What I Would Take to Gilligan’s Island

My bare-essentials sketch kit -- what I would take to Gilligan's Island.

It’s been more than six months since I updated my Current Favorite Art Materials page photos. I used to update the page and the photos nearly every month because I was changing the contents of my sketch bag – and therefore my favorite supplies list – so often. But the past year or more, I’ve settled into a comfortable groove that I make only minor tweaks to occasionally. You can see the updated list and photo of my bag’s contents now.

The page also includes a photo and contents list of my ultra-minimalist sketch kit, but I realized I never did a post about it. When fitness-walking in the neighborhood or around Green Lake, I never used to take sketching gear of any kind. But ever since I spotted an elusive gray heron  at Green Lake and found myself empty-handed, my habit has been to take a small kit that I think of as the absolutely bare essentials.  These are the few items I couldn’t bear to live without on that fateful day when The Minnow washes up on Gilligan’s Island. (I suppose eventually I’d have to peel bark off of palm trees to make paper and wrestle an octopus to make ink.)

The kit is currently housed in a Travelon Convertible Travel Wallet, which has (though barely) enough space for my smart phone and keys too, so it’s actually a serviceable bag. It contains:

• A Pilot Petit1 Mini fountain pen filled with water-soluble ink (find out why this rarely used pen is ideal for keeping in this bag)
• Dark gray Kuretake Zig Clean Color Real Brush pen
• Kuretake waterbrush
• Handmade catch-all sketchbook
• Eyeglasses (with a dedicated space in the bag, the all-important glasses are never forgotten) 

What would you take to Gilligan’s Island?

“Brenda” at the Maple Leaf Tunnel Portal

5/7/14 Pilot Iroshizuku Take-Sumi ink, Sailor pen, Diamine Grey ink, Zig markers, Canson XL 140 lb. paper

Bertha, the tunnel-boring machine that has lately been laid up in digging the waterfront tunnel, has a little sister, Brenda. The smaller digger just started working at Sound Transit’s Maple Leaf Tunnel Portal, where light rail trains will eventually enter the tunnel between downtown Seattle and Northgate. 

I’ve been seeing some action from I-5 when I pass the Northgate area, so I decided it was time to investigate. Brenda’s front end was mostly obscured by tall fencing, so I walked to where an opening in the fence revealed Brenda’s back end. If you can’t really tell what’s going on in my sketch, it’s because I couldn’t, either. But sometime soon Brenda will be completely obscured as she digs her way south, so I probably don’t have many more opportunities to sketch this site.

Seattle Public Library Remix

5/6/14 Organics Studio Boron and other inks, water-soluble colored pencils, Tri-Tone pencils, Canson XL 140 lb. paper

The Seattle Public Library’s Green Lake Branch is probably the only building I’ve ever sketched multiple times. As you know, I’m not a huge fan of sketching architecture, though as an urban sketcher, I can’t avoid it altogether. But there’s something about this classic Carnegie-style building that I haven’t yet tired of.

The first two times I tackled it, I went for the line-work-and-watercolor approach. Today I was in the mood to mix it up – literally. I did the line work with water-soluble Organics Studio Boron ink and put in the shading with waterbrushes filled with Diamine Grey ink and a mix of brown inks. The tree and other landscaping were a variety of inks, water-soluble colored pencils and Tri-Tone pencils. Even the sky ended up being a mixed approach: I wet the paper first and then scribbled on it with a dark gray water-soluble pencil. That didn’t get quite dark enough to convey the menacing clouds, so I gave it a quick wash with Diamine Grey.

Here are my previous sketches of the library:

Sept. 12, 2012: Green Lake Public Library

Sept. 2, 2013: Seattle Public Library Redux

A Chevy Deluxe in Maple Leaf

5/5/14 Platinum Carbon ink, watercolor, Pitt Artist's brush pen, Canson XL
140 lb. paper

The whole time I was savoring Oldies But Goldies, Lapin’s book of sketches of vintage cars, I marveled not only at the beautiful sketches but also the fact that most of the cars had been parked on city streets when he had sketched them. It’s apparently different in Barcelona where Lapin lives, because here in Seattle, I rarely see cool old cars except at car shows and museums.

Over the weekend, we spotted a Chevrolet Deluxe parked on the next block. A beautiful black cherry red color, it looked well-maintained but also like it sees the streets and not just the inside of a garage. We assumed its owner was a visitor and not a resident because we definitely had never seen it before. I kept hoping for an opportunity to sketch it, but the rain fell almost constantly both Saturday and Sunday. This afternoon the sun came out, and I saw my chance, so I trotted over to it – just as a young man approached the car from the opposite direction, key in hand.

When I told him I had been wanting to sketch his car, he said he would be back shortly, revving the engine before pulling out. (I wish I had thought to ask him what year it is. The Wikipedia article says they were built in 1941 – 1952.) Sure enough, less than an hour later, I heard that engine again, and he had kindly parked it right in front of our house. It started sprinkling again just as I was finishing up.  

Regional Sketchcrawl at MOHAI on Opening Day

5/3/14 Platinum Carbon and Diamine Grey inks, watercolor,
Zig markers, Canson XL 140 lb. paper

“It always rains on Opening Day of boating season.”

A friend who is an avid boater told me that many years ago, and so far, she has been right more often than not about every first Saturday of May. After an unseasonably warm and sunny week, right on cue, it rained today on all the boaters and people watching the parade of boats.

I had been looking forward to joining the regional Urban Sketchers outing this morning at the Museum of History and Industry, where the Portland USk group had gathered to see Gabi Campanario’s “Drawn to Seattle”exhibit before it closes in a few weeks. But since I’ve sketched inside MOHAI several times the past few months, I really wanted to sketch something outdoors today.

It was still barely spitting when I started this sketch of the Swiftsure, a 110-year-old lightship moored on Lake Union right outside MOHAI, and the clouds were thin enough that I could even catch a few shadows. But the raindrops got bigger by the minute, so I ducked under an overhang to finish painting. Eventually it started raining hard enough that I went inside with most of the other sketchers, who had found windows to sketch through.

When we shared sketchbooks, we found that almost every one of us had sketched one of the many ships moored outside MOHAI – an appropriate subject for Opening Day.

Gritty

5/2/14 Kuretake brush pen, Platinum Carbon ink, watercolor, Zig markers, Canson XL 140 lb. paper

This tree is in a part of north Seattle that some would call “unsavory.” Right next to the Oak Tree Cinema retail complex at Aurora Avenue North and 103^rd, the tree is across the street from The Voyeur (“Choose your kink and explore it!” reads its sandwich board) and Top DVD XXX. On the other hand, on the same block and right next door to Cicada Tattoo is the Jazzercise fitness center where I work out three times a week, so I’m used to being in the neighborhood.

The unpleasant part about sketching there wasn’t the nearby businesses (or their customers); it was the fact that I had to stand on Aurora Avenue – one of the busiest arterials in this part of town. (The unpleasantness of sketching Mt. Rainier over I-5 on Wednesday was nothing compared to this.) The continual roar of traffic, blaring horns from irate drivers, the smell of exhaust – it was downright nasty. I know some urban sketchers prefer gritty subject matter. When a Metro bus roared past me at full speed, it kicked up such a cyclone of dust and debris that my still-wet sketch became gritty, indeed (I still have to clean the bits out of my paint box).

At one point, a man came by and watched me sketch for a while. “Do you mind if I tell you something?” he asked, and before I could respond, he continued, with great intensity: “I’m not going to class. I’m not.” (Whew! I was afraid he was going to critique my sketch!) He continued muttering along those lines as he walked away.

It turned out that his pickup had been parked right next to my car outside of The Voyeur. I know this because shortly afterwards I finished the sketch and went back to my car, and he was just driving away, still talking loudly to himself, apparently still avoiding class.

Persistence Pays Off

5/1/14 Platinum Carbon ink, Pitt Artists Brush Pen, watercolor, Zig markers, Uniball opaque white pen, Canson XL 140 lb. paper

Usually big construction projects and all the noise, dust and traffic revisions they bring are nothing but a nuisance during the multiple years it takes to finish them. But the new Sound Transit Light Rail Station in the Roosevelt neighborhood is exciting to me because someday (not before 2021, unfortunately), I’ll be able to catch a train there all the way to the airport.

Back in March I sketched the construction site from the Northeast 66^th Street side, but it was frustrating because of the high fencing. A few days ago when I was on the upper level of Roosevelt Square, I thought I might be able to see the site from up there, but a bunch of buildings and trees are in the way.

Today I finally figured out which street corner I need to stand on for the best vantage point: 12^th Northeast and Northeast 65^th. An unexpected bonus was the railing outside Mutiny Hall restaurant on that corner: It was just the right height for supporting my sketchbook, palette and paint box. I’ll be back at that corner periodically to sketch the station’s progress (perhaps all the way until 2021).