake (just a block or so from Zoka Coffee where I now spend so much of my winter sketching time). On my days off (possibly days when I had called in for a mental health day, were I to do such a thing), I would hide away at the Honey Bear to write in my journal and indulge in an oversized, soft and sticky cinnamon roll dotted with sliced almonds. That’s the kind of place it was – warm, cozy and full of good smells and neighborhood “regulars.”

 

At some point it moved to the Ravenna neighborhood, but by then I had switched to a different hamster wheel, this time in the software industry that didn’t accommodate mental health days (though it certainly required more). So I didn’t patronize the Honey Bear in that location.

1/29/13 Diamine Chocolate Brown ink, Zig marker, Hand Book Journal

 

Eventually the Honey Bear moved to Lake Forest Park’s Third Place Commons, its current location. A couple weeks ago when Seattle Urban Sketchers met there for the 38^th Worldwide SketchCrawl, I had hoped to get around to sketching the bakery for old time’s sake, but I got too busy with dancers and other people there. So when the Urban Sketchers Flickr group’s weekly theme came around to “bakeries,” it was my opportunity to go back to the Commons, this time for breakfast at the Honey Bear.

 

Although the spacious retail complex isn’t the same as the old neighborhood spot I loved, the cinnamon roll was just as gooey. I had eaten almost half of it when I thought of the work of urban sketcher Matthew Midgley, whose blog and Flickr stream are full of food! Inspired by his mouth-watering sketches, I put my fork down long enough to sketch my cinnamon roll’s remains (and quickly devoured the still life after I finished the sketch).