Ninth & Hennepin Donuts

6/4/19 Regrade Farmers Market

The Seattle Sketcher’s recent column about pop-up farmers markets downtown reminded me that I had wanted to check them out last summer but never got around to it. On Tuesday, I hopped on the bus to the Regrade area, where a market had popped up right next to the Amazon Spheres. Before exploring the market, I sketched a few tents in the shadow of the Spheres from across the street.

Yukon Potato Cake Donut with chocolate ganache glaze!

As Amazonites on their lunch break poured out of nearby buildings, I started strolling around the vendors to check out their wares. Suddenly, my nose led me to the tent of 9^th & Hennepin Donuts, where two guys were making donuts to order! On the menu that day were Yukon Potato Cake Donut with chocolate ganache glaze, Applesauce-Hazelnut Cake Donut with cinnamon sugar, Filled Brioche Thumbprint with strawberry custard and vanilla bean glaze, and d’Anjou Pear Fritter with a local honey glaze. It took me a while to decide, but that chocolate ganache called to me. I considered sketching it . . . but the thought was fleeting, and I scarfed it down while it was hot.

After sketching the donut shop with the warm sun at my back (it was 68 degrees with a soft breeze), I brought home the first local strawberries of the season. I wait nine months in the year for a day like that, and it’s worth it.

Incidentally, I asked the owner if Hennepin was the one in Minneapolis (Twin Cities native Greg has taken me there), and indeed, it was. He said the shop is named for the Tom Waits song in which donuts are referenced. (Urban sketching teaches me so many things!)

And not so incidentally: Happy National Donut Day!

6/4/19 9th & Hennepin Donuts 

Free in Wedgwood

5/20/19 Wedgwood neighborhood

After being cooped up in a dark livingroom for decades, it must be a relief to be free.

Derwent Pencil Extender: It Fits!

Shorties are back in action, thanks to the Derwent
pencil extender.

You may recall my post about how I’ve used my shorty colored pencils to help me choose a limited palette with the “calling the dog” method. Too short to carry easily in my Tran Portfolio Pencil Case (when they get pushed down past the elastic, pencils are difficult to pull out quickly), the shorties aren’t wasted, of course – I just retire them from my daily-carry bag and use them in the studio.

Some of those shorties are now getting close to the “Steinbeck stage” – too short to be supported by the web between the thumb and forefinger, making them uncomfortable and awkward to use. Although many pencil extenders for standard-size pencils are readily available, none I tried would accommodate my favorite Caran d’Ache Museum Aquarelles and Derwent Drawing Pencils, both of which have barrels that are slightly larger than standard. (These favorite large-barreled pencils have also given me problems with sharpening, which I finally resolved.)

Derwent pencil extenders

A Derwent pencil extender was recently brought to my attention because it is designed to accommodate pencils up to 8mm in diameter, so I gave it a try – and voila! It fits! Barely – I had to really jam the Museum Aquarelle in – but that’s good enough for me. Packaged as a pair with a second extender made for standard-size pencils (up to 7mm), it’s made of lightweight aluminum, so it doesn’t add much weight to my bag.

The extender now makes the shorties long enough to go back into my everyday-carry Tran Pencil Portfolio Case, where I can use them fully and comfortably again.

Alley on 8th

5/27/19 Maple Leaf neighborhood

Although I’ve seen plenty of alleys in other parts of town, Maple Leaf has very few. On one of my usual sketchwalks, I was surprised to find this alley on 8^th Northeast that I had never noticed before. Mundane and nondescript, this is the kind of alleyway that I would be delighted to sketch in Italy or Portugal, but at home, I ignore (if I notice it at all).

Sometimes it’s valuable to walk around the neighborhood with the eyes of a foreigner.

Technical note: To my usual red/blue editing pencil, I tried adding a bit of yellow this time to indicate the sunny patch of grass in the middle ground – and immediately regretted it. I hoped it might round out an interesting primary triad, but all it did was make me think I should color the entire sky and sidewalk yellow.

Not the Model

5/20/19

A scheduling mix-up meant that the life-drawing participants had to wait nearly an hour for the model to show up. What to do, what to do? A few of us decided to kill time by sketching each other. We eventually did get to draw the model, but the sketch I ended up liking best was this one that I had made of one of the other participants.   

Botanical Drawings (Plus Sketchbook Mutterings)

5/25/19 corncockle, iris, lupine (Staedtler Karat Aquarell colored pencils, Stillman & Birn Beta sketchbook)

5/9/19 iris (Caran d'Ache Museum Aquarelles, S&B Zeta sketchbook)

I’m not much into sketching bouquets – even back when I was using watercolors, I rarely painted florals – but I do enjoy making small botanical drawings.

Several weeks ago while taking a walk around the ‘hood, I turned a corner and was astounded by a huge garden of purple irises (at left) next to the sidewalk. The stalks were so tall that I didn’t have to squat to sketch – the flowers came nearly to my eye level! (I had almost taken that purple pencil out of my bag because I use it so infrequently, but I was very happy that I had it that day.)

After buying a couple of large bouquets at the farmers market to take to the cemetery on Memorial Day, I picked out a few of my favorite blossoms to keep, including a corncockle, a yellow iris and a lupine. On a very wet afternoon (hoping some part of the holiday weekend would be dry enough to visit the cemetery without getting drenched), I drew the lovely flowers on my desk (above).

5/29/19 peony fruits (Museum Aquarelles, S&B Zeta)

Finally, a few days after Memorial Day, we took a walk through the Washington Park Arboretum. We had missed most of the rhodies, but the park looked lush and green everywhere. I spotted an interesting plant with arrangements of three or four fuzzy pod-like things (at right). On the tip of each pod was a magenta coloring – the remains of petals, perhaps? A Facebook friend identified them as peony fruits.

Technical notes: For the purple iris and peony fruits, I had used Caran d’Ache Museum Aquarelles because that’s what I carry in my bag, but for the bouquet flowers, I had my choice of all my pencils at home. I used mostly Staedtler Karat Aquarells (plus one C d’A Museum Aquarelle in “heavy equipment” yellow) because they are harder than the Museum Aquarelles and therefore better for fine details. While the purple iris and peony fruits were sketched in my daily-carry Stillman & Birn Zeta, I used a S&B Beta at my desk for the other flowers. Beta’s surface sizing is definitely better for liquid media, even minimally wet media like watercolor pencils. Colors on Zeta don’t look quite as vibrant, and water sinks in quickly. Despite that, I wouldn’t want to use Beta as a daily-carry because the soft, toothy surface is not at all suitable for graphite or mostly dry colored pencil drawings.

For those of us who won’t limit ourselves to using only one medium, every off-the-shelf sketchbook is a compromise.

Irises in the 'hood!

A Better Blackwing Eraser

From left: Standard Blackwing eraser, Rasoplast, Mono Smart,
Sumo Grip

Although I use a variety of graphite pencils to draw with, Blackwings are especially versatile because they are ideal for both writing and sketching. One retains permanent residence in my daily-carry bag (it made it onto my Top Products list in 2018), and I probably have a couple dozen sharpened at any time and distributed all over the house. Its high-quality graphite, wood, distinctive design and general esthetics (not to mention price) easily put the Blackwing into the premium pencil category. Why, then, does its trademark ferrule contain such a mediocre eraser?

If I’m drawing, I usually reach for a soft, kneadable eraser, but when I’m writing an appointment in my planner or making a list, I prefer the efficiency of flipping the pencil around to its attached eraser. (In elementary school, we Americans took for granted that pencils have erasers attached, but I didn’t know until I became a pencil geek that erasers attached to pencils are an American innovation; most countries produce pencils without attached erasers.) I have been continually annoyed that Blackwing erasers look nice but do not perform as well as most standalone erasers I’ve used.

After discovering in the pencil community that some people hack their favorite block erasers to fit a Blackwing ferrule, I became inspired to do my own. To see the full results of my epic eraser hack-a-thon, please see my review at the Well-Appointed Desk.

Hacking in progress.

Spoiler alert: Of the 10 erasers I tried, most were too soft to work as erasers in ferrules, but three strong performers came through as sufficiently firm. The Tombow Mono Smart is my favorite, followed by the Sakura Sumo Grip and the Staedtler Rasoplast Black. Finally my Blackwings have frustration-free erasers! Now please go read all the nitty-gritty details in the review.

(When I mentioned to a sketcher friend my plans to hack a bunch of erasers to find the best for this purpose, her eyes disappeared into the top of her head. Geeky as the task may be, it’s a public service I’m happy to provide. You’re welcome!)

With a sharp Opinel, it's not a bad way to spend a rainy afternoon.