Leaf-Peeping Season is On!

 

9/21/26 Sugar maples, Crown Hill neighborhood

After Mary Jean and I sketched the enormous chestnut tree in Fremont, we went west to the Crown Hill neighborhood, where she knew that the sugar maples on North 80^th Street were near peak. A noisy arterial, 80^th is not a pleasant place to sketch, but it’s worth it to see these fiery beauties. They’re the same maples that Kim and I had sketched last year, though that was several weeks later and nearly past their peak.

As we shared sketches with each other, we officially declared it: Leaf-peeping season is on!

Miata’s Birthday Portrait

 

Portrait of my Miata on her 30th birthday, Sept. 20, 2026, by David Hingtgen

Initially the Miata's "eyes" were closed (as they usually are when
the lights are off), but David suggested that opening the eyes would
give the portrait more sparkle and character. He was so right!

On Sept. 20, 1996, I drove a brand new, bright red Miata home for the first time. Partly sunny, the day wasn’t exactly warm, but of course I took the top down. Without a destination, Greg and I drove around all afternoon, and it was the beginning of beautiful friendship. (See my post from the Miata’s 20th birthday in 2016, when I waxed nostalgic about my history with convertibles.)

To commemorate her 30^th birthday last Sunday, I commissioned urban sketcher and car artist extraordinaire David Hingtgen to make a portrait of my beloved.

The Miata's portrait just completed by David

It’s not often that one gets to sit for a commissioned portrait, so I decided that the Miata deserved a morning at the spa. A couple of days before the portrait, Ian of Dreamy’s Detailing Service came over to give the Miata a full detailing, inside and out, for the first time ever. Believe me, the old gal has never been this clean and pretty since that first day I drove her home.

9/19/26 Ian of Dreamy's Detailing gives the Miata the full spa treatment in my driveway. (photo reference)

To prep for the interior cleaning, I took every item out of the trunk, glove box, behind and (inadvertently) under the seats. It’s not a bad idea to completely clean out a car every couple of decades. In addition to several ferry schedules, road trip brochures and paper maps from the turn of the 21^st century, I found my 1995 edition of The Thomas Guide (which I’m sure I hadn’t opened since I got my first Garmin navigational device in the ‘00s).

Long-lost waterbrush cap

Bonus: A waterbrush cap turned up! I remember dropping it under the seat years ago when I used to sketch all winter in my mobile studio, but I couldn’t reach it. Of course, the waterbrush became useless without a cap, so I must have tossed it. I’m saving this cap for the next time I lose one.

Happy 30th birthday, Miata! You’ve been a fun, reliable, low-maintenance friend all these years, and I hope we still have many more together.

One of many relics from the past three decades that were buried and long forgotten in my car.

Training Season

 

9/10/26 Frisia black locust and Crimson King Norway maple, Maple Leaf neighborhood

I haven't officially declared leaf-peeping season yet, but I'm in training. A good warm-up were these bright yellow trees. Most of the year, their foliage is lime green, then in the fall, they turn lemon yellow and then yellow-orange. I think of them as “citrus trees,” but they’re actually Frisia black locusts.

The very dark reddish-black tree in front of the locust is a Crimson King Norway maple (above). For that confounding color, I used a dark sepia Derwent Inktense pencil with a light layer of magenta Caran d’Ache Museum Aquarelle pencil over that. Trying to get that hue reminded me of a similar challenge I gave myself during the first pandemic summer with some ornamental plums I’d spotted. They also have a deep purple, nearly black hue.

9/10/26 Frisia black locust, Maple Leaf neighborhood

Two Piers

 

8/29/26 Green Lake

Several piers allow access to the water at Green Lake. Other than occasional fishermen, the piers aren’t used much. I’ve sketched several times from the end of a long pier that offers a view of the curve in the lakeshore (above). As I sketched, a young woman silently meditated nearby.

The sketch below, made a few days later, was from a short pier on the opposite side of the lake. Mostly hidden by trees, the pier hardly ever seems used. As many, many times as I have sketched at Green Lake, this was my first sketch ever of Duck Island! Since it’s visible from many places other than this pier, I don’t know why I’d neglected it so long. It’s just a tiny chunk of tree-filled land that birds probably love because humans aren’t constantly walking by. As I sketched, I heard both a belted kingfisher and an osprey (ID’d by the Merlin app) and eventually did see the kingfisher fly over. Although I couldn’t see its details at all, the large bird perched on Duck Island may have been the osprey.

8/31/26 Duck Island at Green Lake

And So it Begins

 

8/31/26 Green Lake sweet gums

Well, folks, there’s no denying it anymore: Fall is just around the corner. The Green Lake sweet gums say so.

These trees, by the way, are the ones I sketch most regularly in fall, sometimes more than once per season (this post from a few years ago includes a retrospective of many of them). In my early sketching years, I always stood right next to them, where I struggled to fit them in. (Back then, I was still calling them “maples”; I didn’t learn that they were sweet gums until quite a bit later.) More recently, I’ve been sketching them from across the lake, where their colors are a brilliant blur.

This week I stood where I could focus on the sweet gum at the head of the line, which consistently begins turning long before her sisters. The others are still mostly green.

Phinney Station from the Other Side

 

8/25/26 Phinney Station, Phinney Ridge neighborhood

After our zoo visit and lunch nearby, Roy, Mary Jean and I walked a half-mile up the street to Bluebird Ice Cream for dessert. The tiny shop’s outdoor seating gave us an ideal view of Phinney Station directly across the street. That’s the venue where USk Seattle had a drink & draw a few weeks ago. I always find it fun to sketch a venue from the outside after having sketched it from the inside – especially when it has lots of umbrellas.

Paper notes: Since I knew I wanted to use Derwent Drawing pencils to draw zoo animals that day, I had brought along my Stillman & Birn Zeta sketchbook – my favorite paper for use with those soft pencils. Although they’re ideal for fuzzy animals, soft colored pencils weren’t right for Phinney Station’s hard edges. For that, I preferred using a brush pen on Zeta’s smooth surface, which imparts a crisp line to all inks.

How I love Hahnemuhle paper with water-soluble materials!

But what to do about all that background foliage? I knew better, but I went ahead and used water-soluble colored pencils (Caran d’Ache Museum Aquarelle and Derwent Inktense) and water-soluble Caran d’Ache Neocolor II crayons anyway. I activated the color, waited for the water to dry, then went back over it lightly with more dry color, trying to put back the texture I had lost. It’s not the same, though, as my all-time favorite 100 percent cotton Hahnemühle with water-soluble materials (as I used in the sketch at right, shown for comparison). Both the texture and especially the sizing of Zeta paper just don’t take wet media as well.

Wallingford Dick’s Drive-in

 

8/24/26 Dick's Drive-in, Wallingford neighborhood

“Serving Seattle’s favorite burgers, hand-cut fries, and real ice cream shakes since 1954,” Dick’s Drive-in in Wallingford still has the classic drive-in shape. I haven’t eaten a burger anywhere in four decades, and I haven’t even eaten fries at Dick’s for years (though I know they are good), but I appreciate any venue widely regarded as an institution. Although I’ve sketched both the Queen Anne Dick’s and the one on Capitol Hill, this was my first time sketching the Wallingford branch of this local chain.

I looked for a composition that would include both the restaurant and the iconic, original sign, but there was too much empty space between them to fit right. Instead, I sketched the sign as an inset (which is a favored layout technique of Mike Daikubara). I don’t always take the time to color in all the details of signs, but who could resist those candy corn colors?

Seward Park Trees

 

8/26/26 Seward Park

Although I visited Seward Park fairly often as a teen, after I moved further north as an adult, I rarely went there. I wish it were closer: It has a lovely 2.4-mile walking loop with Lake Washington on one side and a dense, old growth forest on the other. It’s one of Seattle’s more serene parks; even on weekends, it never seems crowded (unlike Green Lake, my own neighborhood park, which can look like Malibu beach on sunny weekends).

USk Seattle met at Seward on Wednesday when it was cool and overcast. Since the temperature was ideal for fitness walking, I began the outing with a loop around the park. Although the dense growth of trees is serene, it’s formidable to sketch; I was looking for an individual tree I could isolate easily in a composition. About three-fourths of the way around, I came upon an old snag with an interesting shape (at right).

When I completed the loop, I looked around for another sketch and found myself at a familiar spot just as the sky was clearing. I think the first time I sketched this stand of shoreline poplars (top of post) was with graphite in Kathleen Moore’s nature drawing course years ago. Another time I made a quick stop when I happened to be in the neighborhood. Anytime in the afternoon, the slender trees cast lovely shadows that I find irresistible.

Here and Now

 

8/18/26 Maple Leaf neighborhood

A friend, also newly widowed, gave me this book: Grief One Day at a Time: 365 Meditations to Help You Heal After Loss (Alan Wolfelt). I read each dated page in the morning before breakfast (an idea I got from her). A recent page resonated with the way sketching has long been my primary form of meditation:

Being present in the moment is a difficult way of being to master, but it’s worth working on. When you need a break from your grief and mourning, try to focus on the here and now. Pay attention to your breathing…. Notice the people, objects, colors and textures around you. Attend to the sounds you hear. Smell the aromas in the air…. While we will always miss the person who died, focusing on the present moment can provide breathing space.

8/8/26 Maple Leaf neighborhood

8/16/26 Green Lake neighborhood

Sometimes I’m unexpectedly and suddenly flooded with grief. It pulls me inward, where my entire past with Greg and my entire future without him exist. After the flood recedes, I take a walk, which puts me back out into the world where only the present exists. Attending to sensory observations is essential for meditation, and sketching documents that attention: I observe this, I draw this, here and now.

8/19/26 Maple Leaf neighborhood

8/16/26 Green Lake neighborhood

Majestic Bay Theatres

 

8/21/26 Majestic Bay Theatres, Ballard

Opened in 1914, the Majestic (and later Bay) Theatre used to be a single-screen neighborhood theater in Ballard for decades. Although I don’t recall seeing any movies there, I remember it as the Bay, probably in the ‘70s and ‘80s. Renamed the Majestic Bay, it was rebuilt as a modern multi-plex in 1998, where it continues to screen first-run and older movies.

When I sketched it last week, the Majestic Bay was showing “The Odyssey,” “Spider-Man” and other first-runs. One marquee promoted “Retro Night,” which was featuring “Snakes on a Plane.”

Although the blue lighted sign is probably original, the rest of the building has a contemporary look. It was difficult to find a good composition that was unobstructed, but since I’m not too fond of the building anyway (other than the sign), I went across the street to sketch it behind a tree. (Trees make such great compositional obstructions when I’m not interested in sketching a building, which is almost always. Now you know my secret: When I don’t want to sketch something, I just look for a tree to block it.)

Happy 50th Birthday, Freeway Park!

 

8/22/26 Freeway Park

USk Seattle was invited to a very special birthday party: Freeway Park’s 50th! Initiated by civic leader Jim Ellis, the five-acre park became the first in the world to be built over a freeway. The Freeway Park Association put on a fun event last Saturday to celebrate with live music, art activities, free tamales and popsicles, photo opportunities and other ways to enjoy the unique space that the park offers.

Gabi Campanario and Sketcher Press shared a canopy with USk Seattle to introduce park visitors to Urban Sketchers. Quite a few new members joined us, and I expect a few more will join the Facebook group and our mailing list later. And what a massive turnout: I counted nearly 40 in our throwdown group photo!

Since I hadn’t sketched at Freeway Park since before the pandemic (which was the last time USk had an outing there), the event was a good reintroduction for me, too. I warmed up with a few gestures of buskers and visitors playing ladder toss on the lawn (below). I was amused that the electric violinist and the Chihuahua both wore red shoes!

Although I’m not a fan of Brutalist architecture, that’s what the park is all about, so I found a spot to capture some of it (top of post). What I do appreciate about Freeway Park is the beautiful integration of all those hard, brutal, geometric lines with the organic softness of so many trees and other plants. It’s a unique urban space unlike any other in Seattle (or anywhere in the world, for that matter).

Now that Freeway Park is back on our radar, we’ll be sure to plan more USk outings there again.

What a turnout!

Sketcher Press and USk Seattle's canopy

Black-Eyed Susans

 

8/20/26 Black-Eyed Susans, Maple Leaf neighborhood

Although my walk was getting hotter than I like, I couldn’t resist making a quick stop to catch these Black-Eyed Susans near the sidewalk. After sketching them hastily with a brush pen and coloring the petals with a yellow Museum Aquarelle pencil, I was disappointed that they didn’t pop as I wanted them to. Usually adding a dark background does the trick, so I used a dark blue-violet Neocolor II crayon. I snapped a photo (below), thinking I was done.

About to close the sketchbook, I looked again and thought the flowers still lacked pop. Although I don’t usually use water in Uglybooks, and I like the raw, rustic look that dry crayons impart on colored paper, I thought I’d try applying water to the Neo II to see the result (at left). I avoided fully activating the color to retain some of the dry look. I like it.

By the way, do you know the difference between Black-Eyed Susan and Brown-Eyed Susan? I wasn’t sure which these were, or even if those were just two colloquial names for the same flower. They are, however, different: Brown-Eyed Susans have rounder, shorter petals, while Black-Eyes have slender, tapered petals.

What did we ever do before the Internet?

Neocolor II background before activation

Two Moments at Green Lake

 

8/13/26 Green Lake

I can’t count the many times I’ve sketched at Green Lake by now, yet I never tire of the (mostly) same subjects and similar compositions: trees, water, the opposite shoreline, ground shadows. Each is a new challenge cushioned by the familiar.

While the resident geese, too, have been sketched many times, I thought I found a fresh composition. A (human) couple were sitting on the bench when I began, but I went against my own urban sketching policy and didn’t sketch them first. Sure enough, they got up and left by the time I’d sketched the geese. Again, a challenge cushioned by the familiar.

Rear Views of the Center of the Universe

 

8/15/26 Lake Washington Ship Canal path, Fremont neighborhood

Lenin from the rear

Fremont, AKA the Center of the Universe, is one of my favorite sketching neighborhoods, and I was happy to be back there with USk Seattle. Although I’ve sketched the (in)famous statue of Lenin many times (and I’m sure other long-time sketchers have, too), I never seem to tire of his strong angles and challenging lighting from all the trees around him. This time I tried a fresh perspective – from the rear (at right).

After that, I took a long walk around Fremont to look for my next sketch and to soak in the happy Saturday-afternoon summer vibe. I found myself on the Lake Washington Ship Canal walking/biking path, where I stopped to see how the topiary dinosaurs (which I’ve sketched several times) were doing. Some years, they have looked shaggy or somewhat bald, but they were looking good last weekend. With temps in the mid-70s by then, I walked all around them to find a view that I could sketch in shade (top of post). Coincidentally, the only shady view was again from the rear. Unrecognizable in my sketch, the mama dinosaur’s rear end is on the far left.

Thumbnail to try out the square composition

The more inviting view was of the shadow pattern crossing the Ship Canal path, a power tower and the Aurora Bridge in the distance.

Material note: Lacking a fine-tip marker, I used a Pentel Sign brush pen to draw the relatively fine lines of the power tower in the color sketch – as well as the people, the dry-brushed border and to write the caption. The more I use it, the more I love this brush pen’s wide tip range and versatility (though I do curse its nonrefillable, disposable form factor).

Colorful Clouds of Belonging

 

8/9/26 "Clouds of Belonging" installed outside King Street Station

USk Seattle had one of its most colorful outings ever. “Clouds of Belonging,” a temporary installation in front of King Street Station, “is composed of large cloud-like forms that introduce softness, color, and light into the surrounding urban landscape,” according to the city’s Office of Arts and Culture. Artist Alex Proba invites visitors “to move through, pause within, and simply enjoy a bright, sculptural environment designed for connection.” As nearly everyone in the group focused on the sculpture, it definitely formed a connection for all of us.

After finishing the full-color version (top of post) from the railroad overpass, I was going to move on to other subjects. Then as I walked around, I found more viewpoints I liked, so I drew it twice more.

While I ate lunch in the courtyard outside International District/Chinatown Station, Mariners fans continually streamed out of the station and walked in the direction of T-Mobile Park (below, right).

At the throwdown back at the “Clouds,” USk Seattle came through with an impressive variety of compositions. The whimsical clouds were certainly inspiring as well as colorful.

Smokeless in Seattle

 

8/8/26 Woodland Park Rose Garden

When the smoke finally cleared, I rejoiced by throwing all the windows open and heading out for Woodland Park Rose Garden. Disappointed that I had a conflict on the day of a planned USk outing there, I didn’t want to miss sketching those fantastical topiary trees. As many times as I’ve sketched them, I never seem to tire of their challenging, whimsical forms.

Last year I had noted how shaggy they looked, like they hadn’t been trimmed in a while. The gardeners have been busy since then – the trees looked mighty sharp on this visit.

The garden is full of these topiary trees. Here
are a couple more.

The Bubbleator Lives Again

8/3/26 17th NW & NW Market, Ballard neighborhood

Although I probably did ride it, I don’t remember the Bubbleator when it debuted at Seattle’s Century 21 World’s Fair in 1962. I wasn’t quite four then, so I don’t recall anything about the fair (though my sibs have told me I was cranky through most of it). What I do fondly remember is riding the Bubblelator regularly years later, as the transparent acrylic sphere continued to carry Food Circus (later called the Center House) visitors up and down between two floors for nearly 20 years.

Apparently the original Bubbleator is somewhere in Des Moines. An exact replica, however, now stands on the roof of Ballard Realty. Realtor and building owner Ray Poletti built it himself at a cost of $200,000 (conservative estimate, he says). He used the original as a model.

I can’t decide which is more astonishing: That he was able to replicate it so precisely or that he wanted to in the first place. (Read the Seattle Times article linked above for more details; it also talks about other odd Seattle memorabilia.) In any case, how could I resist sketching it?

Standing at the busy, very noisy intersection in downtown Ballard, I imagined the one important detail missing from that exact replica: A young woman dressed in a Jetsons-style outfit who operated the Bubbleator (the article says Poletti bought one of those original outfits at a consignment shop and is working on replicating it). And by “operated,” I mean she opened and closed the doors, distributed crowds inside the bubble, and pushed buttons to make it go up or down. As a preteen, I thought it was a pretty cool job for a young woman.

Sammamish River Trail

 

7/31/26 Freeways criss-cross over the Sammamish River in Bothell.

Ten miles of paved trail for bicyclists, runners and walkers, the Sammamish River Trail goes all the way from Marymoor to Bothell. Although I’d sketched the Sammamish from Bothell Landing a few times, Brackett’s Landing a mile or so east was new to me. That was the meetup point with Allan, Roy, Dave and Gabi on a beautiful morning.

Thumbnail for sketch above

When I was invited, I had been promised freeway overpasses – I’m in! When I arrived, though, all I saw was the green, serene river with a few ducks floating by. Huh?

It turned out that was just the parking location. Walking 10 minutes or so on the trail brought us to the spot that Dave called the “spaghetti monster” of vertical and horizontal concrete made further chaotic by new construction. Although I had brought along earplugs, I was surprised that I didn’t need them. Best of all, we had plenty of deep shade from the overpasses to choose whatever composition we wanted.

Daunted by what I saw in every direction, I made a thumbnail of the vertical view I chose to see if everything would fit. Liking the composition, I moved on to the larger color version (top of post).

After tackling the concrete jungle, we all agreed that the serene piece of river where we parked would be a welcome relief. My challenge was to distinguish the water reflections from the trees and foliage all around (below). I joked that I was channeling Monet during his cataract phase.

Whether natural or humanmade, the sights from the Sammamish River Trail are a sketcher’s paradise, especially when it’s cloudless and 74 degrees. Ahhh, summer in Seattle!

A 10-minute walk from the Spaghetti Monster is this stretch of serenity.

A 180-degree turn from the scene I sketched are more more tangles of spaghetti waiting to be connected.

Tina, Allan, Gabi, Roy and Dave take on the Spaghetti Monster!