Fire Station No. 2 and Belltown

9/16/18 Fire Station No. 2 and other Belltown landmarks

It was déjà vu all over again.

Just like Friday, I woke to pouring rain, wondering if I would be alone at the meetup location. An overhang and some large trees would offer some shelter to sketchers who wanted to face Fire Station No. 2 in Belltown, but if we got the thunderstorms and heavy rain forecast by weather.com, it wouldn’t be much fun. In addition, the Storm’s WNBA championship parade at Seattle Center was expected to make traffic and parking difficult in the area.

The hardcore who showed up at the start time!

But again, just like Friday, the showers turned into sunshine, and the handful of sketchers who met me at the start time turned into a strong showing by the time of the throwdown!

Despite the blue sky directly above, I was leery that the rain could return at any moment and reluctant to commit to a page-size composition that I might have to abandon. Instead, I decided to make a series of small sketches in Michele Cooper’s montage style. My first stop was Station No. 2, the focus of our outing. Designated a landmark in 1985, the 1921-built facility houses one engine company, a ladder unit, a medic unit and a reserve medic unit (some of which we saw coming out and back into the station as we sketched). 

 

One of the fire trucks responding to an emergency as we
sketched.

Next I wanted to capture the Space Needle flying Seattle Storm’s flag. I’m not a basketball fan, but it was exciting to see a women’s team being celebrated as an alternative to the usual Seahawks’ 12 flag at this time of year. (The drops on my Needle sketch indicate that standing under a tree while sketching isn’t necessarily a good strategy when it has been raining all night.)

The historic bell had captured several other sketchers’ attention, and for good reason. From the station that was near the same location in the 1800s, the bell sounded an alarm that could be heard for “nearly 10 miles,” said the plaque. “The horse-drawn engine then responded to the location.”

(Contrary to my speculation, the Belltown neighborhood was not named for this bell, which had an important emergency response role in the 1800s. It was named for William Nathaniel Bell, a member of the Denny party that originally settled Seattle. In addition, Virginia Street and Olive Way were named after his children. It’s a good thing I sketch and blog about my sketches or I’d never learn such local trivia.)

 

Natalie and Antonella sketching the historic bell.

By then the strong wind had chilled me, so I went to look for coffee. Walking back, I looked up at the numerous cranes and construction sites in Belltown. To complete my montage, I picked an apartment complex going up on Second Avenue and Wall Street (one of many such boxy buildings popping up all over the city).

Once again, hooray for hardy sketchers who say bah-humbug to dire weather forecasts!

Furtive Color

I worked very quickly and furtively because I had to park illegally to get this sketch. But who could resist color like this?

Woodland Park Rose Garden

9/14/18 Woodland Park Rose Garden

During the iffy-weather season (and by that I mean September through June), USk Seattle must have a contingency plan for any outdoor event. In August when we planned yesterday’s outing to Woodland Park Zoo’s Rose Garden, it was so warm and sunny that we thought we’d still have a good chance of dry weather by mid-September. Our contingency plan was optimism.

Looking out the window at the downpour as I got ready to leave for Woodland Park, I wondered if I would be standing at the meeting point alone. Only three other sketchers joined me, and we applauded ourselves for being hardcore urban sketchers! Luckily, it was barely sprinkling by then, and in between intermittent spitting, the sun came out! And a little later, many other sketchers joined us.

Although most of the roses were past their prime, the garden was still full of color from late-blooming flowers as well as trees just beginning to turn. (Trivia from the zoo’s website: Spent flowers from the pesticide-free garden are fed to zoo animals, especially the gorillas, who love floral snacks.) The topiary, bushes and lawn were lush and bright green from the recent rain – something we haven’t seen in months. After all that heat and wildfire smoke, it finally felt “normal” again.

A few weeks ago when my Drawing Nature class met at this same garden, I was intrigued by the fanciful topiary. It was fun tackling one of the funky trees with charcoal, but in the back of my mind, I fully intended to sketch one again sometime in color. I went out to the middle of the garden so that I could place the gazebo in the same composition.

After strolling around a while to admire the well-tended plantings, I walked through the Sensory Garden, which features bells and chimes that can be played, an artificial hill, and other interactive exhibits. I liked the composition of the bright blue poles and slender trees behind them.

Yay for sketchers who scoff at a little rain!

Contemporary Bicolors

A few bicolor pencils I have known.

Despite appearances, my intention is not (and never was) to amass every kind of bicolor pencil I can get my hands on. Although I do love them from a pencil geek perspective (if a pencil with one usable end is wonderful, surely a double-ended pencil is twice as wonderful!), and although I do have some strong nostalgic associations with Empire Sunset Dual-Kolors that may be one source of my lifelong affection for colored pencils, I have a purely pragmatic motivation for hunting the bicolor pencil grail: I could carry twice as many colors in my sketch kit while taking up the same amount of space (or carry the same number of colors and make my kit smaller). A good quality (not necessarily artist quality, but decent) bicolor – and even better, with a water-soluble core – has long been on my sketch material wish list.

(Edited 11/4/19 This wish list item was fulfilled! See my review of Caran d’Ache Bicolors – which are not only high quality but also water-soluble!)

I think the closest I will ever come to the grail is the set of vintage Design Spectracolor Doublecolor pencils I acquired earlier this year on eBay, to my intense glee. The only feature they lack is a water-soluble core, but that may be too much to ask, given that I have never yet seen a water-soluble bicolor pencil (except for the red/blue Caran d’Ache Bicolor 999). They are otherwise an excellent colored pencil.

However, because I know those Doublecolors are rare and potentially expensive, I remain interested in finding a contemporary, easily available set of bicolors to recommend. To that end, I’ve rounded up three reasonably priced sets worth considering.

Chameleon Color Tones

Around the time I bought them, Austria-made Chameleon Color Tones were being heavily promoted on Amazon and Facebook, so they were nearly impossible to ignore. Unlike most bicolor pencils, the Chameleons’ 50 colors (25 pencils) are paired so that each pencil contains two shades of the same hue – light green with dark green; light blue with dark blue. The concept is that you could easily create shading or gradations – “just flip to blend.” I probably don’t know how to take advantage of that admittedly unique feature because I have to see all the colors available and choose from the whole crowd, not just the one on the opposite end, but it is an intriguing concept.

4/4/18 Chameleon Color Tones in Stillman & Birn Alpha sketchbook

The Chameleon hexagonal barrels are thicker than average – about the same as my favorite Caran d’Ache Museum pencils. They contain reasonably strong pigment, but the cores are a bit harder than I prefer and generate dust. The color range is a little stingy on yellows but generous in greens (although two are very similar).

For my apple sketch, the hard core was a good pairing with Stillman & Birn Alpha’s tooth. Despite being harder than I like, they apply well and are pleasant to use – in an “average” kind of way. In other words, they are serviceable, but nothing to write home about.

Colleen bicolors

I was more excited about the set of 48 (24 pencils) Colleen bicolors. Colleen, a vintage Japanese brand that I recognized from the triangular-shaped face logo, produced high-quality pencils at one time, so I was eager to see if these followed suit. Unfortunately, this set (and probably most others under the current Colleen name) was made in Thailand, and a couple of the cores are off-center. The wood is of the type I see often in India-made pencils.

2/10/18 Colleen bicolor pencils in Stillman & Birn Epsilon sketchbook

Disappointed that they aren’t of Japanese quality, I was surprised that they are the softest of all the bicolors I’ve tried (other than the aforementioned vintage Doublecolors) and contain good pigment that blended well in my apple sketch. If you prefer softer pencils, this Colleen set is a good value (much better than the Chameleons).

Of note are the neon colors included in the Colleen range – of interest to me because I’m always trying to find neon colors that reproduce vividly and accurately when scanned. With my penchant for sketching construction projects, where workers and traffic cones often sport neon colors, I probably use those hues more than you’d expect. For whatever reason, though, all the ones I’ve tried look faded and not at all neon once scanned. There must be something about the neon pigments that don’t photograph well. Although the Colleen neons are a bit better than most, their scanned images still look like a faint shadow of the colors in my sketchbook. Strange. Also note that six neons are included, but the two yellow-greens are very similar, as are the two pinks.

 

Colleen's neon colors

This type of near-duplication of hues is something I see often in non-artist-quality colored pencil sets. A box may say it contains 48 or 72 colors, but after swatching them all, you discover that many are so similar they hardly qualify as different hues. I found this to be true of Staedtler bicolors also. Endorsed by coloring book designer Johanna Basford, these pencils have a triangular barrel like a few other colored pencil lines from Staedtler. Including 48 colors (24 pencils), several of the pinks, oranges and yellows are fairly similar.

Staedtler bicolors

Some similar hues in the Staedtler set

On the harder side, they apply with a waxy consistency and blend better than I expected. The point retention is useful for details. My apple sketch was made on Stillman & Birn Epsilon’s smoother surface. Despite the similarity of some colors, the Staedtler set is a very good value, especially if you prefer a harder core.

8/29/18 Staedtler bicolors in Stillman & Birn Epsilon sketchbook

I don’t usually spend much time discussing packaging, since I rarely use or store pencils in the packages they are sold in. I prefer to keep them upright in cups on my desk, or if they come with me in my bag, they go directly into my Tran Portfolio Pencil Case. However, it’s worth mentioning the box that the Staedtler set comes in, which is a very compact, lightweight cardboard box. It won’t last forever, but if you take colored pencils into the field only occasionally, it’s an ideal grab-and-go package that fits easily in most bags. That would not be true of the large, flat trays that the Chameleon and Colleen pencils come in.

Maple on the North Side

9/10/18 Greenwood neighborhood

9/14/17

You’ve seen these three maples many times – my favorites in the Greenwood neighborhood. I sketch them periodically throughout the season to watch their color progress. As is their pattern every year, the one on the north side of the traffic circle always starts to turn before the other two. The one on the south side looks a little haggard compared to previous years, as if it has lost some leaves already. Maybe our record-breaking dry summer took its toll.

These were sketched on Sept. 10, a cloudy, breezy day. At right is what they looked like just about a year ago.

Metro Couch

9/9/18 Green Lake neighborhood

During Labor Day weekend – one of the year’s busiest weekends for moving, I’ve heard – my hunt for urban couches came up empty. I guess people in the Green Lake neighborhood are just a bit behind schedule, because a week later, I spotted this one right next to a bus stop. A comfy place to wait if you miss your bus, right?

Paper note: Ahhh. . . it feels so good to be sketching on thick, toothy Canson XL 140-pound paper again! With watercolor pencils, I love everything about it. As long as I’m using color, it’s going to have to stay in my bag.

Result of Paper Tests: Angst

These are the papers I've been testing with graphite.

A few weeks ago I concluded that my long-time favorite sketchbook paper, 140-pound Canson XL watercolor paper, wasn’t going to work with the graphite techniques I’ve been practicing since I learned them from Eduardo Bajzek in Porto. While it’s ideal for my needs with water-soluble colored pencils, ink, brush pens and markers, the cold press finish is too toothy for graphite, especially when it’s smudged.

Test Criteria

Since then, I’ve been experimenting with a bunch of different types of paper I have on hand. The paper must be satisfactory with graphite and also satisfactory with other media I use most often. To be satisfactory with graphite, the surface must be smooth enough to smudge with an even tone and erase easily (two essential techniques with Eduardo’s method). To be satisfactory with my other favorite media, the paper must be able to withstand at least a light spritzing of water (a technique I employ often with water-soluble colored pencils). In fact, ability to withstand moisture is also a requirement with graphite because the spritzed-on fixative I’ve been using causes thin papers to buckle irreparably.  

Contenders

Clockwise from upper left, they are:

Strathmore Bristol vellum (400 series)

Strathmore Bristol vellum (300 series)

Canson XL Bristol smooth

Strathmore Bristol smooth (300 series)

Stillman & Birn Epsilon

Derwent sketching paper

Borden & Riley vellum

Results

The short story: No single paper is going to make me happy with all the media I want to use in the way that 140-pound Canson XL made me happy for years – until I introduced graphite into the mix.

The long story: Many papers that are excellent with graphite make me unhappy (some very unhappy) with most of the other media I like to use.

At least two papers were easy to reject. The first was the Derwent sketch pad that I received at the symposium and used in Eduardo’s workshop. While its tooth is acceptable with graphite, it’s difficult to erase and too thin for use with any liquid media. I was also quick to reject Borden & Riley vellum, which is also too light to use with anything but dry media. It is the only paper I tested that did not accommodate Faber-Castell Pitt Artist Pens; the ink sunk straight through the sheet and continued to bleed onto the next page.

 

The Derwent sketch pad is difficult to erase cleanly.

The Bristol vellum papers, with an acceptable tooth, are more difficult to erase, so I rejected them, too.

9/3/18 Strathmore Bristol vellum

My favorite papers with graphite – especially with the smudging/erasing techniques – are Bristol smooth (both Strathmore and Canson) and Stillman & Birn Epsilon. The surfaces on all three are pleasantly smooth but have just enough texture to take graphite beautifully. They also erase easily.

Strathmore Bristol smooth

Canson Bristol smooth

9/6/18 Stillman & Birn Epsilon

I prefer the texture of cold press paper with
water-soluble colored pencils.

The big – huge! – issue with all of the above graphite favorites is that they are not sized appropriately for wet media, even if they are sufficiently heavy in weight. (All are about 100 pound in weight, which buckles when wet but flattens out adequately after drying.) For example, dry colored pencil applies as well as graphite does, but when I spritz or brush water-soluble colored pencil pigments with water to activate them, the pigments do not spread as easily, and the hues seem less vibrant. In addition, once the activated pigments dry, the paper surface changes in a way that additional layers of colored pencil do not apply well. This is a major drawback in terms of achieving intense hues with watercolor pencils.

In most of my watercolor pencil sketches, I also miss the texture that I enjoy with Canson XL’s 140-pound paper.

An equally disappointing result is the way water-soluble inks perform on Bristol smooth papers. On my favorite Canson XL watercolor paper, I am accustomed to easily shading such inks with a quick swipe of the waterbrush. A few days ago at the farmers’ market, I was using a water-soluble Kuretake Fudegokochi brush pen to sketch people sitting in the grass. As is my habit, I grabbed a waterbrush to wash the lines – and the lines barely moved. I kept squeezing out more water, thinking that the brush was dry, but to no avail. I finally took out a Pitt marker to add shading.

I couldn't get the water-soluble Fudegokochi ink to move on Strathmore Bristol smooth.

Here’s a comparison of Canson XL 140-pound watercolor paper and Strathmore Bristol smooth with a few favorite water-soluble media (Note: The third sample on each paper is mislabeled; it should be ArtGraf water-soluble carbon, not graphite):

Strathmore Bristol smooth

Canson XL 140-pound watercolor paper

Solution?

These are my options:

1. The most obvious solution seems the simplest: I always stitch my own sketchbook signatures anyway, so why don’t I simply bind together a mix of papers – some for graphite, some for everything else? It’s one of the biggest benefits of hand binding – I can use any papers I want. It does sound simple – except that I like to keep my sketches chronological, and how do I know which medium I want to use when I get to a particular type of paper in the signature?

2. If I’m willing to give up chronology, I could carry two signatures – one with my favorite Canson watercolor paper; one with a Bristol smooth – which would be less confusing and preferable to paging through a signature of mixed papers to find the appropriate page. But that would mean carrying more paper.

3. I could simplify and lighten my bag significantly by choosing only one media type and therefore need only one paper type. (Not a chance.)

4. I could do a variation of No. 3 but only for a limited time, such as the minimal sketch kit challenge I gave myself last winter. A plan like that would enable me to keep my sketches chronological and have the benefit of lightening my load.

Hmmm.

Now that I’ve embraced fall, I absolutely must have color in my bag through November, so I’ll be switching back to 140-pound Canson XL at least for that duration. Maybe I’ll also carry a thin signature of Bristol smooth for occasional graphite sketches and see if I can tolerate the broken chronology. Then during the gray winter months, perhaps I’ll go on an all-graphite diet.