Russian Veterans Monument

8/2/22 Russian Veterans monument, Evergreen Washelli cemetery

With a bit of time to kill, I decided to do my sketchwaiting at Evergreen Washelli Cemetery, where I’ve sketched many times. It has a number of interesting monuments, including this white pyramid-shaped one near the memorial park’s northeast entrance. I didn’t know anything about this until I had posted the sketch in the Urban Sketchers Seattle Facebook group, where a member gave me enough information that I could begin researching it. I couldn’t find much detail, but I was able to confirm that it’s a Russian Veterans monument.

The member had also mentioned that its shape is reminiscent of pasha (or paskha), which is an Eastern European molded dessert made of cottage cheese, cream, almonds and currants and traditionally made for Easter. According to Wikipedia:

Cheese paskha is a traditional Easter dish made from quark (curd cheese, Russian: творог, tr. tvorog),^[1] which is white, symbolizing the purity of Christ, the Paschal Lamb, and the joy of the Resurrection. It is formed in a mold, traditionally in the shape of a truncated pyramid which symbolizes the first Passover in Egypt, a nod to Christianity's early Jewish beginnings and a reminder that the Last Supper of Jesus was a Passover Seder. Others believe the pyramid is a symbol of the Trinity.

This is one of the best benefits of urban sketching, especially somewhere historical like a cemetery: I often learn something!

Material and color notes: If this looks like an unusual palette for me, you’re right! The material I used is also unusual for me, at least for urban sketching: water-soluble wax pastels. More on both the palette and the material coming tomorrow. (My Instagram followers got a teaser a few days ago.)

Not My Thing

 

7/22/22 Green Lake neighborhood

I was sketching on one end of an alley when a young man came out of his nearby house. It was the same neighbor who had come out to see what I was doing a couple of months ago because he thought I was the one who had called the police.

“Would you draw my house if I paid you, like, $20?” he asked me. “Or is that not your thing? Because I totally respect that if it’s not.” I smiled and said it wasn’t really my thing, and he happily wished me well.

7/27/22 Maple Leaf neighborhood

That same morning, I had a different type of interaction: I was just finishing up my sketch of the LimeBike scooter and was about to take a photo when a man arrived. Giving me a vicious stink eye, he tapped something on his smartphone and rode away.

Almost all urban sketchers have stories about ways in which they’ve engaged with passers-by. Those were two of mine. It beats sketching alone in my studio any day.

7/22/22 Green Lake

7/27/22 Maple Leaf alley (where I was offered the commission)

7/27/22 Downtown Seattle from Maple Leaf

8/1/22 Hazy Mt. Rainier from the 5th NE I-5 overpass

8/1/22 Seattle Formosan Christian Church, Maple Leaf 

8/1/22 Green Lake

8/1/22 Green Lake

Sweltering Arboretum

7/30/22 Arboretum

 

For our last graphite class with Kristin Frost, we met again at the Arboretum. Unlike the comfortable first time, however, the temperature was 90 degrees by afternoon. I was tempted to skip it, but with plenty of huge shade trees, the Arboretum seemed tolerable.

We found a heavily shaded spot at the Woodland Garden pond that kept us relatively cool. Dense with younger trees and foliage, the area was daunting to find a composition to draw. Not wanting to fry my brain more crisply than it already was, I chose a small scope where a slender tree’s branches formed an intriguing silhouetted frame for the surrounding foliage. I knew the branches would be easy enough to complete at home, so I focused on the challenging background during class. When I asked for feedback, Kristin suggested ways to evoke the density and depth of different kinds of foliage without getting trapped by trying to draw each leaf. I was too busy sweating and staying hydrated to get much done at the park, but I made a small patch of foliage as a memo to myself.

The next day I finished the small drawing at home. Although I had taken reference photos, I didn’t need to use them much – I had done most of the hard work on location, and all I had to do was darken the values and finish the foliage in the same way that I had done the patch on location.

Despite the heat, I’m glad I stuck the class out. With Kristin’s helpful feedback and instructive demos, I feel more confident now that I can tackle challenging subject matter like thick layers of foliage as well as portraits of individual trees.

Material notes: For this class, I chose Staedtler Mars Lumograph pencils, which are favorites of both Kristin’s and Suzanne Brooker’s (whose graphite class I took five years ago) but have never been mine. Much harder than Japanese pencils, they are also less smooth and sometimes have gritty spots. But as I’ve discovered with other pencils I previously haven’t cared for, on Stonehenge Lenox Cotton, the Staedtlers feel much more pleasant to use, and the paper’s light tooth retains and layers graphite beautifully. Using all my less-favored pencils for this class has taught me an important lesson: If I don’t like a particular pencil, I need to try it with a variety of papers. It might just be that I haven’t found the right partner for it.

As for Lenox Cotton, it’s now my favorite graphite and colored pencil paper, for sure! I haven’t yet used a pencil with it that has been disagreeable.

Negativity

 

7/29/22 Green Lake

On the fourth day of our potential record-breaking heatwave (not for highest temps of all time but for the most consecutive days of temps in the 90s), I took my early-morning walk through the Green Lake neighborhood. Standing in a shady spot to sketch a car parked next to a tree, I noticed that the light-drenched negative shapes around them suddenly popped out at me. I pulled out a white Gelly Roll, which I knew would stand out well in my avocado green Uglybook. After that, I had fun making several more thumbnails by looking only at the negative shapes. Although I like white on the avocado paper, without black as a counter to it, it lacks umph.

That’s when it hit me: I should be using my brown Uglybook! In my review, I had mentioned that the “Smores” brown was a bit too dark as a midtone, but if I’m using only two tones, it would make an excellent dark.

7/30/22 Maple Leaf

The next early morning (Day 5 of our heatwave), I brought my brown Uglybook on my sketch-walk. Somehow it was easier last winter when I was sketching nocturnes and most of the scenes were too dark to see. In daylight, drawing only the lights instead of darks is a major mind-bender (which obviously means it’s good practice).

In addition to the Gelly Roll, I’ve been using a very opaque white Uni Pericia colored pencil, which I prefer to the gel pen for solid areas and organic marks. It’s so soft, though, that it gets blunt almost immediately. I might try a harder Faber-Castell Polychromos next time.

Now I’m pumped about breaking out a black Uglybook – or a navy one! I probably have too many Uglybooks in rotation, which goes against my usual practice of working in only one or two sketchbooks at a time, but the potential of all these new page colors is exciting. Of course, you can guess what my dream-come-true Uglybook would be – one with multiple colors in one book! I think it’s time to drop Uglybooks a note. 😉

My white party: Gelly Roll and colored pencil

A Sizzling Good Time at Ballard Locks

7/31/22 Park at Ballard Locks

On the sixth day of our record-breaking heatwave, USk Seattle met at the Ballard Locks, where every bit of shade was occupied! As the culmination of their “Spotlight on Nature” weekend USk workshop, Gail Wong and Virginia Hein invited USk Seattle to join their students in the afternoon. Although I didn’t participate myself, I heard that the workshop had a fantastic curriculum based on their new book of the same name.

As it had been all week, finding a good composition was secondary to finding shade! I’ve also been missing sketching people, since I’m still not hanging out much in heavily populated areas. I took advantage of the park’s festive summer atmosphere to sketch people sitting or laying about in the grass, listening to live music.

I was happy to have some time to catch up with Virginia, whom I have sketched with in her hometown of L.A., in Tacoma at the West Coast Sketch Crawl and at various symposiums. Toward the end of the outing, we walked over to the locks, which she hadn’t yet had a chance to sketch. As we chatted under shady trees, I made a couple of quick thumbnails of the Salmon Bay Bridge and the apartment buildings on the south side of the bay.

Despite the scorching day, we had a great turnout. Although I generally wilt in high heat, I was happy I made it to the hottest USk Seattle event of the year (we hope!).

Rock-star co-authors and co-workshop instructors Gail and Virginia!

Great to see you and catch up with you, Virginia!

Extreme Heat Advisory

 

7/28/22 Maple Leaf neighborhood

After the previous night’s heat, the early-morning air felt like a stream of cool water. As soon as I woke up, I threw all the windows and doors wide open. Then I headed out before 8 a.m. to get ahead of another day with an “extreme heat advisory” warning.

An informative thumbnail

It was still a comfortable 68 degrees when I spotted the lovely light on these traffic circle trees. I wanted to work out how I’d incorporate the house behind them, so I made a quick thumbnail. Often I end up making compositions tighter than my original rectangle, but the thumbnail revealed that the foreground needed something: the traffic circle’s shadow.

My usual habit is to keep the lighted side of objects white, but I felt like coloring the tree trunks warm yellow. It must have been a reflection of my over-heated frame of mind: At the end of my walk about an hour later, the temperature had climbed to 74. Still comfortable, but a sign that another scorcher was ahead.

Trash

 

7/28/22 Maple Leaf neighborhood

Walking in a north/south direction gives me lots of fun morning pavement shadows, especially on trash day. I can tell which side of the street has been picked up because the bins are disheveled afterwards. Sketching a few cans that were still in a straight row, I was delighted to see a truck heading my way: I caught both the truck and a collector.

People viewing my sketches sometimes tease me that I must have a thing for trash. I don’t, but I do have much appreciation for the people who take it away. I remember all too well when snow prevented trash collection for a couple of weeks early this year. I don’t take that service for granted anymore.

Paper note: How about this amazing avocado green? I love it! It’s an Uglybook with a “Grunge” theme. Like my favorite red Field Notes Sweet Tooth, it’s exactly the right midtone to set off both black and white.

And related to Uglybooks, I mentioned in my review that the covers are ideal blank canvases for making art or adorning with stickers. I’ve made a lot of my own, but I prefer to give those stickers away and use the ones I’ve received from others to embellish my sketchbooks. Going somewhat overboard in my enthusiasm for Uglybooks, I have five currently in rotation exhibiting stickers from (left to right) Rickshaw Bags, the Burke Museum, the Erasable Podcast, Ernest Theodore and Kate Buike.