Wish List Item Fulfilled: Sketch Tool Organizer!

Wish list item fulfilled!

Shortly after Christmas last year, I drew up a wish list of sketching materials and accessories that still elude me. The last item on my list was an upright, slotted sketch tool case that would attach to the inside of my Rickshaw bag with Velcro. A supplement to my Tran Portfolio Pencil Case, which holds all my colored pencils upright, the case I was looking for would hold all the other tools that don’t fit in the Tran’s skinny elastic loops. I even designed it and drew the pattern – but I needed someone to make it for me. I finally found that someone – and serendipitously, it was through the Field Nuts Facebook group!

It all started with a Field Notes trucker hat that I had offered up for swap. While negotiating the trade, I learned that the woman I was chatting with had an Etsy shop – filled with handmade garments, bags and accessories with a charming sensibility. Hmmm, this woman is creative and can sew . . . ? I proposed my idea – and she accepted!

 

The front slots have small pleats to give them more dimensional space.

A few weeks later, I am the very pleased owner of a unique sketch tool organizer that was custom-made for me by Brynn James. Although she worked from the pattern I had designed, she improved my original concept by making the slots more dimensional so that the tools would fit together better. It also accommodates more types of tools now. Even a fat Faber-Castell Pitt Big Brush Marker fits easily. All my usual daily-carry implements – which stagger nicely to minimize bulk – fit comfortably with room to spare (and I’m trying hard not to keep filling the available slots!).

Attached to the Rickshaw bag with Velcro

All Rickshaw messenger bags come with a wide Velcro strip on one inner wall. When I designed the pattern, I hadn’t thought about how tall brand-new Blackwing pencils are, so I attach the organizer to the lower half of the strip. It’s still fully secure. Because it’s made of several layers of fabric, the organizer is sturdy but also flexible. It conforms to the bag’s natural curve when the outer pockets are filled with my glasses, keys and phone.

On the bag’s opposite wall is a sketchbook and the Tran, and in between is my “purse stuff” (held together with a Cocoon Grid-It).

 

Top view of bag with everything in place

The bonus? In addition to everything else she makes, Brynn is also a textile designer, and she designed the lovely floral fabric. It goes beautifully with both the neon lime lining of my waterproof Rickshaw and the orange lining of my “summer” Rickshaw. Seeing all that color inside my bag just makes me smile!

It looks beautiful in both bags!

I took it out for its first road test a few days ago, and it works exactly as I’d hoped – and intended! All the tools are visible, upright and in easy reach. Really, that’s not so much to ask for, right?

So – one wish list item fulfilled! And there’s more good news – Brynn may start carrying the sketch tool organizer in her Etsy shop!

Here's my original pattern that I sent to Brynn, which she improved in the final product.

Sunshine at Hing Hay Park with Gabi

5/5/18 Hing Hay Park's new gateway

Unlike last week at the rainy Troll, the site of yesterday’s 10x10 USk workshop was sunny and bright: Hing Hay Park in the International District. Gabi Campanario led his 12 students through a series of exercises that focused on “Pocket Urban Sketching”: keeping it simple with a small-format sketchbook and putting a large scene onto a small page.

5/5/18 Gabi's watercolor demo

With colorful subject matter like the geometric red gateway, Grand Pavilion and even small kiosks designed with a Chinese theme, Hing Hay Park gave everyone plenty to sketch. A community gathering place, Hing Hay was full of busy people all morning – a tai chi class, a group filming a performance, a lively ping pong game – so Gabi’s students fit right in. Lots of curious passers-by stopped to peek over shoulders and comment on the work in multiple languages.

In addition to documenting the workshop’s activities with photos and sketches, I was also Gabi’s teaching assistant. During one of his demos, though, I managed to sneak away to sketch the spectacular new gateway at the park’s entrance. Installed in February in time for Lunar New Year, the gateway marked the completion of the park’s expansion project. I’d walked past the park several times since its installation but hadn’t had the chance to sketch it until now. The striking, modern sculpture is in sharp contrast to the traditional Asian motifs and organic trees.

5/5/18 Gabi gives tips on measuring proportions accurately.

Throwdown critique

Practicing measuring

Tai chi class in progress

High Noon

5/2/18 Maple Leaf neighborhood

I could go on and on sketching Tudor and Craftsman houses since they make up the vast majority of the architectural styles in my ‘hood. But I also see homes of other types that I'm not sure how to identify. When I posted this on Facebook, I was told that this single-story with the large window in front is probably a mid-century. I sketched it at high noon, which accounts for the shadows under the eaves but nowhere else. And yes – our sunshine was back! (At least for a couple of days.)  

Bostwick Café

4/30/18 Bostwick Cafe in Tacoma

Jane and I met the other day to take care of some administrative business for the USk 10x10 workshop program. We promised ourselves that we’d get to sketch after the meeting was over. It was a good motivator to do the work efficiently so that we could play.

Bostwick Café, which occupies the old Tully’s space in the heart of Tacoma’s antique district, is another weird old building like the Top Pot in West Seattle – it’s on a strange corner, so none of the walls seem to meet at right angles! (I was there when it was still Tully’s several years ago, but that day I sketched the grand Rialto Theater through the window.) I let Jane tackle that view.

Facing the opposite direction, I saw that the walls lined up the way I expected them to, but I had a different challenge: A short passageway with a lower ceiling connected the café with a second dining area. Once again using the handy perspective shortcuts I learned in Andika Murandi’s workshop, I made my trapezoids and triangles, but it was like drawing three rooms simultaneously.

A mini-sketchcrawl after the meeting!

The most important thing about making this sketch is that I made it at all. Before being introduced to Andika’s concepts, I would have looked at that scene and dismissed it as lacking interest. Although I enjoy a challenge, sometimes when I don’t know how to approach what I see, I don’t even know how to look for something about it that interests me. Because I had a mechanism for framing the composition, I saw immediately that it would be an intriguing challenge.

The more I understand about drawing, the more is available for me to draw, and the more I enjoy drawing.

New Green

4/29/18 Maple Leaf neighborhood

This is the same aspen I sketch every fall when it turns a blazing, brilliant yellow, but I don’t give it much love the rest of the year. This spring, though, I am so happy to see our wet, cold winter finally end that I decided it was time to show some appreciation for it while it’s newly green.

More Tree Than House

4/26/18 Maple Leaf neighborhood

I’m going to take a guess and say that this house is a variation of the Craftsman style. It’s unusual, though, with the chimney as a prominent design feature right out front. Its clean, stark lines are handsome, but I admit that what drew my eye was that brilliant yellow-green tree taking up half the property. The house has only one window in front, but it’s hidden behind that tree. I guess the owners prefer to see their tree than constant traffic on Fifth Avenue Northeast.

By the way, this house is directly across the street from the one under construction that initially kicked off this sketch series.

Dilemma

4/26/18 Maple Leaf neighborhood

I was headed for the road work project on Roosevelt where I sketched the big hole in progress the other day. Just off Roosevelt, though, was a new dirt-hauling crawler that I hadn’t sketched previously – and just in front of it was a motorcycle! Either could move at any moment; I wanted to sketch both. Crawler or cycle; crawler or cycle? I hedged my bets by putting them together in the same composition.

Working as fast as I could, I put down all the important lines on both, but I hadn’t finished the shading on the motorcycle. Sure enough, its owner (one of the road workers) came by, hopped on and rode away.