 |
| 4/23/26 Maple Leaf neighborhood |
I don’t usually sketch during my short golden-hour walks; I
enjoy having no sketching objective, destination or fitness goal. Still, it’s
hard to resist a bunny quietly chewing grass. Getting out a colored pencil and
my Field Notes made the least noise and movement.
 |
| 11/29/25 The Brothers sketched from NE 85th St. I-5 overpass |
The Olympic peaks you’ve seen me sketch most often are The
Brothers, the majestically symmetrical twins that I look for whenever I cross
the Interstate 5 overpass (above). I can also see them easily from certain
streets when I take walks around the ‘hood, so they are most familiar to me in
the mountain range to Seattle’s west.
 |
| 11/30/25 Mt. Constance sketched from an upstairs window |
(No, I don’t take any of the mountains I see for granted; I am grateful for them every day, and I show that gratitude by sketching them whenever I can.)
 |
| 9/1/25 Outside the upstairs window |
It was that funny sound squirrels sometimes make. I was in the middle of my online yoga class when I heard it through my open windows: a squirrel on a utility line with its rear jammed up against the pole, fluffy tail curled over its head.
You may recall that I have a long, troublesome, expensive history with squirrels. My feelings toward them are still ambivalent, and on this morning I was curious what that familiar sound means. Is it distress, anger, threatening? Was this an inexperienced climber uncertain about scaling back down the utility pole it had obviously scaled up? Was it calling a friend? Admiring the view into my yoga studio?
By the time I had finished the first sketch, it had skittered up the pole a short distance to another, slightly less precarious perch, then rested a while in the same pose, making that sound again. Eventually, it skittered away.
Namaste, squirrel. Namaste.
 |
| 6/30/25 Mt. Rainier and The Brothers from Maple Leaf |
Our first heatwave of the official summer season was just
getting under way. It was an old-school, Seattle-style heatwave – the kind that
cools down to the high 50s at night, no matter how hot it gets in the daytime,
and lasts only a couple of days. Not that newfangled, triple-digit “heat dome” stuff.
I got out early for my walk to pick up a few groceries. In these parts, it’s a treat to be able to take a walk in a T-shirt (with no other layers!) when the air still has that crisp freshness. Cherries were ripening on the trees, and my neighbors’ Lucifer crocosmia were beginning to bloom.
Crossing the Northeast 80th Street Interstate 5 overpass, I stopped for my ultimate treat: a view of both Rainier to the south and The Brothers to the west from a single point.
Yes, this is why I live here.
 |
| 6/9/25 Ravenna ravine |
 |
| Comp study for top sketch |
Although it had been a few years since I walked through the ravine, I knew that I would want color to capture the deep greens and filtered light. Remembering the fun I’d just had at the Chinese Garden, I brought along my Caran d’Ache Neocolor II water-soluble crayons and an A5-size Hahnemühle sketchbook (which I realize now that I have never reviewed, but it has the same 100-percent cotton paper as my most-often-used A6 size and the square-format that I also like but don’t use as often).
 |
| Glacial erratic |
Sketch kit notes: Especially on hot days, my daily-carry Rickshaw bag needs an auxiliary tote to hold my water bottle and other necessities. It also contained the A5 sketchbook and Neocolors that won’t fit in the mini Rickshaw. Because they are a little cumbersome to work with while standing, I’ve usually reserved Neocolors for situations where I’ll have a table to work on, but lately I’ve been determined to use them in my usual standing manner. I’ll show my current set-up soon.
 |
| 6/9/25 My sketch journal spread documenting the post-hike reward and ride home |
 |
| Although many of the old-growth firs have been lost, a few centenarian redwoods still remain. |
 |
| The 20th Ave. NE bridge trestle |
 |
| 1/28/25 Paperwhite narcissus |
 |
| Hmmm. . . I seem to be missing a few. |
 |
| 9/8/24 Maple Leaf neighborhood |
Although we were lucky all summer and experienced very
little wildfire smoke, we had several days of some smoke last week that brought
the air quality rating down to “moderate.” That level is not much of a concern
to healthy people, but it was enough to give the light an eerie yellow tint all
day. Glancing out the window Sunday evening, I caught a spooky orange moon rising.
Even as I sketched, smoke or clouds blurred its crescent shape.
 |
| 6/28/24 Green Lake neighborhood |
I finished sketching the last four trees in the Green Lake
neighborhood that were documented by Taha Ebrahimi in Street Trees of
Seattle. Not all of the trees she highlights in the book are huge, old
trees (though many are). Some are surprisingly small and indistinctive, like
the tiny, young ginkgo in the middle of a street island. The twin quinces both
have leaves that had been well-eaten by some infesting bugs, and I worried
about their health. They are distinctive, however, for being the first quinces
recorded in the City of Seattle as right-of-way trees (out of only 19 quinces
in the whole city).
Now that I’ve made small gesture sketches of all the Maple Leaf and Green Lake trees, I have in mind three that would make nice portraits. Since the gesture sketches were all done in morning light, I’ve gone back to see one of them in late-afternoon light, which is definitely better than morning. Unfortunately, one that would be particularly magnificent to draw has a trunk that will always be in shade due to its huge canopy. It’s always challenging to draw anything in total shade, but I’ll have to make do.
This page spread got a little cramped and more cluttered than I had intended. While walking around Green Lake to get from one tree to another, I suddenly spotted two crows mercilessly harassing a bald eagle minding its own business high atop a tree. I should have given the birds more space (and therefore kept more space for the trees), but the spectacle felt like part of my tree-sketching story, so I put them on the same spread. (I posted a short video on Instagram.)
 |
| 5/16/24 Maple Leaf neighborhood. On a golden hour walk, I found the distant downtown buildings to look more silvery than gold. As I sketched, a bird nearby caught my attention, so I quickly used the Merlin app to identify it while also trying not to lose the rapidly falling light. OK, I guess this sketch does have a story! |
 |
| 5/17/24 Ducks near Green Lake |
 |
| 6/6/24 Rabbit seen on my walk |
 |
| 5/23/24 Roofers at our neighbor's house (On second thought, I think this qualifies as comics.) |
A page of comics has its home – in a story; in a book. But a sketch is untethered, exposing process. The lines themselves aren’t special, but the memory attached to the stillness while making those lines.
Whether a sketch is part of a sequence or “untethered,” it always becomes special from the memory of making it. That has always been the most important part of urban sketching: My sketches are not necessarily about “special” moments; they are moments made special because I sketched them.
 |
| 5/10/24 Maple Leaf. A walk during the golden hour. |
 |
| 6/10/24 Maple Leaf. A sketch for National Ballpoint Pen Day. |
 |
| 5/31/24 Ravenna neighborhood |
Last summer when I reported on Luma, the endangered cedar tree,
I started learning about many other endangered trees in Seattle. In addition, by
following several tree-related accounts on Instagram, I’ve learned about old trees
that are not necessarily endangered but are fascinating in many ways. One that
recently caught my attention was shown in a video by treeswithtaha (Taha Ebrahimi): a bigleaf maple that is one of the city’s widest street
maples. Growing in the Ravenna neighborhood, it is distinctive for “hosting” at
least two other trees growing from it!
What?? Trees growing from within another tree? I had to see (and sketch) them for myself. An easy mile-and-a-half walk from home, the residential area of 17th Northeast and Northeast Ravenna Boulevard has many other mature trees, too. Last Friday morning the temperature was ideal for both walking and sketching, so I head out to see this very special bigleaf.
My daily-carry sketchbooks for a long time now have been only an Uglybook and an A6-size Hahnemühle. Instead of a comics page that fits so well on an A6-size spread, I intended to do more of a “portrait” of this special tree. I brought along an A5-size Hahnemühle sketchbook that would give me enough space to capture this grand old tree properly.
Indeed, even the A5-page spread was barely wide enough to show its huge trunk and the lower part of its canopy. Although this isn’t intended as a comics page, I guess I have had comics so much in my mind lately that I found myself making callouts for details in small boxes similar to my comics style.
Sketching this magnificent tree had multiple challenges. The biggest was that the entire trunk was in shade, so it was difficult to visually separate all those branches and mini trunks: Which belonged to which tree? I kept having to follow a single branch with my eyes to spots way over my head to see what kind of leaves were attached to it. Even as I sketched, I interrupted myself many times to walk around the bigleaf’s trunk to understand what was going on (which attracted the attention of a neighbor who asked if I was a tree surveyor).
Since everything was in darkness, and all the entwined trees were basically the same color, how could I draw them to show the “guests” apart from their “host”? Using my favorite secondary triad mixes, I made the guest trunks slightly warmer than their host (even though in reality they were all the same color) to separate them visually.
I saw what looked like two smaller maples growing out from the bigleaf’s trunk, one on each side, but Taha said they are one maple growing through the large maple’s trunk! Another attached tree had entirely different leaves, which Taha speculated was some kind of cherry plum. That one was so close to one of the guest maples that I couldn’t show it well as a separate tree, so that’s where the callouts became essential.
Barely fitting everything I wanted to show on the A5 spread, I could have used a much larger sketchbook – though I wouldn’t have, as it would have been too heavy and cumbersome to hold standing (and walking around) for more than an hour – much longer than I typically spend on any sketch.
Walking home, I felt such appreciation for marvelous legacy trees like this bigleaf and gratitude that it’s still standing on a residential street.
P.S. As much fun as I am having with comics in my Uglybooks, I have been missing my watercolor pencils dearly. This sketch gave me a good fix.
 |
| 5/13/24 Aurora Borealis over Seattle (reference photos by Jeff Chin) |
The conditions on Saturday night apparently weren’t ideal;
most people in my area were not able to see the Aurora Borealis. I wanted to
try again Sunday night, but then the clouds came in. Although I was disappointed
not to be able to see or sketch it from life, I still had the color palette that
I had assembled for Saturday’s attempt. I decided I might as well sketch it
anyway, inspired by all the beautiful photos friends had shared online. I was
especially impressed by photos taken by Jeff Chin (he’s the friend whose photos
of rescued dogs had inspired my pet portrait fundraising project). While
many friends had captured the AB colors, Jeff had captured the stars behind the colors!
Making this sketch from reference photos wasn’t quite the same as viewing and sketching live, but it will have to do until the Aurora shows up another time (or perhaps I’ll have to go to Iceland for a better show).
 |
| A palette of Caran d'Ache Luminance, Derwent Lightfast and Prismacolor pencils, all among my most opaque colored pencils. |
4/15/24 Maple Leaf neighborhood
Just as I was lackadaisical about keeping up with my sketch journal last year, I was also lax in doing as much nature sketching
as I had intended to. Now that spring is here, it’s the best time to say it
again: I want to do more nature sketching. And maybe this year I’ll actually do
it and not just say it!
Dazzled by all the color I saw on my walk one morning last week, I picked out a few blossoms to sketch. Since the comic book layout I learned from Drewscape has been working well with my urban sketches, I thought it would be fun to try it with nature sketches, too. There’s no sense of narrative or story, of course; it’s more of a visual structure. Simply drawing a box around a couple of flowers immediately designs the page better than blossoms randomly floating on the page. I also sketched one Kwanzan cherry tree from a distance to balance the close-ups of the other three vignettes – another tip from Drewscape taken from comic book design.
Looking again at this page, I take back what I said about a lack of narrative: It’s about taking a walk on a lovely morning warm enough to stop four times for small sketches filled with color. If that’s not a story of spring, what is?
 |
| 3/2/24 Cherry blossoms and daffodil |
 |
| First sakura sighting in Maple Leaf! |
 |
| 2/4/24 Crocuses (Maple Leaf neighborhood) |
 |
| 1/28/24 The last of my amaryllis. I turned my square Hahnemuhle book diagonally to get as much height as possible. |
I had procrastinated in taking my amaryllis out to the
compost bin, and I’m happy I did, because she had one more sketch left in her. Last
year I made the last sketch earlier, so the blossoms had more color.
This time, they were nearly black, but still showing grace all the way to the end.
Although the view is a bit foreshortened because I was looking down on it, I tried to be accurate in terms of scale, from pot to top. It was a good opportunity to include the leaves, which I had mostly ignored in my previous sketches because they were far below the blossoms.
12/26/23 Early morning
As I’ve mentioned before, this time of year, as dark and
dreary as it can be, is a sweet spot for sketching sky color: I can easily
catch both sunrise and sunset times. Most of these were done with my usual skyscapito
media: watercolor pencils and a white Uglybook (I hardly ever use a
white one otherwise). Based on where I can see the sky colors most easily, I usually use Caran d’Ache Bicolors for sunrises and Museum Aquarelles for sunsets. In a couple cases I tried dark-colored pages – a
convenient shorthand for capturing the predominant sky hues.
And as dark and dreary as it can be, I’ve been pleasantly surprised by how much color the sky offers even during the worst of winter. All I have to do is remember to look for it.
Recently I grumbled about how little nature sketching I did last year, but I'm fairly consistent about sketching skyscapitos year-round. I guess that counts as nature sketching, doesn’t it?
 |
| On Jan. 15, I was lucky enough to catch both sunrise and sunset. |
 |
| 1/11/24 |
With their blooming nicely staggered over the course of
several days, all eight blossoms on my amaryllis are now fully open. The compositional challenge I mentioned in Part 1 became more challenging still
as the blossoms got larger. A new challenge was showing depth – trying to
indicate which blossoms were in front while others were behind them. Still
using Derwent Inktense Blocks, I kept the more distant blossoms drier
and therefore less intense. At times I was relieved that I had chosen to take a
looser approach – all those foreshortened petals were extremely challenging to
draw, and they would have been much worse if I had been trying for accuracy!
 |
| 1/13/24 The two stalks started leaning precariously, so I tied them to a stake. I hope that's enough to keep them upright. |
 |
| 1/15/24 |
 |
| 1/15/24 |
 |
| Thank you, amaryllis and Susan, for the sketching fun and daily joy! |
 |
| 8/24/23 Hummingbirds |
Digging through some digital file folders recently, looking for something else, I came upon these four sketches from late summer and fall that I had forgotten about. I had filed them in a “nature sketches” folder, waiting until I had some coherent thoughts about my process or other ideas. Well, you know what they say about where all those paved pathways lead.
 |
| 8/24/23 Grapevine in the neighborhood |
 |
| 9/6/23 Flicker |
 |
| 11/27/23 Fly agaric amanita muscaria (toadstools). This was the most interesting bit of nature I documented all year. I saw more mushrooms on my neighborhood walks last fall than I had ever seen in previous years! |
