Cupcake on Easy Street

6/16/16 inks, colored pencils, white Gelly Roll

Easy Street Records and Café, something of a local icon, is well-known for its history involving Seattle’s rock and grunge culture. I sketched the street and its sign a couple of years ago on what must have been a warm morning because I sat outside the café.

Waiting for Greg while he was at an appointment in West Seattle, I was too chilly to sketch outside this morning, but Cupcake Royale directly across the street had a window seat calling my name. Actually, it was the Royale Cheese cupcake (dark chocolate cake with cream cheese frosting!) that called my name. Yum.

6/16/16 brush pen, white Gelly Roll pen

Yoga in the Park

6/14/16 brush pen

In the summer, my yoga instructor Fran Gallo offers a Tuesday evening class in the Wallingford neighborhood’s Meridian Park. Yesterday I decided to join the class, but not for my usual downward dogs and sun salutations. Instead, Fran and her students graciously allowed me to sketch them.

When I’m attending class myself, I’m focused on my own breath and form (or how creaky and inflexible I’m feeling!), so I hardly notice what others are doing. But with sketchbook and brush pen, I could focus on the beautiful grace and movement of yoga. Although they didn’t hold each pose for more than a few seconds, Fran led her students through a series of rhythmic, repeated poses, so if I missed one gesture, I knew I would see it again. I especially enjoyed capturing the partnered poses – two students making a symmetrical form as they helped support and balance each other.

6/14/16 brush pen, colored pencil

On that cold and windy evening (I should have joined them in a few triangles and warrior poses myself to stay warm!), I filled 12 pages of my sketchbook with small gesture sketches as Fran and her students practiced among the trees. (See my sketches from early last year when Fran invited me to sketch her class at the Yogalife studio.)

Updated 6/17/16: Here's Fran's blog post about the class!

Simplify, Complicate: My Multi-Book Life

My many daily-use books. From left: Field Notes for memos, DIY journal/log book
(Rhodia notebook), DIY planner (Leuchtturm notebook), hand-stitched signature
for most of my sketches, red Field Notes for more sketches

Some things get simpler even as others get more complicated.

Years ago before I had started sketching, I saw the sketchbooks and art journals of Roz Stendahl, Cathy Johnson, Liz Steel and Danny Gregory (among many) and so admired the way they artfully integrated their words and sketches on the same page. I loved the idea of making a book containing the “story” of my daily life in both words and pictures. As a lifelong journal writer, I was used to filling pages with words, but making pictures on the same pages felt like stilted, self-conscious add-ons. I tried it off and on, but the practice never lasted. (It further convinced me – falsely– that I must be a “word person” and not a “visual person.”)

When my urban sketching habit finally took hold, I had no problem filling sketchbooks (even when one cost $160!) – I burned through page after page without hesitation. But whenever I tried to write and sketch on the same page, both the writing and the sketch felt tight, restricted, uncomfortable. If I could both write and sketch with ease, why was doing both on the same page so difficult?

A minor reason was incompatible papers. I don’t like writing on thick, toothy paper that I prefer for sketching. While I enjoy using a fountain pen to sketch with, I write much faster than I draw, and the slight drag of the nib on cold-press paper when I’m writing annoys me. I also don’t like using wet media on thin, smooth paper that I prefer for writing.

But the more significant reason is related to privacy: I want to share my sketches but I have no intention of sharing my journal writing. If I put a sketch online, I don’t want to have to digitally blur the writing surrounding an image. If someone asks to see a sketchbook, I want to be able to hand it over without hesitation. And most important, I don’t want either my writing or my drawing to be hindered by whatever else might be on the same page.

My DIY planner

Once I understood this, I accepted that my sketchbook would never be the words-and-sketches kind I admired of others – and that it was perfectly fine to have a separate book for each task. But that’s when things got complicated.

For the past several years, my planning and journal keeping processes have become more and more streamlined, and I’ve gotten them down to two A5-sized notebooks that I’ve DIY’d into a planner and a journal/log book. So at least my writing life has gotten simpler. (Oops, I forgot about my occasional travel journal. . . more on that later.)

My sketching life, however, has gone both ways. After experimenting with many sketchbook sizes, types and formats and using several simultaneously, the past three years I’ve been very happy binding my own in a single consistent format – apparently the only way to get everything I want. That simplified my primary sketchbook need beautifully. But I’ve also always had a secondary need – a smaller, catch-all sketchbooklet that I could pull out quickly and use with simple materials. After going through nearly every commercially produced pocket-size notebook, ranting about the crappy papers in them, I finally resorted to the same DIY solution: making my own.

Field Notes Workshop Companion: Just right for both sketches
and notes.

For a while I was happy with those – a large and a small sketchbook, both portable, both handmade. Then last summer I stumbled upon a surprise: Field Notes finally came out with an edition containing paper I could happily sketch on. I started using the Workshop Companion for small sketches as well as memos and other brief notes when I’m out and about; I was able to eliminate the small scratchpad I used to carry for brief notes. And I decided I liked the Workshop Companion well enough that I wouldn’t have to make my own sketchbooklets anymore.

Then a few months ago Field Notes surprised me again – with the Sweet Tooth edition’s booklet of red paper! You know from my recent sketches how much fun I’ve been having with those (I’ve filled three so far, and I’m on my fourth). I may eventually go back to white or lighter colored papers, but in the meantime, I’ve bumped up against another complication. Since the red paper is a little too dark to take notes on easily, I’ve had to start carrying an auxiliary notebook just for memos again. One step forward, two steps back.

Messy notes and sketches in my auxiliary Field Notes.

And then there’s still the occasional need for a travel journal, which is currently being met by a pocket-size Rhodia notebook. When I travel, I leave my planner and journal/log book at home, so the pocket Rhodia serves both those needs. It holds not only my written musings; it also contains reference information; glued-in ticket stubs and other ephemera; even some sketches. (Interestingly, my travel journal comes closest to the fully integrated words/collage/drawings book I’d always wanted – and what a beautiful mess it always ends up being!)

Just recently I started pondering whether I could use red or Workshop Companion Field Notes instead of the Rhodia. . . ? One Field Notes is certainly slimmer and easier to carry than the chunky Rhodia, but I’d need four of five of them to match the number of pages I typically fill in a Rhodia. Can I stand having all those separate books for one trip? (The one with reference info I need will inevitably be the one I happen to leave back at the hotel.)

My France travel journal filled with writing, sketches and
collage (pocket-size Rhodia notebook).

Some things get simpler even as others get more complicated. 

Feeling Small

6/12/16 gel pen

Shortly after I had heard about the mass shooting in Orlando yesterday, I went for a walk around my neighborhood as I always do. Shocked and saddened, I also felt ashamed: How can I go out now making my little sketches as if everything were fine and normal? I felt small and petty. Nothing I do will change things for the 49 people dead, nor for the people who knew and loved them. When someone expresses hatred so deep, it’s difficult not to take it personally.

I’ve heard it said many times that the only antidote to hate is love. Sketching is what I do to express my love for life every day.

I came home with a sketch in my sketchbook, just as I always do. 

To Resist or Not to Resist

6/7/16 brush pen, colored pencil

One of my favorite things about taking sketchabouts in the ‘hood is admiring the flowers in my neighbors’ gardens. A few days ago I spotted some brilliant orange and yellow lilies growing against a fence. With flowers, it’s always hard to resist color, but I also know that I can learn more from using only value tones. To keep myself from being tempted, I pulled out my little red Field Notes and sketched an orange lily with nothing but a black brush pen and white colored pencil.

Of course, I can only resist for so long. Right after that sketch, I pulled out my colored pencils for the yellow lily growing nearby.

6/7/16 colored pencils

A Puppy and a Cupola (and Uni Jetstream Review)

6/10/16 inks, colored pencils, toned Strathmore paper

Once again the Friday sketchers lucked out on weather, which was supposed to be wet and windy this morning but turned out sunny. Driving to the upper Queen Anne neighborhood, I thought about all the many choices of fun things to sketch, including at least a couple of old churches. I chose the one with the nice cupola, the Queen Anne Baptist Church. The bright sunlight helped bring out all of its crisp shadows.

Suzanne was nearby sketching the same church, so before she finished, I pulled out my yellow Field Notes and a four-color ballpoint pen. Why ballpoint? Last Friday was National Doughnut Day, and today is – you guessed it – National Ballpoint Pen Day! (The holiday actually has a historic basis: On this day in 1943, Laszlo and Gyorgy Biro, Hungarian brothers, patented their innovative writing instrument that was once considered a luxury product.)

6/10/16 ballpoint

The last sketch, also in ballpoint, is one I had been wanting to get for a while – the bronze sculpture of a puppy and his ball in the plaza next to Trader Joe’s. (Named Boomer, the sculpture was made by Georgia Gerber, the same artist who made the Pike Place Market’s Rachel the Pig.) I started with the puppy, thinking that the woman chatting on her phone would soon get off the ball and leave. When I realized she had plenty to say, I put her in.

My ballpoint hatching skills leave much to be desired, but I’m not giving up on it. The smooth, oily ink (the Biros’ original design was based on printmakers’ ink, I just learned) is a very strange yet interesting medium. I could have done the sketch in half the time if I’d used my usual fountain pen washed with a quick swipe of the waterbrush, but after all, today isn’t National Fountain Pen and Waterbrush Day (which I’m sure is coming; I know Fountain Pen Day is in November).

6/10/16 ballpoint, colored pencil

Uni Jetstream Mini Review

As long as I’m talking about ballpoints, I have to mention the one I’ve been using the past several months: a Uni Jetstream 4 & 1. Ever since I read The Art of Ballpoint, I’ve been trying to practice hatching with ballpoint (though not as often as I should if I want to improve). I started by using the throwaway Bic stick pens I’m always taking from hotel rooms. I hate the sour smell some of those inks have, though, and I wanted more ink colors. For a brief time I used a Bic four-color pen because it was nostalgic from my childhood, but the cheesy color-choosing mechanism annoyed me.

It didn’t take long to fall down the Google hole of the vast world of “multi pens” – ballpoint and other types of pens that deliver two, three, four and more ink colors in one pen. I tried the Pilot Dr. Grip too, which uses refills that are very similar to the Uni Jetstream’s. In both pens, the odorless inks flow more smoothly and with no blobbing or skipping compared to the basic Bic. I prefer the Uni Jetstream to the Dr. Grip for its better-designed mechanism. They both come with a 0.5mm mechanical pencil, too. 

Reluctant Diners and a Piggy Bank

6/9/16 ink, colored pencils

Mid-morning seems to be a popular time for parents to feed toddlers at Whole Foods. One strapped to a high chair, one seated in a shopping cart, they were both less interested in food than in what was going on around them.

From retired men shootin’ the breeze to Roosevelt High students on their lunch break, an interesting cross-section of people shop and eat at the Whole Foods in my ‘hood.

6/9/16 brush pen

6/9/16 ink, white colored pencil, Strathmore toned paper

6/9/16 brush pen, white Gelly Roll gel pen

6/9/16 ink, colored pencil, Strathmore toned paper

One young man caught my eye, but not in a good way. After I shared this sketch on social media (with the comment, “If you dress like this, beware: Someday I’ll sketch you and post the sketch on Instagram”), a Facebook friend told me that in Brazil, this particular fashion statement is called a “pig bank slot.” 

Be happy that I didn’t take a trophy shot.