North Substation Tower: Process Steps

9/1/20 North Substation, Maple Leaf neighborhood

USk Japan continues to come out with fun and intriguing challenges to inspire their members. The challenges are often related to materials or approaches rather than subject matter, which makes them more appealing to me. Recently the challenge was to “show your process”: Take process shots as you work in your usual way so that viewers could see how you make a sketch. This was less of a sketching challenge and more of a sharing opportunity. The challenge, though, would be in remembering to take the step photos!

Walking through the ‘hood one morning, I realized it had been a few years since I last sketched at the North Substation (which I refer to as the “mother of all power lines”) a few blocks from home. The day after I had read about USk Japan’s challenge, it was still fresh in my mind, so I remembered to take a couple of photos along the way (though not as soon as I would have liked).

In Step 1 below (I would have broken these down into more steps if I had remembered earlier), I lightly blocked in the major elements to place them in the composition. Next I painted the sky wet-in-wet using the “licking”method. Then I focused on heavily coloring the tree and spritzing it. By spritzing foliage before drawing nearby elements or details that should remain crisp, I can keep them from being inadvertently washed away by the spray.

That little tip above probably seems like a no-brainer, but it took me a long time of using watercolor pencils regularly to plan for and remember to do it! I distinctly recall a moment at Kubota Garden last year when my carefully drawn Moon Bridge turned into a blurry mess as soon as I spritzed the foliage around it. As is true when using any water media, sequence and planning are important.

 I feel wistful and bittersweet sharing that tip here. Last week would have been my “Urban Sketching with Watercolor Pencils” workshop in USk Seattle’s 10x10 workshop program. After many months of thinking about and planning for that workshop, I was very sad and disappointed when I realized it would have to be cancelled. I had so looked forward to sharing and demo-ing tips and ideas like that with my students. It will not be the same – the direct interaction with students is the most rewarding part of teaching – but I will continue to share some of my workshop techniques and ideas here on the blog in the coming months. And someday when everyone can safely and happily meet in person, I hope to offer the workshop again.

Step 1: Block in the major elements. Paint the sky. Apply heavy color to the tree. Spritz the tree with sprayer to activate the watercolor pencil pigments. 

Step 2: After the sky is dry, draw the tower, utility poles, wall and shadows.

Step 3: Apply heavy color to shadows and activate with waterbrush. Finish with details.

Putting My Hand to Work

While my right hand is busy trying to improve its drawing skills, I’ve put my left hand to work in a different way: I’m participating in Postcards to Swing States, an initiative to encourage registered voters in 14 states to get out the vote. I committed to handwriting 300 postcards with a scripted, nonpartisan message that has been tested to be effective. When I put out a call on Facebook, several friends stepped up to help me, so now I have only 150 to do myself. Volunteers have now committed to writing and sending all 15.7 million postcards. It could make a difference in these critical states.

I have never been very politically active. Before taking part in the 2017 Women’s March, the last time I was politically active was when I was 12 and stood with a friend outside the Bon Marche department store, passing out pamphlets about POWs (she and I both wore POW bracelets). This year, however, I cannot sit on my hands. I had been looking for weeks for ways to help the Biden campaign, but the biggest volunteer need seems to be for calling (and, even worse, texting) voters. I detest receiving phone calls (and now texts) from such volunteers, and I couldn’t bring myself to become one. Then I heard about Postcards to Swing States (and other similar campaigns), which says that handwritten postcards have been shown to be an effective way to push voters to the polls. It might be a small act, but it’s something that aligns with my values and personality (as well as my analog-leaning interests).

To entertain myself, I’m changing out the pencils frequently. I typically use graphite to draw with, not write, so it’s fun to use my (admittedly plentiful) pencils in a different way.

My left hand is as busy as my right.

Snapshots

8/27/20

Here are a few snapshots from Maple Leaf: Seattle City Light workers in a cherry picker, and lots of trees, cars, wires and poles (even a few poles waiting to be installed). The one that makes me wistful, though, is the downtown skyline, which I can see a tiny glimpse of from Second Avenue Northeast.

The last time I was downtown was in February when USk Seattle sketched at Columbia Center – almost seven months ago. I think this may be the longest period of my adult life that has passed without a trip downtown. Even without counting the 11 years I worked downtown, the city has always been an ongoing part of my life. It was rapidly changing even when I saw it regularly. Will I recognize it as my city the next time I visit, whenever that is?

8/25/20

8/26/20

8/29 - 31/20

Garlic and Beets for Pencils

8/29/20

An offer came my way from a follower who knew I collected vintage colored pencils: An excellent, unused set of vintage Design Watercolor pencils! They are hard to find, especially in good condition, and they are wonderful to use. I immediately made a cash offer, but the counter-offer was more interesting: a piece of art made with the pencils! I don’t think I’ve ever bartered my art for colored pencils, but I sure had fun coming up with my end of the deal. The request was for a still life of produce, and I was happy to oblige.

Shimmer

8/28/20 Northgate neighborhood

Taking a long, convoluted way home from the post office, I deliberately drove on the streets facing into the sun to find a scene just like this. I love trees and shrubs shimmering with light from above and behind.

High Contrast Up High

8/27/20 scenes from our upstairs deck

A simple sketch kit

A while back, I made a lot of value studies using a double-sided vermilion/Prussian blue pencil. The two high-contrast colors helped me to codify the values in my mind. I still think it’s both fun and useful to study values this way.

I took a sketchbook, two colored pencils (one ultramarine, one orange) and a glass of iced tea out on our upstairs deck one sunny afternoon. Probably my simplest sketch kit yet! 

Of course, I grabbed my hat, too, which is sporting flair lately from two new pins. Urban Sketchers may not be meeting, but I’ll always be an urban sketcher.

Strange Animals

8/25/20 Green Lake neighborhood

Whenever sketchers get together (ahhh, remember those days?) and talk about things they want to learn or improve, some inevitably mention perspective as one of their biggest challenges. Just as inevitably, architecture is mentioned as the target subject area for resolving those perspective issues, yet cars rarely come up. Although architectural perspective is nothing to sneeze at, surely perspective related to drawing cars is just as difficult, if not more so. At least with a house, you could pull out a straightedge to help with lines leading toward the vanishing point, or you could use a protractor to measure a building’s angles, if getting those exactly right is important to you. But how does that work with cars?

Years ago, probably during my first year of sketching, I brought this question up with an architect and experienced urban sketcher, and her advice was to imagine putting the car into a shoebox. Use the edges of the imagined box to draw the perspective lines to the vanishing point, and voila! The car would be drawn in perfect perspective! My eyes glazed over so thickly, she probably thought I had dropped into a coma. I had no idea what she was talking about.

Now I do, and I’ve been drawing cars ever since, yet her advice has never helped. The car may be forced into a shoebox, but its edges will never be straight, nor are they curvy like a human, nor organic like a tree. It’s the strangest animal in the urban sketching universe.

(Speaking of animals, while I sketched this, numerous squirrels were very busily running back and forth across this dead-end street and into the nearby trees, many of which are showing a tinge of yellowing. Fall is coming.)