One More Chance to Chat & Sketch

8/31/25 University Village

Before she left for the rest of her enviable North American tour (and eventually back home to Tokyo), Naoko and I met up at U Village’s newish The French Guys Bakery to sketch together. (We had both felt that the drink & draw hadn’t given us enough time to chat.) Although she didn’t join USk Tokyo until after I had visited in 2015, she knows several members whom I had met, so it was fun for me to reminisce and hear about her USk experiences.

I know I say this frequently, but the single biggest benefit of being part of Urban Sketchers is the instant global community that comes with it. I cherish the friendships I’ve made at symposiums, on my own when I’ve traveled, and when others have traveled here. Best wishes and safe travels, Naoko! 

Marianne’s Old House

 

8/30/25 Mt. Baker neighborhood

When I was driving to the USk outing in Leschi last Saturday, an idea popped into my head: A lifelong friend grew up in a house in the Mt. Baker neighborhood not too far from Leschi. Since I was in the area, I drove over after the outing to sketch the house as a gift.

Although the house was now painted dark green, I couldn’t quite remember what color it had been when Marianne lived there . . . maybe white? I decided not to color it according to the current green, since I wanted the sketch to evoke the house of her past. And despite the many, many times I had visited as a child, it’s funny that I had never noticed those eyelid windows until I stood across the street to sketch them. I’m pretty sure the trellis hadn’t been there, but I didn’t want to take too many liberties. (We can’t go back again, even in sketches.) It was a relief, though, that like my own childhood home, Marianne’s old house hadn’t changed much (or hadn’t been torn down as so many have in both neighborhoods).

Three Maple Leaf Stories

 

8/27/25 Macrina Bakery, Maple Leaf neighborhood

I hadn’t been to Macrina Bakery in ages! Partly it’s because I haven’t been indulging in pastries as much, now that I’ve run out of ways to reward myself (but downsizing activities will resume in the fall and winter, as will the rewards!). A larger part, though, is that Macrina is often so crowded that I can’t get a seat. After dropping off the Subaru at Chuck’s Auto for routine maintenance, it was early enough that I found seat – one of my favorites by a front window. It gave me an easy view of one of the many knotty linden trees on Roosevelt Way (I had sketched another one a couple of years ago).

Walking home, I spotted not only an urban couch but two additional chairs waiting to be “re-homed.” A free, instant livingroom! In fact, even as I sketched, an interested party pulled over to examine the goods. The look on his face said that the price wasn’t right.

A couple blocks from the couch, I was shocked to see an empty lot where a house once stood, not too long ago. There wasn’t much to sketch there, but I noticed a couple of large pickups, likely belonging to contractors on site. As I sketched, a man living in the house next door to the empty lot came out, so I asked him about it: In place of the single-family home that had been there, four new houses will be built.

We both frowned at the prospect, but he had an upside: His two-year-old son was thrilled by the earth movers and other demolition equipment he’d seen so far, and surely more to come. At least the two-year-old and I have that in common.

Democracy Dies in Silence

 

9/1/25 Protest rally on I-5 overpass, Wallingford neighborhood

Labor Day saw protest rallies across the country. Historically, the day has been used to raise awareness of workers’ issues. This year the signs I saw covered those as well as a wide range of other social injustices and atrocities brought forward by the current presidential administration.

Standing on the Interstate 5 overpass at Northeast 50^th Street, each participant of a local group called Alphabet Resistance held one letter so that the combined signs read “WORKERS OVER BILLIONAIRES,” the theme of Monday’s protests, visible to cars on I-5 passing underneath. Upon a cue from a leader, all participants turned their signs around so that the message changed. (Since I was viewing them from the opposite side of 50^th instead of the freeway, their messages were always backward to me, and I didn’t find out what the alternate message was.)

Other activists carried individual signs: “Crush ICE,” “Democracy Dies in Silence” and “Trump Has Liabetes.” Many carried US flags, too. Cars passing on 50^th continually honked their support of the protesters, who waved back in appreciation.

This protest was one of several held in various parts of Seattle that day.

9/1/25 photo reference

After I shared these sketches on social media, a Facebook friend suggested that we were preaching to the choir in liberal Seattle. I disagree. I don’t think trying to change anyone’s mind is the purpose of such rallies. When I’m reading the news alone at home, I often find myself becoming discouraged and despondent. Attending and reporting on these rallies with my sketches always boost my spirits by reminding me that I’m not alone. That’s the meaning of solidarity. If we have opinions about the state of our country (and its effects on the world), we should express them freely in whatever way feels right for us. As the sign said, democracy dies in silence.

Sketch journal process note: I had meant to make one sketch in my daily sketch journal while I was on location so that I would have the event documented there too, but I forgot. After I got home, I used a photo I had snapped of some participants as a reference to sketch in my journal (at right). Although I’m fine with making most of my sketches in multiple books simultaneously (eight currently in progress), I enjoy having the sketch journal as a single place to keep select life events chronologically recorded.

Nostalgic in Leschi (and Not)

 

8/30/25 The house I lived in from 1958 to 1984.

The last time USk Seattle met in Leschi was before the pandemic, so it was good to be back in my childhood ‘hood with the group (read that post first for more context). Last time, I spent more time reminiscing about and sketching the Leschi Market, an old-fashioned community grocery store where my mom shopped. This time I had a different mission:

I’ve long wanted to sketch my childhood home, but whenever I’ve driven by, I’ve seen that the front is mostly obscured by trees. Realizing that the best view is from the back, I hoofed it over to the house where I grew up (above). (Although it seemed like a long, long walk when I was a kid, I realized last Saturday that the distance from home to Leschi Market is only about 10 minutes for adult me.) The large picture window looks out on Lake Washington and sometimes Mt. Rainier (see this post for my childhood context on that). Although the current owners rebuilt the back deck that my father had built (it had become hazardous from disrepair by the time the house was sold), I’m grateful that they have kept the house mostly unchanged on the outside.

Walking back to the market and marina area where the other sketchers were, I kept looking for familiar sights. It wasn’t exactly nostalgic because so much had changed since I lived there, but it was good to see that many of the tallest trees were taller still, and some of the old lakeside apartment buildings were the same (though now turned into condos).

When I got back, I had just enough time to make quick sketches of the marina and the market.

8/30/25 Leschi Marina and Market

Now that I’ve finally sketched my childhood home, please indulge me in just a bit more reminiscing. I have now completed sketching all the dwellings I have ever lived in – only four! I’ve included the rest below. You can read more about each one in these posts: My first apartment; my second apartment; my current house.

My first apartment on upper Queen Anne, 1984 to 1986

My second apartment on lower Queen Anne, 1986 to 1988

My house in Maple Leaf since 1988.

Meetings and Reunions Under Overcast Skies

 

8/29/25 Gasworks Brewing on Lake Union

I don’t know if it was the weather (overcast and cooler), the location (Northlake), or that it was the Friday before Labor Day weekend, but USk Seattle had record-breaking attendance at our drink & draw!

The venue, Gasworks Brewing, is one that I had checked out several months ago for drink & draw potential. Although it is a fabulous location right on the north shore of Lake Union, it has one serious flaw: Very few of the plentiful tables have umbrellas. What were they thinking? Given some of the scorchers we’ve had this year, I had dismissed it as an option for most of summer, but the end of August cooled down enough to make me optimistic. It must have helped to keep my fingers crossed, because the day ended up mostly overcast and cooler – just fine for sketching the lake and each other without shade.

It was especially fun to meet Naoko, a sketcher from USk Tokyo, who has been traveling with her husband across the US the past couple of months and will continue on to further adventures before returning to Japan. I was thrilled when I found out Seattle was on their itinerary! It’s always special to finally meet someone I’ve followed for years on social media.

In addition, several sketchers who had not attended USk in quite a while (more than a decade for two of them) joined us at this drink & draw. It was a happy reunion for those of us who knew them back then. We also greeted several newcomers who made the drink & draw their first outing.

All in all, it was an ideal way to start the holiday weekend before saying good-bye to an excellent summer.

Naoko wears both a USk Japan T-shirt and a UW cap (her husband Nobie is a former Husky!)

We don't usually do a formal throwdown or group photo at drink & draws, but this one felt like a special occasion!

Good to see Jackie after nearly a decade!

Welcome back to Will, whom we also hadn't seen in at least a decade.

Naoko was on a mission to sketch every drink & draw participant!

Alice (foreground) is another sketcher we hadn't seen in years.

Exploring Eastlake

 

8/28/25 Eastlake

For our play date last week, Mary Jean led Roy and me around the Eastlake area of Lake Union, which neither of us were familiar with. It’s the grittier side of the lake, where I discovered the old Lake Union Drydock Co. (established in 1919) and sketched St. Mark’s Cathedral way above us on Capitol Hill. Every time I drive south on Interstate 5, I see the smokestacks of the former Lake Union Steam Plant, now occupied by the Fred Hutch Cancer Center, but I had never been in a spot where I could sketch them. It was also fun to sketch working boats and a Seattle Seaplane.

We walked and explored quite a ways on the foot/bike path along the lake. It’s my favorite kind of urban sketching: Covering a large area, discovering new views or familiar ones that are otherwise hard to sketch, and stopping whenever something caught our eyes.