Sketchwaiting Stories

 

7/15/26 Social Security office

6/11/26 medical waiting room

The sketches I make while waiting for someone or something to happen are usually just ways to “kill time” (I’ve always thought that was an odd expression: Why would we want to kill the only resource we truly have in life?). Yet when I look back at them, I realize that almost all vividly remind me of the circumstances in which they were made, even if the subjects are “nothing” (which almost always defines a sketchwaiting sketch), and even if I haven’t written any notes. Or maybe I should say that the sketches evoke the feelings associated with the circumstances.

5/17/26 waterfront

8/6/26 Green Lake PCC

For example, although I didn’t note the temperature, I know that Aug. 6 (above) was a hot day. I didn’t want to turn on the oven to cook, so I went to PCC to get a pizza. I could tell that people were using the café area simply to enjoy the AC.

7/15/26 Social Security office

9/11/26 Federal Way light rail station

The yellow sketch on June 11 (top of post) was made in the waiting room of Greg’s orthopedist, who had examined a broken arm after a fall. He seemed to be declining in other ways, but the fracture was healing well, which gave me hope.

A month later on July 15, I was in the Social Security office with our marriage license, applying for widow’s benefits.

Every sketch tells a story, large and small.

9/14/26 Green Lake

9/16/26 South Lake Union

Few and Far Between

 

3/14/26 Maple Leaf

The sketches I make while on my (nearly) daily fitness walks have been few and far between. I was encouraged, though, when I saw that our unexpected snowfall last week didn’t seem to have harmed any of the plum and cherry blooms that are just getting started. Though the temp was only in the mid-40s, I stopped to make a quick sketch to celebrate the victory (at left).

I’ve included sketches here that I made at cafés when I had to duck indoors to warm up before continuing on. Yes, they count, because sometimes I can’t kick my butt out the door unless I promise myself a break along the way.

Sketchbook notes: You heard me muttering recently about wanting white paper as a daily-carry during pink tree season but not wanting to carry a second book, yada-yada-yada. After the small Stillman & Birn didn’t work out, I chose a lavender Uglybook as my next daily-carry. It’s pale enough that pink shows up OK – a good compromise during a precious season. When I go out for serious petal peeping, I’ll bring a larger white sketchbook, of course.

1/23/26 Maple Leaf Park

1/27/26 Green Lake

2/4/26 Maple Leaf Park

2/18/26 PCC cafe

2/19/26 view from Macrina Bakery

3/2/26 Green Lake

3/3/26 Maple Leaf

So European

 

4/17/25 Kwanzan cherry trees near Green Lake

As I’ve mentioned on other occasions, I always try to make my daily fitness walks as expeditious as possible by working them into errands or appointments. I’m lucky to live in a neighborhood where many amenities I use are within walking distance.

4/17/25 My first urban couch of the season!

Although I do a major grocery shopping trip by car every two or three weeks, I enjoy making more frequent trips on foot for small, lightweight things. One avocado, a couple of apples, a box of salad greens – it’s usually produce that I’ll finish in less than a week. The Green Lake PCC is ideal for this – a pleasant, 15-minute walk with mountain views in two directions. Of course, I sketch along the way when I can.

OK, so it’s not strolling home from an open market with a baguette sticking out of my straw basket, but these shopping trips on foot always make me feel so European.

4/21/25 A quick break at Cloud City Coffee

Temperature Study at PCC

 

2/23/25 PCC Green Lake (color temperature study)

Ching, Natalie and I got together for lunch and a play date at PCC Green Lake. The view from the café area is extremely blah, even by my low standards, but you know me – I’m always up for a challenge (especially with good company). My self-challenge of the day: Use the same color temperature principles I’m learning in Sarah Bixler’s class on location.

Facing the windows, the view was slightly better than the salad bar behind me. The seated woman left shortly after I started the sketch, but not before I had quickly blocked in the color temperatures. When another woman took her place, I knew the values would be the same, so it was easy to put those in even though the original woman was gone. It was another good reason to focus on color first before values, per Sarah’s recommendations.

This murky, hazy style that we are using in class for portraits is sort of the opposite of my hard-line comics style with markers that I’ve been using for a while, so it’s quite a leap for me. I’m not sure I like it, but I’m using it to nail down the concepts in my brain. Ultimately, I want to find a way to integrate what I’m learning with my own style.

Lunch at PCC

 

2/4/25 PCC Green Lake cafe 

After standing on the sidewalk for five very cold minutes to sketch the tree that was no longer there, I was relieved to warm up inside PCC Green Lake’s café to sketch and have lunch with Natalie. While I devoured a burrito too quickly to sketch, I noticed a man wearing a fantastic hat. He was still there when I finished eating, so I got him just in time before he left.

My other favorite sketch in this page spread is the man at lower left (he may look like he’s sketching, but I think he was working on a newspaper crossword puzzle). For a while now, I’ve been deliberately trying to draw less than what I see: Make as few marks as possible while still conveying the story (I talk about it briefly in this post from last year and more recently in this one). I could see that he didn’t have hair, but I didn’t have to draw that bald pate for you to imagine it, right?

Satsuma Season

 

12/15/24 Green Lake neighborhood

11/30/24 Maple Leaf Park

With all the cold, wet, windy weather we’ve been having lately, it’s been a long time since I’ve had the inclination to make a series of sketches while out on a walk. Although still chilly, Sunday was dry and even sunny, which encouraged me to walk down to the Green Lake PCC for a specific errand: Buy a load of tiny, super-sweet satsumas. It’s my favorite winter fruit, and I pop them into my mouth like candy. Sketching along the way was a bonus (above).

Walking under Interstate 5, I passed a number of vehicles that are being used as marginal homes for people who are otherwise unhoused. It made me aware of my privilege and fortune: Shopping at an upscale food store to buy a luxury fruit while others strap their worldly belongings to the top of dilapidated campers and sleep inside.

The rest of the snippets shown here are one-offs from the previous couple of weeks when I was too cold or rushed to stop for more than one sketch. As usual, not much is happening in Maple Leaf – just the way I like it.

12/9/24 I have sketched this huge tree several times, and it is distinctive in that it stays green all year. I recently learned that it is an aptly named Umbellularia californica tree.

12/10/24 Magenta seemed too garish a color for Her Majesty, so I hoped that sketching her negatively might help.

12/11/24 Maple Leaf neighborhood. It was only
2:30 p.m., but the light already looked like the 
golden hour.

12/16/24 Two Teslas on the same street

12/3/24 Maple Leaf Park

Green Lake with Roy

 

10/2/24 Green Lake Village courtyard and Green Lake

After seeing some of my sketches of Green Lake, Roy said he hadn’t been there in decades. I decided it was high time for him to make a sketch-visit at one of my favorite sketching (and walking) locations. We met up first for lunch at the Green Lake Village PCC, then walked to the lake. My favorite sketches were of the various types of birds hanging out at the shoreline, as common as they are.

Further walking revealed some color just beginning on a variety of trees. The one at right was so sporadically colored within dark green foliage that I thought maybe the red was coming from berries. Examined up close, however, I realized it was a maple, after all, with an unusual spotty pattern.

We may have stopped at Ben & Jerry’s for ice cream after our walk, but neither of us sketched, so there’s no evidence of that. (Ha!) A chilly morning turned into a beautifully sunny afternoon – my favorite kind of fall day.

Heads are Over-Rated

 

8/13/24 Green Lake Village courtyard

After sketching the sequoia, I had planned to walk home directly, but the sketch took longer than expected, and I suddenly found myself famished. I decided to grab a bite at PCC while I worked on a haiku about the sequoia (see previous post).

Finished with that, I started sketching my lunch and other things I saw in the Green Lake Village courtyard. At upper right, I enjoyed drawing the strong shape of the man’s hand against his face, but then I badly botched the shape of his head. Rather than try to fix it, I remembered how opaque Sharpie Creative Markers are – two of which I happened to have in my bag. A couple of layers of acrylic paint and voila! No more botched head. The hand was the most interesting part about him anyway.

Speaking of Sharpie Creative Markers, in my review (linked above), a minor complaint was that these markers are available only in sets. I broke the white one, which is the most useful to me. I’ve since learned that Blick carries a 2-pack containing black and white, which is better than buying all 12 colors just to replace the white. I admit, though, that I’m having fun with the other colors, too! They layer nicely without leaving behind marker-y streaks.

Errands and Amenities

 

2/5/24 Maple Leaf Ace Hardware store

My first incentive for getting out for a fitness walk is always the opportunity for a potential sketch. My second is accomplishing any errand on my to-do list that enables me to avoid using my car. Fortunately, I live in a neighborhood where the library, the post office, Chuck’s Auto, both PCC and Whole Foods, and Maple Leaf Ace Hardware store are all within walking distance. On a recent rainy morning, I hoofed it to Ace Hardware for ant bait. (Auughh… if it’s not one kind of pest, it’s another!)

Numerous amenities are also within easy walking distance, including Kona Kitchen (where I occasionally get takeout), Cloud City Coffee, and of course, Macrina Bakery. If an art supply store would open in the neighborhood, I’d never need to walk more than a couple of miles (let alone drive) for any essentials!

2/2/24 Northgate Mall, sketched after a walk to the P.O.

2/2/24 Sketchwaiting at Kona Kitchen

9/29/24 An unfinished Akita sketched outside Macrina Bakery

10/28/24 Subaru outside Cloud City Coffee

National Cornetto Day

1/30/24 Chocolate cornetto at Macrina Bakery

Last year on National Croissant Day, I was disappointed that the PCC bakery was already out by late morning, and I had to settle for a Danish. This year, it was already mid-afternoon by the time we got to Macrina Bakery after a walk, so I didn’t have high hopes (though I also knew that the many alternatives would certainly not disappoint). I was happily surprised to find that they still had three types of cornettos (Italian for croissant) in stock. I chose a chocolate-filled one. My gluten-free guy got a raspberry Nutella hand pie, which was so good that I almost regretted that it wasn’t National Hand Pie Day!

Since Macrina’s Maple Leaf store opened last summer, my goal has been to try every pastry once before repeating any. My record was unbroken – until this chocolate cornetto, which I first tried on opening day. Boo-hoo – now I have to start over.

Tina’s Top 10 Memorable Sketches of 2023

 

2/5/23 Comforting soup in isolation

One of my favorite year-end posts is the one in which I look back on all the sketches I made during the calendar year and pick out my 10 most memorable. According to my own criteria, “memorable” does not necessarily mean my “best” sketches; these simply stand out in my memory as special sketching moments in 2023.

Even if you don’t share them publicly, I recommend going back through your sketchbooks from the past year. It’s a fun and illuminating way to review your year and perhaps observe how your style or skills have changed. If you are new to sketching and have been sketching regularly, I guarantee that any retrospective will astound you when you see how much your skills have improved.

I don’t look through my sketchbooks often, but when I do, I’m always surprised by some events I had sketched that I had almost forgotten about – and seeing them on the page brings them right back. Other events I clearly remember, and the top 10 show up here in this post. (To see retrospective posts of previous years, use the year-end review search label.)

Feb. 5, Orzo garbanzo soup (top of post): I rarely sketch my food, least of all anything I eat at home. Isolated in our TV room while recovering from COVID, however, I had to sketch this bowl of soup made by a dear friend because it was nourishing in many ways.

April 11, cherry blossoms, Sunset Hill neighborhood: Only minutes before I had sketched these not-quite-peak trees, I had learned the terrible news of Chandler O’Leary’s sudden and very unexpected death. Looking at this sketch now, I recall the sadness I felt for this young woman’s life cut short, for her husband, and especially for their young son who would barely remember her. It’s what I call the super power of urban sketching: Feelings and other associations get permanently embedded in the sketch, just like pigments or ink absorbed into paper.

4/11/23 Cherry blossoms for Chandler

6/17/23 Direct watercolor on location

June 17, Columbia City PCC (right): Though quite blah in content, this sketch in the PCC outdoor seating area was made during the 30x30 direct watercolor challenge, and it is memorable for being the first that felt like a “real” urban sketch – not just painting this way as an exercise. That meant that I was getting more comfortable with using watercolors on location.

July 16, SketcherFest (below): Last July’s SketcherFest weekend in Edmonds was the most fun sketching event since pre-COVID times and certainly the largest ever in Seattle.

7/16/23 SketcherFest in Edmonds

July 16, sketching with Momoko: Although this sketching opportunity occurred during SketcherFest, I have pulled out the sketch as a separate memorable occasion for a different reason. It’s always special to finally meet someone I have known for a long time but only online – and then to sketch with her is even more special.

7/16/23 Sketching with Momoko

July 26,

7/26/23 One of five sketches I made for On the Spot.

Luma the cedar (right): My sketch reportage for On the Spot about how Seattle citizens helped to save a 200-year-old cedar tree is certainly my most memorable sketching of the year. The experience left me with a lasting impression of the potential for sketching as a storytelling medium.

Aug. 19, portrait of Kaila (below): By the time it was complete, I was happy with the drawing of my grand niece, but it was one of the most high-pressure drawings I’ve ever done!

8/19/23 High stakes!

Oct. 12, squirrel exclusion (below left): This sketch of Sean, a pest wildlife removal expert, installing exclusion work on our roof marked the end of a nine-month ordeal.

10/12/23 No more squirrels

10/15/23 Frankie Feetsplinters in Ballard

Oct. 15, troll at National Nordic Museum (above right): Although ultimately a very wet day, the USk Seattle outing to Ballard to sketch the newly installed troll had a festive atmosphere. The outing’s focus on Frankie Feetsplinters kept most sketchers concentrated around the museum, which made it an especially fun social occasion as well as a memorable subject.

Nov. 16, pastry and Medicare: I hadn’t planned to sketch my freshly acquired Medicare card along with my chocolate tart, but I got the idea spontaneously as I celebrated a milestone birthday with friends.

11/16/23 A milestone birthday celebration

Sketchwaiting in Retail Lines and Other Opportunities

 

10/19/23 Costco customers

My first experience with getting to know the general consuming public was working at the Woodland Park Zoo concession stand. Hair stiff with sugar from the cotton candy machine and clothes smelling like popcorn grease were nothing compared to taking money from customers all day. At 16, I wasn’t mature enough to consider the day those parents might have been having with their screaming kids (though I often wanted to advise them, Why don’t you just let them run around in the park like they want to do instead of forcing them to look at animals?). All I could think about was the bad day I was having.

11/13/23 Costco self-checkout area

On one particularly bad day, I couldn’t force myself to smile anymore, and I nearly slammed the hotdog down on the counter as I grumbled her total to the customer. Speaking very quietly and gently so that the nearby supervisor wouldn’t hear, she said, “I know you’re having a bad day. But don’t take it out on the customers – they might be having a bad day, too.” With compassion instead of anger, her admonition stopped me in my tracks. Her comment changed my attitude that day and the rest of the summer.

Decades later in my 40s when I was making a career transition, I worked part time in a bead shop. For the most part, bead shop customers were relaxed, happy people who made jewelry for themselves as a hobby, so that retail experience was very different from zoo concessions. Still, it’s always the unpredictable public on the other side of the counter, whether the goods are beads or popcorn.

10/17/23 outside Macrina Bakery

One day I was explaining the store policy to a customer that products couldn’t be returned without a receipt. Her volume increasing rapidly, she argued with me as I continued repeating the policy. Finally she threw the offending product at me and stormed out. A bad day for both of us, for sure.

Several weeks later the customer returned. Approaching me directly at the counter, she apologized very sincerely for taking out on me the bad day she had been having then.

Though I’m relieved that I have never worked retail again, I believe that everyone should have the experience of working retail, if only for a few days. In a short time, it will teach you more about the general public than you ever wanted to learn. It will also teach you compassion for anyone who works retail, especially this time of year.

10/31/23 PCC display

11/28/23 Green Lake

11/29/23 patient in a sketchwaiting room

12/1/23 Maple Leaf neighborhood

12/2/23 Capitol Hill neighborhood