Maples Across Green Lake

10/6/14 watercolor, Canson XL 140 lb. paper

I’ve sketched this same stand of maples at Green Lake many times in all seasons. Almost exactly a year ago, I sketched them in their full fall glory. For some reason, even though some trees were hinting at color by mid-August this year, most seem to have gotten a late start and are not yet up to speed, including these.

I usually sketch them in the afternoon from the path with the sun hitting their color. This morning they were mostly in shade, so I walked around the lake’s bend and sketched them from the other side. Just as I was wishing I had something in the foreground, two grebes obligingly floated by.

Interesting Project; Failed Sketch

10/5/14 Platinum Carbon and other inks, Zig marker, colored pencils, Canson XL 140 lb. paper

On a neighborhood walk this afternoon, we discovered an interesting project going on near Maple Leaf Park. Seattle Department of Transportation employees were painting wide, tan-colored areas in the street in front of the crosswalk, which is heavily used by families walking to the park. The strong-smelling fresh paint was marked off with cones.

We asked a worker what was going on, and he explained that Seattle is using this crosswalk for a pedestrian safety study based on work done in New York. When pedestrians are standing on the sidewalk trying to cross, cars have difficulty seeing them, especially when parked cars are nearby, and pedestrians have difficulty seeing traffic. The tan-colored painted areas, where parking will be prohibited, enable pedestrians to step out into the street far enough to see and be seen. The paint color is called “New York tan,” the worker informed us, after the study that is being modeled.

As soon as I heard all this, I thought it was a serendipitous and perhaps unique opportunity to do some reportage sketching of an event important to me as a Maple Leaf pedestrian! After all, it was unusual enough for workers to be painting on a Sunday afternoon; it might mean they wouldn’t be there any other day.

I pulled out my sketchbook, looked around – and was dismayed by how non-sketchogenic the scene was. A worker was still doing something, so there was that. . . and the bright yellow-orange cones were still in place, so there was that. . . but to indicate the tan-colored paint, I would have to make the rest of the pavement darker (streets are one thing I almost always leave paper-white in a sketch). And then there were all the trees in the background, and several parked cars, and the white-striped crosswalk (which would also require making the pavement darker), and big shadows from the trees on the side of the street where I was standing, and on and on. Everything about the scene struck me as non-sketchogenic and challenging.

I got this far, and then Greg brought me an iced mocha from Cloud City Coffee a few blocks up. I decided to abandon the sketch for the mocha. I don’t usually post abandoned sketches, but I still think the story is interesting. (Perhaps I have a nose for news, but my sketch reportage skills need work.)

Book Review: Urban Sketching the Freedom Trail

An Urban Sketchers blog correspondent for Boston, Mike Daikubara has a keen eye for the “story” in a sketch. He views a building, a dinosaur skeleton, a Mack truck or a meal shared with friends, and by sketching it, probes the subject with the quirky curiosity of a journalist. In his latest book, Urban Sketching the Freedom Trail, Mike spent every Saturday one summer walking the 2.5-mile Freedom Trail in Boston, sketching each of the famous cornerstones that commemorate the birth and early years of our country. In the margins of the wonderful sketches are questions in his mind as he sketched, conversations he overheard, funny observations or called-out details he wanted to highlight. Maps and a key to the sites make it easy for Boston visitors to use the book as a fun guide while walking the Trail.

One of my favorite sketches shows the King’s Chapel’s columns, which appear to be made of stone, he explains. But the columns’ chipped paint reveals that they are actually made of wood, and his sketch includes a detail showing his discovery. In another that shows the top of a fountain too tall to fit on his sketchbook page, he simply bends it to fit! More than a collection of urban sketches, the book tells his unique story of the Freedom Trail as seen through his eyes.

Mike has published several other books, including a collection of incredibly detailed, to-scale schematic diagrams of every hotel room he has slept in (again, the margins contain humorous commentary that anyone who has ever stayed in a hotel can relate to)! I’m looking forward to more books by this intrepid urban sketcher.

(This review also appears on Amazon.com.)

Little Free Library at Green Lake

10/4/14 Platinum Carbon ink, watercolor,
Caran d'Ache Museum water-soluble colored
pencils

During the summer, I sketched two Little Free Libraries within walking distance of my house in Maple Leaf. Today as I was driving past Green Lake, I spotted one that must be fairly new, because it’s not on the organization’s directory yet.

From the street, I thought it was actually made of brick, but on close inspection I realized it was just painted very carefully to look like it. The roof was made of something that looked very convincingly of real shingles, and the woodwork was beautifully done. This library was working double-duty as the house number marker for the host’s home. It’s fun and impressive to see the care that the hosts take to build and maintain their little libraries.

As I was sketching, a young girl and her mom came by, and the girl rushed to open the door, exclaiming, “I love the Little Free Libraries they have in Seattle. . . look, a kid’s book!” She was so quick to make her selection and reclose the door that I didn’t get to put her into the sketch.

When I checked the directory again, I discovered three more libraries nearby that I’d missed previously. The network must be growing! Stay tuned for more.

Monster Tree

10/3/14 Caran d'Ache Museum water-soluble colored pencils,
various inks, Zig marker, Canson XL 140 lb. paper

Nilda and I took a field trip down to Tacoma to see Chandler O’Leary’s exhibit, “Drawn the Road Again,” at the Tacoma Public Library. The reproductions from her pocket-size Moleskine sketchbooks – many of which I’d already seen on her blog of the same name – are worth seeing up close, along with the humorous commentary written on the sketches of roadside attractions. When I saw them on her blog, I’d always pictured them being in the larger-size Moleskine – but I guess her sketches are larger than life! The exhibit is on through Oct. 25.

Speaking of larger than life: How about this strange monster tree? After seeing the exhibit, we went to the Point Defiance Rose Gardens for a little sketching. I usually don’t take photos of things I sketch, but this tree was so unbelievably strange that I was afraid you’d think my sketch was imaginary.

The roses were past their prime, but the dahlia test garden was a spectacular display of color and variety.

The monster tree lives!

Five Birches

10/2/14 Platinum Carbon ink, watercolor, colored pencils, Zig marker, Canson XL 140 lb. paper

After I had posted on Facebook a recent sketch of a maple that had been chopped up for power lines, my friend Laura told me about a stand of nearby birch trees that had been freshly and badly whacked. This afternoon I drove over to the Crown Hill neighborhood to see them for myself.

Indeed, they were as bad as she had said. Sight-sizing the five birches with a pen, I could see that they were easily as wide as they are tall – except in the middle, where a large wedge had been cut out of them to accommodate the mass of power lines running through them.

Growing in line with them on the same parking strip were a few tiny young trees. “Run, little trees,” I felt like shouting, “run while you can!”

MiataGrrl's portable taboret.

Technical note: Every now and then the day is warm enough and I can park in just the right place that I can use the back of my car as a taboret.

Reckless Video

10/1/14 Platinum Carbon and other inks, watercolor, Zig marker, Caran d'Ache Museum water-soluble colored pencils, Canson XL 140 lb. paper

Greg and I have been renting our weekly movies from Reckless Video for most of the 25-plus years that we’ve lived in the Maple Leaf neighborhood. Back when the movies we rented came on VHS, Reckless was located on the west side of Roosevelt Way Northeast at around Northeast 90^th. At some point, a mysterious night fire turned Reckless and the other small businesses on that block into a blackened shell. But like the proverbial phoenix rising from the ashes, Reckless reopened a year or two later on the same block of the east side of Roosevelt, where it stands today.

The movie medium we rent has gone from VHS to DVD to Blu-ray, but Reckless remains the same. We could probably save a little money by using Netflix or other entertainment services, but we couldn’t get honest opinions about films we are considering from Netflix or discuss the nuances of our favorite TV series with Amazon. We enjoy the simple ritual of walking over to Reckless to return our weekend movie on a sunny Sunday afternoon, or dashing in from the rain on a Friday night to select a movie and then afterwards picking up Chinese takeout from Snappy Dragon across the street.

Neighborhood video rental stores are almost extinct, and even big box places like Blockbuster apparently can’t compete with on-demand entertainment services. I don’t know how much longer Reckless will be in Maple Leaf, but as long as it is, we’ll keep getting our weekly movies there.

I’ve sketched Cloud City Coffee, Mug Bugs Coffee and now Reckless Video, so I have enough to call it a series: Maple Leaf neighborhood businesses.