Station No. 17 and Blessed Sacrament

7/6/19 Fire Station No. 17, University District

7/6/19 Blessed Sacrament Church

Several months ago as I was sketching Fire Station No. 17 in the U-District, I realized that the intersection of 50^th and Roosevelt offers an interesting mix of architecture: the Seattle Landmark-designated 1930s station itself, the Carnegie-style public library branch, the (now doomed) Seven Gables Cinema, and the Gothic Blessed Sacrament Church around the corner. It seemed ripe for an Urban Sketchers outing location.

Several other sketchers and I all opted to start with the church before we lost our courage. While churches like this are a dime a dozen in Europe, we have very few in Seattle, so I took advantage of the opportunity for some much-needed practice. The mostly cloudy sky occasionally gave way, a few seconds at a time – just long enough to catch some shadows.

Next I went back to the fire station I sketched in February, but this time I stood at a different corner so that I could capture the tower. The two upper windows include white silhouettes of firefighters (artwork that was added during a 1987 renovation).

Summer historically begins on the day after the 4^th of July around here, so the overcast skies the past few days have been disappointing. But with other parts of the country facing high heat and earthquakes, I’ve got nothing to complain about. In fact, it was 65 degrees and cloudy when I made these sketches, which means I needed neither sunhat nor Polartec! Hallelujah, summer is here!

Technical notes: As I gear up for Amsterdam, I am trying hard to avoid leaning on my usual crutch of a gray marker grisaille to establish values. It’s a shortcut that saves time, but I often frown at the streaky effects of the marker, and I think it makes me lazy in learning to depict values using hues. I’ve also been working for a while now to depend less on an ink contour line, especially with architecture. The church sketch was the result of both conscious efforts. It has a vaguely painterly look (as far as colored pencils can be painterly) that I like.

The fire station sketch is another bicolor tonal study – and an ironic one! Back in February when I sketched it the first time, I was confined to my self-restricted minimalist palette of secondary triad colors, so I used only a gray marker for tones (see below). Then I bemoaned the fact that I had no red pencil for the fire doors (I made do with a red ballpoint pen). This time, although my bag contained my full palette, I chose complementary yellow and purple to “codify” light and shadow. But as I felt last time, red fire doors are an important symbol, so I went ahead and made the doors red.

The humorous irony is that six months ago, a secondary triad palette felt like a limitation. Now, using only two colors plus a bit of a third, I think the sketch is stronger, yet not having to work with “real” hues felt liberating rather than limited.

The sketch below is also a good example of what I don’t like about using a marker. It’s a fast and easy way to establish values, but the tip gets mushy quickly, so it’s difficult to get sharp corners and edges.

1/29/19 Feeling limited

New Driveway

6/27/19 Driveway work in the Greenwood neighborhood

A friend who lives nearby was replacing an old driveway and concrete stairs. Of course, an excavator was involved, as well as workers who were moving some rocks by hand. I dashed right over. The excavator was resting, but not the men. I’m not sure what they were doing this day (above), but I was promised a cement mixer the following week.

7/1/19 Pumper

I remembered from other attempts sketching cement mixers that they don’t hang around for long, so I knew I had to work as quickly as possible. Arriving before the truck was due, I started a sketch of the pumper and its hose running up the driveway, hoping I’d left enough space on the page. Before I could finish, the Cadman arrived (with its bulldog logo), so I started a new sketch. Its huge girth was difficult to scale on my sketchbook page!

Eventually I had time to go back and finish the first sketch I had started of the pumper and the mixer pouring cement into it.

7/1/19 Cement mixer

7/1/19 Captured just before it left.

I had a feeling the cement mixer was gearing up to go, so I made one more quick sketch from the front. I finished in the nick of time – a minute or two later, the driver was climbing into the cab. It was an excellent hour of entertainment in the Greenwood neighborhood.

An Edmonds 4th of July

7/4/19 Edmonds 4th of July parade

Just 20 minutes north of Seattle, Edmonds is a waterfront suburb that still has a small-town feel. Although it’s close, we’d never been to the town’s 4^th of July community parade – it was time.

Apparently residents are allowed to “park” their chairs along the mile-long parade route starting from the day before. Even so, it’s easy enough to find a spot with a good view if you don’t mind standing. Beginning with war veterans and including local businesses and political candidates, the parade seemed a bit heavy on large vehicles and light on marching bands. (But then, I’m more accustomed to the Fremont Solstice Parade, which allows nude bicyclists but forbids motorized vehicles and signs containing words or logos.) Still, it was fun to see tae kwon do practitioners and a band of bagpipes marching along with Segway riders and Batman. A mayoral candidate rode by in a DeLorean. Many pieces of saltwater taffy, bubblegum and Tootsie Roll Pops were tossed to the crowds. People of all ages, many dressed in red, white and blue, waved tiny flags.

I enjoyed the old-fashioned fun. And my red/blue editing pencil sure came in handy!

The Business Card Test

My Moo cards are printed and ready for Amsterdam!

A tradition at the annual international Urban Sketchers Symposium is to exchange small cards with other sketchers. Like business cards, they usually include contact information on one side and a sketch on the other – a fun and easy way to remember people we meet and to stay in touch with them. When I get home from the symposium, I tape all the cards I’ve collected into my sketchbook, and they are among my most cherished souvenirs as I think about the many sketchers I met. I’m looking forward to doing it again later this month in Amsterdam.

I used to print my own at home, but I got tired of all the cutting, so I’ve been ordering cards and stickers from Moo the past few years. Since the materials are digitally printed, a batch of cards costs the same, whether you choose to print the same image on all cards or a different image on each. The online tool for setting them up is easy to use; the hard part, for me, is selecting the images.

This sketch tells a story about the
place where I live, but at this size,
I can't even see what it shows.

Considering that I sketch every day, you’d think I’d have plenty to choose from, but that’s not the case. What I’ve learned from printing these tiny cards is that a sketch that looks OK in its original 6-by-9-inch size doesn’t always look as good when it’s reduced to 2-by-3 inches. All the details I was so pleased with in the full-size sketch are barely visible. High contrast and strong values are even more important in a small format. If I had a mediocre composition in my sketchbook, you can bet it doesn’t improve when the image has been shrunken down to a card.

At the same time that I’m choosing images that might reproduce well in a small format, I’m also thinking about subject matter. Since I know I will be giving the cards to international friends who may not be familiar with my home, I try to select images that might give them a sense of “the place where I live” (to paraphrase the manifesto). You see? It’s a tall order.

Choosing images for my Moo cards is a humbling experience. I flip through the digital scans on my hard drive by viewing thumbnails at about 2-by-3 inches, and I’m lucky if I can find even a dozen that pass the Business Card Test. It has become an effective way to set an ongoing goal for myself: Make a 6-by-9-inch sketch that will still look good when it’s 2 by 3.

No Porch

6/26/19 Maple Leaf neighborhood

One day I noticed that this house didn’t have a porch anymore. Shortly thereafter, an excavator arrived on the property, so I returned the next morning, ready for action.

My hand was still warmed up from the yoga students I had sketched the previous evening, so I used the same brush pen to capture a few of the excavator’s gestures. If I couldn’t finish a gesture, I just waited a bit for it to repeat the same series as it moved dirt from a hole to a pile, over and over. Finally, I chose one gesture to start a new sketch and put the porchless house behind it for context. It’s a mess now, but it will be interesting to watch the progress.

Street of Dreams and Nostalgia in Greenwood

6/29/19 '68 Firebird

“My grandpa had a car like that.” “I learned to drive on that!” “My high school boyfriend had one of those!”

These are some of the exclamations I overheard while sketching “a mile and a half of classic rides” at the Greenwood Car Show. It’s one of my all-time favorite events to sketch, and I try to catch it every year. Last year I had a conflict and couldn’t go, so I was especially eager to get to it this year. I’ve sketched the show in rain and blistering heat, but this year the weather was perfect – temperatures in the high 60s and sunny! To top it off, Saturday’s event was even more fun than usual because USk Seattle met up for it.

  

6/2/19 '69 Mustang

Although the show doesn’t officially open until 8 a.m., I always arrive in the neighborhood by 7:30 a.m. so that I can find a place to park. Then I get coffee and a scone at Herkimer’s and warm up with a sketch of whatever I see from the venue’s handy benches outside. This time it was a gorgeous turquoise ’67 Mustang.

Five hours later I met the other sketchers in front of the library, where we all threw down sketches of fantastic vehicles on the street of nostalgia and dreams.

6/29/19 '41 Cadillac

6/29/19 '59 Corvette

USk Seattle at the Greenwood Car Show!

My high school dream car... a Datsun 280Z

Tiny trucks

This car had a hard landing!

10 Years of Sketching Together

6/30/19 Gas Works Park

Although Urban Sketchers Seattle has sketched at Gas Works Park many times, yesterday’s outing was a little special: We celebrated our 10^th anniversary of sketching together! In July 2009, Gabi Campanario launched the USk Seattle group a couple of years after officially starting the global Urban Sketchers organization. His very first post on the USk Seattle blog in May 2009 explains the impetus:

"Since launching Urban Sketchers last year I've been thinking that something important was missing from the original idea. Then I realized what it was. The main blog brings people from far away places together, but it doesn't necessarily connect the ones who are actually closer to each other, living in the same city. That's the reason behind starting this blog and perhaps others like it for other cities. With USk Seattle I'm looking forward to continue the friendship started back in March of 2008 with fellow local sketchers and to meet new ones in the future."

After that first post, several early USk members began posting on the blog, and then in July 2009, the first formal USk sketch outing was organized at Fishermen’s Terminal. The rest, as they say, is history. Our Facebook group now has 536 members, our Google group has 310 members, and our Flickr group has 274 members. Our blog has 59 correspondents.

Gail, Dave, Gabi and Mark (Frank got away before this photo
was taken) participated in the inaugural sketch outing. Gabi holds a photo
of the original group.

A couple dozen people, including one new member, sketched the park and then picnicked after the throwdown to celebrate. Five participants in that inaugural Fishermen’s Terminal outing were present yesterday, too: Gabi, Frank Ching, Gail Wong, Dave Morris and Mark Ryan.

Sketching the park entrance and shelter from halfway up Kite Hill, the sound of a girl’s colorful kite snapped in the wind high over my head. The temperature was 70 degrees, and the sky was nearly cloudless. As I sketched, I thought about how much fun I’ve had and all the new friends I’ve made since I joined Urban Sketchers. I’m grateful to be part of such a rich community of people to share this passion with. Here’s to many more years of sketching together!

A colorful throwdown!

Gabi tells the group how it all started.

What a disaster this cake was! The cake itself was OK – a typical Costco half sheet – but I had ordered an image of the USk Seattle logo as a “customized cake topper” made of “edible ink.” It looked great when it arrived in the mail, but when I tried to peel off the backing, the sugar film started tearing badly. I left the backing on just for the photo, then tossed the topper. It’s just as well, because the edible ink tastes terrible! 

In case you missed it on my sketch, here's the official USk Seattle stamp, which was unveiled yesterday!