Taking My Wacky Palette Outdoors: Maple Leaf Park

 

1/17/26 Maple Leaf Park

We’ve been enjoying a solid run of dry, sunny days – a weird weather pattern we often get around mid-January. Temps can drop into the mid-30s overnight but warm up to the mid-50s by afternoon. As you might guess, we urban sketchers are loving it!

It means I’ve finally had opportunities to take my wacky, values-based palette outdoors for some real urban sketching. (Although I know being inside cafés and other locations is also urban sketching, it doesn’t  scratch the itch I feel all winter.)

When I see sunshine, my first stop is usually Maple Leaf Park. I’ve sketched there so many times that most views have become “nothing” to me. By that, I mean that it takes something like a new palette to give me a nudge and see the park with fresh eyes. In addition, the “nothingness” is actually helpful in seeing values instead of subjects.

The pale blue water tower was almost the same color and value as the sky, but the sky was a bit darker blue. I used pink and pale chartreuse, the two light values in my current palette, for those. Then I used the two darkest hues, blue and violet, for everything else. It’s wacky, but I like it. 

Using pink and pale green also solves a dilemma I’ve had many times when sketching this scene: How to show contrast between the water tower and the sky when they are so similar in both hue and value (which, I suppose, was the design intention – trying to make the tower less obtrusive).

What I didn’t like is my messy dry-on-wet application of Caran d’Ache Neocolor II for the sky. I think I should have used my tried-and-true “licking” technique as I always used to for skies. Note to self for next time. Also, I realize now that I forgot to add a layer of a midtone crayon to darken the grass as I had intended!

Pi Day

 

3/14/25 Macrina Bakery, Maple Leaf neighborhood

Given that geometry was never my favorite subject, Pi Day is not usually one of the holidays I observe. But toward the end of a busy Friday when I needed a break, I had no objection to a mini maple apple pi at Macrina Bakery.

Not only was I able to snag a seat at all at this always-busy place, I was lucky enough to get my favorite window seat with a great view of a bumpy, old linden (which I had sketched from the same window shortly after Macrina opened in 2023). It’s a nice spot that also gives me a view of the Maple Leaf Reservoir water tower and park walkers.

Cloud City and Maple Leaf Park

 

8/26/24 Cloud City Coffee and Maple Leaf Park

Although we’re both big Macrina fans, Mary Jean and I decided to break the mold and meet at Cloud City Coffee for a change. Just a few blocks further north, Cloud City doesn’t have the variety or breadth of pastries, but the vibe is pleasantly quieter, homier and lower key. Even so, my Nutella croissant was nothing to sniff at – a perfectly fine piece of pastry for an appropriately cloudy Monday morning.

After a bit of chatting, sketching and noshing, we walked to Maple Leaf Park. I finished my page spread with the iconic water tower, the less-iconic Comcast tower and some pickleball players. After that, I went over to get a view of the basketball hoop, where a couple of boys were playing and arguing.

It was fun to catch some sketches before the rain started an hour later.

The Mountain Delivers

 

5/10/24 Macrina Bakery, Maple Leaf neighborhood

Several years ago when I had promoted an Urban Sketchers outing to Maple Leaf Park, I oversold it a bit: “The biggest and best highlight is a completely unobstructed view of Mt. Rainier – possibly the best within the city limits!” (I used to make my living in marketing; so shoot me.) On that August day, Her Majesty laughed her head off as she stayed hidden behind clouds.

Caffeine and sustenance before the park outing. 

Seeing that the weather forecast was clear and warm toward the end of last week, I recalled that 2017 outing. As I sent out an ad hoc outing announcement on short notice, I said to myself, “Come on, Your Majesty – don’t make a liar out of me again!”

For early birds, I started the outing at Macrina Bakery across the street from the park entrance. I enjoyed meeting a couple sketchers who were new to USk, and we all had fun chatting and sketching our pastries and coffee (above).

Walking across the street to the park, I looked up at the clear sky and breathed a sigh of relief. This time, I delivered on my promise of a fantastic view of Mt. Rainier. While Her Majesty was the main attraction, the Maple Leaf water tower and the Confluent Boulders sculpture were also popular subjects (good backup material in case The Mountain was under cover).

5/10/24 Maple Leaf Park

It was the first outing of the year that felt like summer – and it’s only May! I know that doesn’t bode well for the climate or the snowpack, but right now, I couldn’t be happier.

"Confluent Boulders" by Patrick Marold

Jim and Paula make homage to Her Majesty.

Maple Leaf’s Most Iconic Intersection

 

4/18/24 The intersection of 88th NE and Roosevelt Way NE, Maple Leaf

Cloud City Coffee was the site of some of my earliest urban sketches, and I’ve sketched there many times since. On a fabulous afternoon last week – it was 62 degrees and sky the couldn’t have been bluer – I noticed that the shop had gotten several new outdoor tables. After its recent remodel that includes a new tented area, the new tables are no longer blocked by parked cars, so I had a better view.

A fresh Uglybook cracked open! I filled the last one in less than 2 weeks!

Behind Cloud City’s iconic sign is an even bigger icon: Maple Leaf’s beloved water tower (also one of my earliest urban sketches). I made a page of small sketches celebrating spring’s arrival (officially recognized as whenever I have my first iced latte al fresco) and possibly Maple Leaf’s most iconic intersection.

Technical note: Although it probably doesn’t look like a comic, I consider this a comic-y diary because I made a more conscious effort to tell a story about this intersection, not just make random sketches of whatever I see. Does it help to seem more comic-y to include commentary as I did? Maybe in a traditional comic, a character (or persona of the author) would be making those comments in voice bubbles, but I also know that some comic artists write text as captions. Super excited about this new format for my urban sketches, I’m having fun trying out different things to make it my own.

It’s All About the Process

8/16/23 Green Lake neighborhood

 “Sketching is a good practice for all ages and, surprise, it has nothing to do with the end result. It’s all about the process — a process that improves our general well-being.”

Well, duh. That’s how I felt reading this recent article on the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco’s website, which points out six benefits of drawing. Nearing the 12^th anniversary of my life as a sketcher, I have always found the process benefits of drawing to be self-evident. People who enjoy sketching for the sake of sketching – the pure experience and not the product that results – seem the happiest (benefit No. 5) with the habit, and they also seem to have an easier time forming the habit. Those who focus solely on results rather than process seem doomed to quit (I’ve seen it happen many times).

8/22/23 Maple Leaf neighborhood

One of the biggest benefits for myself is mindfulness (benefit No. 4). Sketching obviously requires attention and close observation of the subject, but the whole experience becomes a moment of focus. This instantly has a calming effect (No. 5), which is as therapeutic as yoga and meditation.

Nodding my way through the article, I disagreed only with one suggestion: “You don’t have to keep your artwork or show it to anyone else. Rip it up if you don’t like it.” Maybe this tip is helpful to those who are especially hesitant or intimidated by sketching. I don’t recommend it, though. Instead, keep the sketches, but tuck them away, and don’t look at them for a while. A year later, if you’ve kept up the practice, pull out those old sketches. You will be amazed and impressed by how much you’ve improved, even if you don’t feel like you have. It’s gratifying and instantly encouraging to see that progress, which wouldn’t be possible if you toss sketches.

(Incidentally, I wonder whose beautiful drawers full of Prismacolors are shown in the article’s leading image? Heart eyes emoji!)

8/23/23 Maple Leaf neighborhood
(This sketch was all about scaling -- showing the magnificent size of that tree!

8/26/23 Maple Leaf water tower

8/30/23 Roosevelt neighborhood

8/31/23 Maple Leaf neighborhood

9/1/23 Maple Leaf neighborhood

Color “Grisaille” – Photos vs. Life

 

1/20/23 Maple Leaf neighborhood (on location)

After practicing the color “grisaille” from photos, I wanted to give it a try on location. (After all, that’s my main motivation for anything I practice – I want to eventually apply what I learn to drawing from life.) Rain and cold temps haven’t made it easy, but on-and-off sunshine helps.

On a cold morning neighborhood walk, the low sun (when isn’t the sun low in the winter?) illuminated the side of a tree and the house behind it (at right). I used a purple Faber-Castell Pitt Artist Brush Pen for the darkest tone and filled in the midtones with colored pencils. Typically I would leave the lightest tone paper-white, but because I was using a coolish, pale green Uglybook, I tried warming the bright side of the house with yellow pencil. (The composition feels a little unbalanced since I left the other side of the tree empty.)

That same day, I had to pick up my car that was being serviced in the neighborhood during the golden hour – an unusual time for me to be walking in winter. The light was spectacular, but I knew it would be brief, so I snapped several photos quickly. I regretted not sketching on the spot, but that low, late light is the one circumstance when even this fast sketcher can’t keep up: The best part of the golden “hour” lasts about five minutes. 

I knew the photos would make great studies later, though (below). Using Pitt pens in only blue and yellow, I made the “grisaille” for two compositions. Then I used a pale orange pencil and a blue pencil to add a little more color and to round out the gradation on the water tower.

1/22/23 Two studies from photos

A few days later, I had another rare experience: I sketched from life the same scene at Green Lake Village that I had sketched from a photo previously (below). I didn’t have the benefit of those nice reflections on the wet pavement when I sketched from life, and I think the composition was a bit better from the photo. Of course, I enjoyed the experience of sketching on location more, but I noticed that making a study first from a photo took away some of the freshness of my experience on location. Maybe if I had waited longer between the two, it wouldn’t have affected me that way.

1/19/23 Study from photo

1/23/23 Green Lake Village (on location)

Other observations:

• Although I’ve come to realize that this color “grisaille” technique is no different from what opaque media painters do, my roundabout way of arriving here with colored pencils – one underpainting idea leading (or misleading) me to the next – has been an interesting process of self-study. I’m enjoying the exploration.
  
  
•  Using Pitt brush markers has reminded me of something I realized years ago when I was using gray-tone Pitt markers as an actual grisaille: I don’t care for the look of making the initial contour drawing with markers – the lines are too thick and solid. I’m going back to doing that task with a colored pencil, then filling in afterwards with markers.

• Although Pitt brush markers come in something like 90 colors, and I have a lot of them, the palette is missing a blue-violet that I often want. I’m trying to find no more than two colors that work for most scenes because I don’t want to carry around a huge fistful of bulky markers.

New View of Cloud City Coffee

 

6/7/22 Maple Leaf water tower from Cloud City Coffee

Less than 2,000 steps from home, Cloud City Coffee is where I cut my teeth as an urban sketcher. For people sketching, I later favored Zoka Coffee because its large interior and unlimited free wi-fi encouraged Internet squatters to become excellent (though unwitting) life models. But one thing Cloud City has that Zoka (or any other coffee shop) doesn’t have is a fabulous sign – one that I have sketched many times.

The first time was early in my sketching life in 2012. A couple of years later I sketched it from across the street instead of from the café itself. Most recently was in 2016 when the sign was repainted and the logo redesigned.

Now that the weather is finally becoming hospitable, I’ve been thinking about cafes with outdoor seating, and Cloud City sprang immediately to mind. I’ve sketched the entire sign often enough that it was time to try a different composition. Surprisingly, even though our neighborhood’s iconic water tower stands right behind the sign when viewed from the outdoor tables, I’ve never sketched the two together (I deftly avoided the tower in my 2012 sketch). It was tempting to include the entire tower, especially with that nice sunny spot on the left, but this tight crop was the one I had liked in an initial thumbnail, and I wanted to try it.

Hardest to resist were the sign’s colors (bright yellow and sky blue), but the entire sign was facing away from the light, so I kept the colors subdued. I gave in, however, to a few letters in Cloud City’s name as homage to the best coffee shop in Maple Leaf.

Off the Page

 

2/11/22 Maple Leaf Park

This is the same water tower at Maple Leaf Park that I’ve sketched many times. Usually I draw the whole tower – I enjoy the never-ending challenges of proportion and rendering the form of cylindrical and rounded shapes.

On this sunny afternoon, I thought I’d try a composition that would include about three-fourths of the tower. Surprisingly, this was more difficult than I expected. I had to let my pen point draw the rest “off the page” to the right, but even so, getting the proportions right wasn’t easy. I wanted to cover up the part I wasn’t drawing, but that wouldn’t have been easy, either. It means I need to practice this kind of “off the page” composition more often!

Rain or Shine

2/6/22 The Brothers (Olympic Mountain range)

As soon as I complained about being tired of winter, we were treated to a glorious day of sunshine. Temps in the 40s aren’t exactly warm, but if I can leave my down parka and gloves at home, that’s good enough for me.

We’re still walking through the ‘hood nearly every day, rain or shine, and I capture small stories as I go. I really enjoy putting these sketches of ordinary moments into my Field Notes “whatever” journal. They are the same kinds of sketches I’ve been making in Field Notes for many years now, yet they had always been segregated in notebooks designated for sketches. Putting them into the same notebook as my observations, memos, ideas and the rest of my brain dump somehow makes more sense: all the detritus of my day in one place. I wish I’d thought of it a long time ago!

2/6/22 Downtown Seattle skyline from Maple Leaf Park

By the way, if you’re curious about that rainbow pencil I used for the first two sketches, it’s a new 5.6mm rainbow lead that I popped into my Koh-i-Noor “Magic” clutch. The lead is one of a set of five color combinations that I found on eBay. I doubt I will write a full review of these; they just don’t excite me enough one way or another. I like how thick these leads are, but they are too hard for the five-minute sketches I want to do with them. My favorite rainbow pencil is still the Camel for its soft core and seven swirled colors (see more comments about rainbow pencils). 

1/13/22 Men digging

1/21/22 Maple Leaf water tower

1/25/22 This was the final cleanup of the fallen willow I showed in  my Jan. 12 post.

2/4/22 The two roofers came down just as I had started to sketch, but at least
I caught this guy working on the window.

Short Stories in Field Notes

 

10/8/20 The colors of fall

As fall gets under way in earnest, days have been cool, windy, rainy or all three (plus occasional happy windows of sunshine). Recent neighborhood sketches have been short stories made in various small Field Notes notebooks, depending on the weather. If it’s dry, I take a Signature or a red Sweet Tooth. If I put on my raincoat, then I grab a waterproof Expedition.

9/26/20 a cute Smart Car

 

10/5/20 houses with sunroofs

10/7/20 a tiny, pink bike

10/12/20 cell tower from Maple Leaf Park

Speaking of the waterproof Expedition, the sketch I made of the cell tower from drizzly Maple Leaf Park (at right) brought to light a serious omission in my sketch kit! A red maple was at the base of the tower. Sketching the scene with a Gekkoso 8B pencil (extremely soft graphite is my favorite medium on the Expedition’s plastic Yupo pages), I started to reach for a red pencil to draw the maple when I realized that all of the colored pencils in my bag are water-soluble! Not useful in the rain. I immediately went home to remedy that omission for next time.

North Substation Tower: Process Steps

9/1/20 North Substation, Maple Leaf neighborhood

USk Japan continues to come out with fun and intriguing challenges to inspire their members. The challenges are often related to materials or approaches rather than subject matter, which makes them more appealing to me. Recently the challenge was to “show your process”: Take process shots as you work in your usual way so that viewers could see how you make a sketch. This was less of a sketching challenge and more of a sharing opportunity. The challenge, though, would be in remembering to take the step photos!

Walking through the ‘hood one morning, I realized it had been a few years since I last sketched at the North Substation (which I refer to as the “mother of all power lines”) a few blocks from home. The day after I had read about USk Japan’s challenge, it was still fresh in my mind, so I remembered to take a couple of photos along the way (though not as soon as I would have liked).

In Step 1 below (I would have broken these down into more steps if I had remembered earlier), I lightly blocked in the major elements to place them in the composition. Next I painted the sky wet-in-wet using the “licking”method. Then I focused on heavily coloring the tree and spritzing it. By spritzing foliage before drawing nearby elements or details that should remain crisp, I can keep them from being inadvertently washed away by the spray.

That little tip above probably seems like a no-brainer, but it took me a long time of using watercolor pencils regularly to plan for and remember to do it! I distinctly recall a moment at Kubota Garden last year when my carefully drawn Moon Bridge turned into a blurry mess as soon as I spritzed the foliage around it. As is true when using any water media, sequence and planning are important.

 I feel wistful and bittersweet sharing that tip here. Last week would have been my “Urban Sketching with Watercolor Pencils” workshop in USk Seattle’s 10x10 workshop program. After many months of thinking about and planning for that workshop, I was very sad and disappointed when I realized it would have to be cancelled. I had so looked forward to sharing and demo-ing tips and ideas like that with my students. It will not be the same – the direct interaction with students is the most rewarding part of teaching – but I will continue to share some of my workshop techniques and ideas here on the blog in the coming months. And someday when everyone can safely and happily meet in person, I hope to offer the workshop again.

Step 1: Block in the major elements. Paint the sky. Apply heavy color to the tree. Spritz the tree with sprayer to activate the watercolor pencil pigments. 

Step 2: After the sky is dry, draw the tower, utility poles, wall and shadows.

Step 3: Apply heavy color to shadows and activate with waterbrush. Finish with details.

More Small Stories

7/10/20 ambidextrous sider

One part of the Urban Sketchers Manifesto is that “our drawings tell the story of our surroundings, the places we live and where we travel.” Sometimes when I say that to new sketchers, they reply, “Oh, I don’t have any stories to tell. . . I just felt like drawing that.” But “stories” don’t have to be a big expose, a dramatic narrative or newsworthy. As small and insignificant as they may seem, my ‘hood is full of stories. Here are some I’ve sketched in the past few weeks. A roofer and a sider doing their jobs (the sider used both a nail gun and a traditional hammer simultaneously!); the S-shaped trunk of an ornamental cherry leaning over a fence (it looked fairly old; I wonder how old); a small historic building near the former Maple Leaf Reservoir (this deserves further research and a larger sketch someday).  

They probably won’t make headlines. But they are what’s going on in Maple Leaf, and they are enough for me to sketch.

6/16/20 roofer

7/1/20 ornamental cherry tree

7/1/20 historic building somehow associated with the Maple Leaf
Reservoir

7/1/20 backhoe waiting for excavation to begin

7/7/20 My first walk through Maple Leaf Park since the
pandemic began... it's reassuring to see that the water
tower is still standing.

Make Sketch While the Sun Shines

2/27/20 Maple Leaf Reservoir Park

I knew it wasn’t going to last; rain was slated for the next day. I dashed out to Maple Leaf Park to sketch our water tower that I’ve sketched so many times before. This time I skipped the white leaf motifs around the tower’s belly and went for the shape.

Maple Leaf Ace Hardware

12/27/19 Maple Leaf Ace Hardware at 90th and Roosevelt

The Maple Leaf Ace Hardware store has been owned and operated by the same family since 1973. Greg spends a lot of time there when he’s working on a project. It’s right next door to Reckless Video, which is also owned by the Stephenson family (and which I sketched last spring). Always involved in community events (like the summer ice cream feed with free ice cream bars donated by the Stephensons and the Halloween parade), the two businesses and the family are the cornerstone of the Maple Leaf neighborhood.

After taking my walk/sketch route as far north as the Northgate post office, I came back south on Roosevelt, which has several coffee shops where I could have stopped to claim my reward sketch. Although it was only 40 degrees, I was feeling nicely warmed up after 45 minutes of walking. Instead of stopping for coffee, I picked up our weekend movies at Reckless and then stood on its porch to sketch the hardware store. (I regretted it 20 minutes later when I finished the sketch – my hands were numb and my teeth were chattering.) This may be my most iconic Maple Leaf neighborhood sketch: I got the utility tower, the blue water tower and Ace Hardware all in one composition.