Trees, Water, Clouds

5/30/12, watercolor

6/6/12, Copic Multiliner SP, watercolor

The past few weeks I’ve been taking Jane Richlovsky’s “Drawing on Location” class through Pratt. Each week we meet at a different location to focus on a particular sketching challenge. Last week it was trees (definitely one of the most challenging sketching subjects), at right, at the arboretum.

Yesterday it was water at the Ballard Locks, where I tried to capture the texture of water’s surface with sumi ink (below). But as the class sketched various scenes of water, I was also captivated by ever-changing clouds. With Jane’s help, I gave this equally challenging subject a shot with watercolors (left). The narrow, vertical format enabled me to sketch a slim slice of sky, land and water, which was much less overwhelming than the typical horizontal landscape.

6/6/12, sumi

The Space Needle Turns 50

5/26/12, Copic Multiliner SP pen, watercolor

I was almost four years old when my family went to Century 21, the Seattle World’s Fair, in 1962. I remember very little about that Fair – only a yellow plastic lei I received at the Hawaii pavilion (I guess?) and a plastic pen shaped like the Space Needle. I don’t remember seeing the actual Space Needle at all, though I’m sure I must have. The Space Needle is celebrating its 50^th birthday this year, so here’s my birthday portrait, sketched from Gasworks Park.

Bonding with an Orangutan

5/25/12, pencil, colored pencil, Hand Book watercolor sketchbook

This is Towan, the “big boss” orangutan at Woodland Park Zoo. He seemed lethargic at first, but eventually began to perk up a bit and even seemed to take notice that I was sketching him. He made eye contact with me many times and moved closer to the corner where I was sketching. I was told by a man who was also observing the 44-year-old orangutan that Towan is sometimes given chalk or markers to draw with. I like to think that Towan and I bonded briefly over our common penchant for sketching.

Like Crack

5/24/12, fountain pen, Hand Book sketchbook

“It’s like crack!” exclaimed Lisa, describing how she feels after the 6 a.m. Jazzercise class we both attend. “That rush keeps me going the rest of the morning,” she said.

I have been going to Jazzercise classes three times a week for 13 years. I work hard, I sweat hard, keeping my pulse rate at the optimal aerobic level for at least 30 minutes, followed by a strength routine and stretching. Yet I have never, ever experienced the endorphin high that Lisa and my runner friends describe.

That always made me feel a bit cheated: This much work, and all I get is sweat? How much harder do I have to work to feel that way? But over the years I have come to accept that if I haven’t experienced a rush from exercise by now, I’m probably not going to. (You may be asking, Then why in the world does she get up for a 6 a.m. Jazzercise class? Believe me, I ask myself that all the time.)

Now I realize I’ve been trying to get high all these years from the wrong drug. Sketching is the real crack! After spending a couple hours at a coffee shop sketching other patrons, I drive home with a buzz that lasts the rest of the day (no, it’s not caffeine – I usually drink decaf). This buzz may be partly due to the surreptitious nature of sketching people without their consent and constantly being alert to avoid being caught. It could be adrenalin as much as endorphins.

But I get the same rush while focusing on a water tower for an hour, painting the struts and girders with watercolors, or while trying to capture the texture of the skin of a Komodo dragon eyeing me from its enclosure at the zoo.


5/8/12, F-C Pitt Artists Pen, watercolor, Hand Book watercolor sketchbook

As a fiber artist working slowly and steadily with needle and thread, I know well the calming, meditative quality of placing tiny stitches, one after the other, thousands of times. There’s no doubt that I enjoy that feeling also.

But baby, it ain’t crack. And I’m always looking for the next fix.

5/24/12, fountain pen, Hand Book sketchbook

Urban Sketchers’ Manifesto No. 6

5/20/12, F-C Pitt Artists Pen, Sakura Koi watercolor

Urban Sketchers’ Manifesto No. 6: We support each other and draw together.

On a rainy Sunday morning – the kind that would usually see me in my recliner with a second cup of coffee and the Seattle Times’ funnies – I drove out to Magnuson Park to join the Seattle Urban Sketchers at my first sketchcrawl. Introvert that I am, going alone to a social event like this – where I wouldn’t know anyone and I wasn’t sure what it would be like – is usually hard for me. The rain, the coffee and the recliner were all telling me I should skip this and go another time.

But two things pushed me out the door: One was the Seattle Times’ full-page spreads that very morning of Gabi Campanario’s vibrant sketches of the new Chihuly Garden and Glass exhibition. Talk about inspiring!

The second was the commitment I had made to myself to give this sketchcrawl thing a try. It’s part of becoming an urban sketcher and getting out into the world – and really seeing the world.

So I did – and I discovered that if there’s such a thing as an introvert’s ideal social gathering, this would be it. I met and chatted with nice people – but only for a few minutes. Then we all went our separate ways to fill a sketchbook page or three. A couple hours later we reconvened and spread our sketchbooks out on a table to share. This time, chatting was much easier because we were admiring and commenting on each other’s sketches instead of making small talk. Our amazingly varied views of Magnuson Park, including my own, enabled me to see this tiny part of the world in a way that I never had before. And I was already looking forward to participating in more sketchcrawls.

(This is the last of a series of blog posts about how I have interpreted the Urban Sketchers manifesto.)

5/20/12, Copic Multiliner SP pen, Sakura Koi watercolor

Urban Sketchers’ Manifesto No. 2, Part 1

5/12/12, Copic Multiliner SP pen, watercolor

Urban Sketchers’ Manifesto No. 2: Our drawings tell the story of our surroundings, the places we live and where we travel.

I was wandering around the University of Washington campus on a fabulous sunny day – the kind that Seattleites are willing to wait 10 months of overcast skies for. I’ve visited the campus many times since I graduated (for the second time) in 1981, but on this visit it seemed like everything was different. Several new buildings had gone up since my last visit (PACCAR Hall? What’s that?), and pathways appeared where there used to be grass. A visitor stopped to ask me where the HUB was, the student union building where I had eaten many, many meals over the course of six years, and I had to twirl around to get my bearings before I could point him in the right direction – that’s how disoriented I felt. It’s hard to be nostalgic about one’s youth when everything looks different.

I decided to sit in “Red Square” to sketch the Broken Obelisk (a sculpture by Barnett Newman, 1963), partly because it was far less daunting than Gothic architecture, but mainly because Red Square looked the same as when I was a student. In the brick paved plaza that I had crossed countless times going to and from two libraries on either side, I could imagine, for a few moments, that nothing had changed. (End of the old fart’s walk down Memory Lane.)

(This is one of a series of blog posts about how I have interpreted the Urban Sketchers manifesto.)

Urban Sketchers’ Manifesto No. 1, Part 2

Urban Sketchers’ Manifesto No. 1: We draw on location, indoors or out, capturing what we see from direct observation.

5/8/12, F-C Pitt Artists Pen, watercolor

Some of the most marvelous nature sketchers (Elva Paulson springs to mind) are bird watchers who get up before dawn so they can hike to the ideal location to view a particular species, and sketch through binoculars. Of course, birds move fast, so sketching them from direct observation must often be an exercise in frustration.

That sounds like too much work to me, so I go to Willawong Station at the Woodland Park Zoo, where more than 150 colorful parakeets, cockatiels and rosellas fly freely inside a large aviary. Presumably, they are moving at the same speed they would be if they were in their natural habitat, but because so many of them are concentrated in the same space, I can begin to draw one, and if it flies away, another that looks very similar will take its place as my model.

These cockatiels and eastern Rosella were, surprisingly, very patient models who perched for my sketches from start to finish. And unlike birds in the wild, these are so used to humans feeding them with a stick coated with seeds ($1 each) that they let me stand within inches of them without batting a feather. (OK, this isn't the nature sketchers’ manifesto.)

(This is one of a series of blog posts about how I have interpreted the Urban Sketchers manifesto.)

5/8/12, F-C Pitt Artists Pen, watercolor