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| 8/7/25 Maple Leaf neighborhood |
Just when I was beginning to worry that my urban couch mojo
had dried up, I spotted one right on my walking route! Despite the drizzle that
morning, I couldn’t pass it up. And what a fine, rare specimen it was – upended
on the sidewalk! (To keep passersby from getting too comfy?) Bonus: It was also
trash day!
Miatagrrl’s mojo makes a strong comeback!
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| 8/22/24 Bryant neighborhood |
8/6/24 Ravenna neighborhood
Walking home from the last Ravenna street tree I sketched,
I almost missed this gem: a couch nearly obscured from view. An urban couch and
three trash cans all in one sketch – be still my heart.
7/26/24 Maple Leaf neighborhood
It had been so long since I last sketched an urban couch (nearly a year!) that I thought my mojo was gone. But it’s back! I bagged this
lovely specimen during a late-afternoon walk. Other than one large rip, the
couch is in better condition than the one in my livingroom right now. Fortunately, I’m downsizing, so I was able to resist.
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| 8/9/23 Maple Leaf neighborhood |
All of my walking routes to and from Green Lake require a steep
hill. Also unavoidable is crossing over Interstate 5, a brief but noisy and unpleasant
segment. On this morning, however, I was rewarded with an urban couch on this particularly
unattractive, uphill stretch. It’s been a slow season for urban couches, so I
take what I can get.
Posca tip: You may recall that I have a love/hate relationship with Posca paint markers. I’m currently enjoying a hot honeymoon phase as I explore exciting ways to use these colorful, opaque markers with equally colorful Uglybooks – and not just as the “white” highlights. The honeymoon has been made possible with a useful discovery:
One of the Posca’s worst habits is that if it hasn’t been used even for a brief time, the paint seems to separate, and even after vigorous shaking, what comes out initially is a diluted, semi-transparent liquid. More shaking, priming and sometimes messy blobbing are necessary to get the paint flowing properly. However, I’ve discovered that if I store the pen cap-end down in my bag, it requires very little shaking and no priming at all.
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| Bird's eye view of my bag -- all implements upright. The only downside of storing the Posca this way is that I can't see the colored cap, but that's not an issue if I carry only one color at a time. |
I’ll certainly let you know if the honeymoon ends abruptly one day (with an explosion of paint when I pull the cap off).
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| 5/31/23 Green Lake neighborhood |
Urban couch season is now open, and I bagged my first
last week! I must have been slackin’ all summer, because the last one I sketched was more than a year ago. I’m ready – bring ‘em!
As I sketched this, enjoying 61 degrees and a soft breeze in the sunshine, three thoughts occurred to me: One was that in years past when my palette was tied more closely to “real” colors, with rare exceptions, almost all discarded couches were dingey, dirty brown (or formerly some lighter color but brown by the time I sketched it) – talk about sketching mud! This one was too, but using a secondary triad, I was able to get a slightly more vibrant dingey, dirty brown.
Secondly, I thought about how couches make excellent exercises in perspective. Most are basically cubic rectangles with some parts missing (especially if they are lumpy and misshapen), but if you draw them from an angle, it’s quite a challenge. In describing her new online course devoted to teacups, Liz Steel mentions that teacups present a good challenge in drawing ellipses. Maybe I should teach a course on drawing urban couches with perspective as a topic. 😉
Finally, making this sketch made me think about the importance of context in visual storytelling. People new to Urban Sketchers often ask whether something like a potted plant qualifies as an urban sketch if it was drawn from direct observation. I think these two parts of the Urban Sketchers Manifesto address the question:
Nothing in the manifesto explicitly prohibits a potted plant
as subject matter for an urban sketch, but the question is always about the
story (no matter how small that story may seem). Does the sketch tell
you anything about where the potted plant was when you sketched it – on your own patio, on
the porch of a derelict building, in front of an Italian villa? Let’s see the
context that shows those location details, and then you’re telling a story.
As for my sketch above, imagine if I had sketched only the couch. It could be in my own livingroom, in my friend’s livingroom, or at the city dump. Or it could be on a residential street near Green Lake where, unfortunately, it’s unlikely to be claimed because the street is closed for pavement work, so no pickup trucks will be able to get to it. But without context, you’d never know it was the latter.
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| 4/1/23 Sunset Hill neighborhood |
Stickered up in observance of National Pencil Day
Paper note: The bright yellow sketchbook is a brand-new Uglybook. The New York City notebook maker has a few new colors now, and 20 more are coming this month! (Yes, I already have a lot, and no, I don’t have enough.)
I recently filled my sixth Uglybook since discovering them last July. I know it seems like I should have filled more than six by now, but that's because I have 13 other colors in rotation. OK, now 14. Who knows – possibly a few more by the end of April.
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| Colorful and filled with sketches! |
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| 8/11/22 Maple Leaf neighborhood |
Maybe I’ve been in the wrong place at the wrong time, or maybe they’ve been scarce this summer. In any case, it had been ages since I sketched an urban couch. When I spotted this one (and on trash day, even!), I was thrilled – but it required extra delicacy and stealth: The couch belonged to our next-door neighbors (that’s our stairway railing behind it).
They are very nice people, and we occasionally do neighborly favors for each other. Although I’m generally not shy or hesitant about most urban sketching, if they had spotted me, I didn’t want to engage in a conversation about why I was sketching their discarded couch. It seemed like an awkwardness that was best avoided.
I left my house as if I were taking my usual morning walk. Passing their house by a half-block or so, I crossed the street, then walked back toward it. A large plum tree (which usually gets in my way when I sketch from our livingroom window) conveniently blocked me from their view.
Another neighbor raised an eyebrow when he saw what I was doing, but the benefit of living in a city where we are known for being “polite but not particularly friendly” is that no one asks questions around here.
(By the way, our neighbors didn’t leave the couch out on the sidewalk hoping someone would take it. Shortly after I sketched it, a proper disposal truck came by and hauled it away.)
9/4/21 Lake City neighborhood
Looking like it had been clawed by several cats daily for
many years, this couch on Lake City Way had seen better days – a long time ago.
Nearby was also a rickety office chair. My guess is that these were only the
beginning of a collection of furniture that would be put out on Labor Day
weekend, which I’ve heard is one of the most popular weekends to move.
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| 8/16/21 Wedgwood neighborhood |
On my way to errands in the Wedgwood neighborhood, I couldn’t
resist pulling over when I spotted an urban couch. And not just any couch, but
one near a few trash cans, a hydrant, a parked car and a couple of trees. You’d
think someone had staged this just for me!
I was suddenly in the mood for ballpoint pen that day. Instead of my favorite Bic, I had only my Uni Jetstream 4 & 1. Although I love the Jetstream’s design and ink for writing, there’s nothing like a Bic for drawing.
7/15/21 Lake City neighborhood
A few kids were playing nearby as I sketched on this quiet
Lake City residential street. A boy was explaining the rules of the game, which
he was clearly making up on the spot. The others sometimes questioned the
rules, and negotiations would occur. As their play continued, the same boy
would pontificate about one thing or another – a mansplainer in the making.
Meanwhile, chickens clucked softly from a nearby coop. The morning’s marine layer was burning off at last. An urban couch twin set with multiple trash cans in the same composition: Life is good.
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| 6/19/21 Maple Leaf neighborhood |
Here’s another “first” for my post-vax life: an urban couch. I did sketch a couple during the pandemic when I had spotted
them on my daily walking route, but discarded furniture is more likely
to be found in neighborhoods where tenant turnover is high. In any case, I didn’t
feel comfortable taking as long as I wanted to sketch those, so they had been
done hastily.
This red couch was on Roosevelt Way, a busy arterial with high visibility, so I was afraid it would be gone by the time I got to it the day after I had first spotted it. Relieved that it was still there, I stood in the warm sunshine across the street and took my leisurely time. The actual couch wasn’t as vibrant as I made it, but I got the price right.
1/7/21
A new urban sketching hashtag has appeared lately on Instagram: #sketchinglocal. It’s for sketches done on location within walking distance.
I had to laugh when I first heard about it: I’ve been “sketching local” almost daily for the past 10 months. Who knew I was a trendsetter?
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| 1/6/21 |
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| 12/31/20 |
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| 10/26/20 Maple Leaf neighborhood |
I’d been jonesin’ for an urban couch for the entire
pandemic. The last time I sketched one was back in January after it had snowed. The quiet residential streets on my regular walking route are not
heavily trafficked, so it’s probably not productive to put furniture out.
On Monday, though, I got a surprise: A badly torn leather couch right on Second Northeast! The temperature was in the high 30s, so I sketched it small and hastily. And good thing I did, because as soon as I finished, a car parked right in front of it, blocking my view.
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| 1/15/20 Roosevelt neighborhood |
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| They didn't even bother to remove the snow before hauling it away. |
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| Here in the Pacific Northwest, we like our snow this way: Build one snowman, and all the snow is used up. |
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| 1/8/20 Roosevelt neighborhood |
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| 12/5/19 Green Lake neighborhood |
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| 9/4/19 Lake City |
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| 9/3/19 University District |
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| I only do couches. |
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| 5/20/19 Wedgwood neighborhood |
