Breeze and Brews Keep Sketchers Cool

 

7/5/24 Project 9 Brewing Co.

On the first day of our heatwave, a few members of USk Seattle gathered at Project 9 Brewing Company for a drink & draw. Although the temps were in the mid-80s by late afternoon, a decent breeze on the well-shaded north side of the brewery kept us relatively comfortable (aided by good brews).

It was a fun evening of chat about art, art materials and even knitting, as almost all of us were or used to be knitters. Bonus (for me): Several dogs were present at the pet-friendly venue, including cooperative model Pine, who was part of our party.

Paws, Claws, Cookies and Macrina

6/30/24 Paws & Claws adoptable dogs at Macrina Bakery

Macrina Bakery’s Maple Leaf store, which opened to much neighborhood fanfare a year ago, celebrated its anniversary in a unique way: It hosted a meet-and-greet event for dogs rescued by Paws and Claws Pet Rescue. Hoping to be adopted, the dogs met prospective parents in the parking lot. Macrina staff offered decorate-it-yourself dog-shaped shortbread cookies to visitors who gave a donation to Paws and Claws.

My self-frosted cookie looked a bit pathetic – as an art medium, I prefer ink to icing any day – but I had fun trying to capture the pups with my brush pen.

These dogs were waiting with their foster parents to meet potential forever parents.

The pup I decorated myself isn't quite as pretty as the store-made Pride cookie. Both were equally delicious, however.

More Green Lake Trees

 

6/28/24 Green Lake neighborhood

I finished sketching the last four trees in the Green Lake neighborhood that were documented by Taha Ebrahimi in Street Trees of Seattle. Not all of the trees she highlights in the book are huge, old trees (though many are). Some are surprisingly small and indistinctive, like the tiny, young ginkgo in the middle of a street island. The twin quinces both have leaves that had been well-eaten by some infesting bugs, and I worried about their health. They are distinctive, however, for being the first quinces recorded in the City of Seattle as right-of-way trees (out of only 19 quinces in the whole city).

Now that I’ve made small gesture sketches of all the Maple Leaf and Green Lake trees, I have in mind three that would make nice portraits. Since the gesture sketches were all done in morning light, I’ve gone back to see one of them in late-afternoon light, which is definitely better than morning. Unfortunately, one that would be particularly magnificent to draw has a trunk that will always be in shade due to its huge canopy. It’s always challenging to draw anything in total shade, but I’ll have to make do.

This page spread got a little cramped and more cluttered than I had intended. While walking around Green Lake to get from one tree to another, I suddenly spotted two crows mercilessly harassing a bald eagle minding its own business high atop a tree. I should have given the birds more space (and therefore kept more space for the trees), but the spectacle felt like part of my tree-sketching story, so I put them on the same spread. (I posted a short video on Instagram.)

Malarkey

 

6/27/24 Sketched from live video broadcast

7/4/24 Have a safe and happy 4th!

I have no idea how non-sketchers are able to stomach presidential debates. I sketch to keep my eyes from rolling permanently into the back of my head.

Here’s how it went in 2020 and, even more memorably, in 2016, when my sketching room was especially appropriate.

Portland, Part 4: Diary Comics/Walk-Sketch Journal

6/23/24 My lunch at McMenamins Olympic Club in Centralia on the way down to Portland.

What’s the difference between my sketch journal, my walk-sketches, and my diary comics? Nothing, apparently, and it became especially evident in my sketchbook while I was traveling. I think the only distinction was in my mind while I made transitions from one to another as my processes and approaches morphed along the way.

6/23/24 Portland

Travel gives me an opportunity for intensive sketching that I don’t have during my usual daily routines and responsibilities. That intensity encourages a full integration of “destination” urban sketching (such as Ole Bolle, which has been on my “to-sketch” list ever since I found out about it) and more ordinary sketches of the type I make when I’m home. Away from home, everything is fresh, even the mundane, and it all feels part of my “travel journal” (which in this case, a three-day trip, was just my usual daily-carry Uglybook).

6/24/24 Lunch with Cindy (sketch of us from reference photo) and my takeout dinner

One of many reasons I chose to stay at the Inn at Northrup Station was that I knew from prior stays that it is in a very walkable area of the Pearl District. Just as I do at home, I took a daily walk around the neighborhood and sketched along the way. And when I travel, it’s only natural that I want to document more things like meals, which made it easy to make sketch journal/diary comics pages. (Almost all sketches were made from life except as noted.)

6/24/24 Portland (streetcar sketch from reference photo because it was always on the move)

When I make a series of small sketches as I do with my comics approach, it’s faster and therefore easier to cover more ground while traveling. This is something I discovered in 2019 in blistering Amsterdam. I talked about it again when an insightful urban sketcher made the samediscovery when she traveled. Doing it regularly at home leading up to the trip made it completely effortless while I was on the trip.

6/25/24 Pearl District

As I’ve said before, the best way to prepare for travel sketching is simply to sketch on location regularly when you’re not traveling. 

6/26/24 From my last neighborhood walk in the "alphabet district" before I hit the road again.

Incidentally, you’ll note from my journal pages that I went to Powell’s City of Books, a can’t-miss mecca for book lovers visiting Portland. Hell-bent on downsizing my stash of everything, I nearly had to tie my hands behind my back to resist books I wanted, but resist I did. The only thing I succumbed to was a pack of three small notebooks with vintage colored pencil and color-mixing images on the covers.

Portland, Part 3: USk Portland at Tanner Springs

 

6/25/24 Tanner Springs Park, Portland

Another highlight of my trip down south was meeting up with Urban Sketchers Portland. Vicky Porter, a sketcher I had met at a couple of USk symposiums as well as Sketcher Fest last year, kindly organized an ad hoc outing for my visit. We gathered first at Ovation, a Moroccan coffee shop near Tanner Springs Park, then spent the rest of the time sketching in or near the park.

Sunny and growing hotter by the minute, the morning drove all of us toward shade, which was cooled by the ongoing breeze. Most of the others chose to sketch inside the park, which includes a unique, humanmade pond filled with lily pads, other vegetation and small fish. I tried to make a tonal study contrasting the reflective water, stairways, an unusual barrier wall and the geometric walkways, but I had trouble separating the tones of the various types of shadows. It was a good challenge to attempt, though.

After that, I walked around the park and made a few small street scenes, including a couple of Portland’s many bridges.

A few scenes around the park

Many thanks to Vicky and USk Portland for coming out to sketch with me! I learned that a number of Portland sketchers will be coming up for Sketcher Fest next month, so Seattle USk will have an opportunity to reciprocate.

I know I say this every time I travel, but the single biggest benefit of being a member of Urban Sketchers is being able to find fellow sketchers to meet with no matter where I go – whether it’s the other side of the world or just across the state border.

Tina, Vicky, Cindy, Leslie and George at the throwdown

Leslie, Vicky, Paula and Tina at the park

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