Greenwood Car Show Retrospective

 

6/29/24 Greenwood Car Show

(I still have a couple more posts planned about my visit to Portland, but I’m interrupting the series to report on my favorite event of the summer.)

One year, it rained. Another, it was so cold that I had to retreat to a coffee shop midway to warm up. On Saturday USk Seattle was treated to a rare day in June for the Greenwood Car Show: the ideal temperature for sketching under a mix of sunny and partly cloudy skies. It’s always a fun event – except for the pandemic pause, I think I’ve only missed one year since 2013 – and it’s even more fun to sketch with USk Seattle.  

My personal tradition is to arrive early before the show officially
opens, get coffee at Herkimer, and watch the cars roll in.
The tables outside Herkimer are a great place to catch dogs
waiting for their humans to come back out with treats.

Usually my approach is to make portraits of several cars that attract my fancy and one or two sketches that show more context. This year I took a comics approach by making multiple small sketches that show various views of this neighborhood show. The sketches are so small that they don’t take much time, so I cover more ground and capture more of the overall car show story – and history.

Owners love to talk about what they’ve done to their cars, how much it cost to do that work, and how long they’ve owned them. And passers-by have memories evoked by cars they see – old models owned by parents or grandparents, or the ones they used to learn to drive. My favorite story this year was written on a placard next to a 1966 VW Bug. Its original and current owner, Florence, had recently celebrated her 100^th birthday, and a card was available for show visitors to write Florence a birthday greeting.

Florence's beautifully maintained '66 Bug

Just for fun, I’m including below one sketch from each of the previous years I’ve sketched at the Greenwood Car Show.

6/28/14 Rain-spattered!

6/27/15 '72 Buick Riviera

6/25/16 '63 Bonneville convertible

6/24/17

6/29/19

6/25/22

6/24/23

Portland, Part 2: Ole Bolle

 

6/24/24 Ole Bolle at Nordic Northwest, Beaverton

A highlight of my short Portland trip was sketching Ole Bolle, one of Thomas Dambo’s whimsical troll sculptures. The only other troll I’d sketched was the one in Ballard at the National Nordic Museum, so I was thrilled to be able to catch this one in the Portland suburb of Beaverton. It was an especially fun outing to go with a Facebook friend I had known for years but had never met before this.

After sketching the larger sketch at top of post, I went around the sculpture to capture a few details. All the Dambo trolls are made from recycled wood and other materials. It was fun to catch the couple and their dog posed under Ole's elbow for scale.

Someday I hope to get around to sketching the other trolls in the Pacific Northwest, but I can already say that Ole Bolle will probably be a favorite. It’s a delight to walk into the schoolhouse and look up at Ole through the opened roof!

Cindy and Tina

Photo by Cindy Smith

Portland, Part 1: Donut Tour and Review

 

6/24/24 Old Dirty Bastard Voodoo doughnut sketched on my hotel's sunny and pleasant third-floor patio. While I was out there, I sketched a few other things.

Over-rated but definitely the best logo!

I was in Portland, Oregon, for a few days to visit family and, of course, to sketch! Other than terrible Interstate 5 traffic both going and returning, I had a fantastic time. Beautiful weather (warmer than Seattle, which is only 175 miles north), familiar and new sketcher friends, familiar and new locations to sketch – it was all fun!

With several posts planned, I’m going to start with the over-arching theme of my visit: a Portland donut tour! Portland is well known for its multitude of donut shops, both fancy and basic. Voodoo Doughnut probably started it all, and people line up every day at the Old Town location for the shop’s colorful, over-the-top, elaborately decorated creations. I think going to that flagship store is the functional equivalent of standing in line at the Pike Place Market’s “original” Starbucks (which isn’t even actually the first location, but the myth continues), so I followed a tip from a local and went to the Davis location, where there was no line at all and free onsite parking, to boot.

Voodoo's Old Dirty Bastard

It gets all the press, but frankly, I think Voodoo is over-rated. I chose an Old Dirty Bastard, a “raised ring with chocolate frosting, chocolate cream-filled cookies, and peanut butter drizzle.” So much sugary frou-frou on top, but the basic donut dough is . . . basic. Voodoo gets points, however, for a great logo that was more fun to draw than the donut.

I first became hooked on mochi donuts during the pandemic, when Seattle Fish Guys included Milkvue Donuts in one of its meal kits. The mochi donut base is made of rice, which gives it a unique, chewy texture. The beautiful, floral-shaped donuts were both delicious and gorgeous to sketch. Portland’s Mikiko Mochi Donuts are not quite as light as Milkvue’s, but they have the added benefit of being totally gluten-free (Milkvue and some other mochi donuts include some wheat flour). Mikiko’s penchant for natural ingredients and no artificial colors meant that many were not very pretty to sketch. For example, my grayish-looking BSJ (black sesame glazed with a drizzle of marionberry jam) was amazing but unappealing to look at (or draw). However, because I had arrived less than an hour before closing time, and the shop still had lots of donuts left on a slow day, they gave me three for the price of one! I never look a gift donut in the mouth (and they were all excellent, especially if I ate them with my eyes closed).

6/23/24 Mikiko Mochi donuts, a street scene sketched while I enjoyed a donut and my hotel's colorful patio furniture

My hands-down favorite from this tour was Blue Star, which not only offers unique flavors, its brioche dough is truly unique and scrumptious. I favor raised over cake donuts, so I always choose from the raised selection in any donut shop. Several friends had raved about the Cointreau Crème Brûlée, but sadly, it wasn’t available the day I went. The Blueberry Bourbon Basil, as unusual as it sounds, was both beautiful and delicious.

6/25/24 Blue Star Blueberry Bourbon Basil brioche donut. Also shown is the rest of my breakfast, which was part of Inn at Northrup Station's daily Continental breakfast offering. The note I wrote was in reference to a scene I witnessed in the hotel breakfast room: A man was quietly enjoying his breakfast while reading, when a woman who was obviously a colleague (both dressed for a business function) greeted him heartily and plunked herself down at his table. It was an introvert's trauma that I had suffered so many times on business trips: All I wanted was a peaceful solo breakfast before embarking on a long day of listening to co-workers yack, and it would be ruined by co-workers joining me uninvited. 

I wanted to bring a box of Donut Bites as a gift to my brother and his wife, and they were all vegan/cake options, so it was a good opportunity to try a “bite” of Blue Star’s Maple-Glazed vegan/cake dough – and it was fantastic, too! I regretted that I didn’t sample one of the regular-size vegan donuts (to be fair, inclusive and totally piggy). I’ll save that (and Portland’s many other donut shops that I didn’t have time to try) for next time.

I didn't have the right colors with me to sketch Blue Star's lovely Blueberry Bourbon Basil appropriately, but I was too happy eating it to care.

 

Blue Star Bites -- vegan cake donuts

Diary Comics Catch-Up

 

5/20/24 imagination

5/24/24 Green Lake neighborhood

My diary comics continue, though not necessarily regularly. If I’ve had a typical day of the “usual” sketches made on location (especially now that the weather has been terrific), that usually takes care of my need to document my day. But sometimes things happen that I can’t sketch on the spot, and I still want to record them. That’s when I sketch from either photos or memory. I enjoy the “shorthand” of documenting visually instead of with words, which are fast and efficient but also feel dry and flat compared to sketches.

It’s fun to see the page colors change through these four weeks as I go through different Uglybooks.

All sketches in this post were made from life except as noted.

5/24/24 This page and the next one were made on the bus; I was trying to see whether
it was possible to use my Pentel Pocket Brush Pen on a very rough transit ride.

5/24/24

5/31/24 photo references (not much resemblance to any of us!)

6/4/24 Maple Leaf neighborhood

6/14/24 Maple Leaf neighborhood

6/16/24 At my barber's shop, Wedgwood neighborhood

6/19/24 I went to a very informative presentation on how to downsize and get rid of stuff!

Cherries and Strawberries

 

6/22/24 U-District Farmers Market

When I can get both Rainier cherries and local strawberries at the same time at a farmers market, I know that summer has really begun!

Happy Hour at Retreat

 

6/21/24 Retreat at Green Lake

In the past, I’ve only had coffee or lunch at Retreat at Green Lake (and recently complained about some loud patrons there), but I also knew about their happy hour. Ching, Natalie and I decided to check it out last Friday, the hottest day of the year so far (but I dare not complain about it, given the dire temperatures in other parts of the country lastweek).

I started with my usual comics-like format by capturing a variety of vignettes that tell the story of Retreat: a pet-friendly venue for enjoying Prosecco and a thick tuna melt on a partly shady deck where a cool breeze kept us comfortable.

As we continued chatting, we switched to a shadier table, which gave me a different view: No comics, no haiku –  just shadows growing longer on a lovely evening.

Hellenika and Commuters

 

6/20/24 Workers at Hellenika Cultured Creamery dish out samples and stir the next small batches.

Even a committed ice cream girl can be converted
to frozen Greek yogurt on the Solstice.

When I blogged about the sketch outing at Bell Harbor Pier, I forgot to include these sketches that were auxiliary to the outing. After the outing, Jane, Roy and I had lunch at Pike Place Market, followed by frozen Greek yogurt at Hellenika Cultured Creamery. As a committed ice cream and gelato girl, I don’t usually go for frozen yogurt, but this stuff is over-the-top fro yo. Workers were stirring and mixing small batches right there in the store, and specific flavors can have long wait times (20 minutes, which is an eternity if your favorite isn’t ready). I couldn’t wait for ube, so I went for marionberry and vanilla malt in a “walkabout”-size cup (their smallest). Not too sour like some frozen yogurts can be, it was as rich and creamy as any full-fat ice cream I’ve eaten but with that yogurt tang.

Below are sketches I made on my light rail rides to and from downtown. Although the light rail ride is so much faster that I have less time to sketch than on the bus, I sure appreciate the smooth ride – so smooth that I can use my touchiest Pentel Pocket Brush Pen.

6/20/24 Light rail commuters