UpGarden

8/18/19 Space Needle and sunflowers

UpGarden is aptly named: It’s the highest p-patch in Seattle. Noted as the nation’s first rooftop community garden, it opened on the top level of the Seattle Center parking garage in 2012. Now thriving and filled with flowers, fruits and vegetables, the garden is a welcome spot of green in the shadow of the Space Needle. USk Seattle has been meaning to meet there for quite a while, and it finally landed on our calendar yesterday.

I took a leisurely stroll around the garden and noted several fun potential sketches: the Airstream trailer (filled with gardening tools) in front of a crane; corn stalks with the Queen Anne towers behind them; a vintage Ford Galaxy 500 filled with plants. The hard part was choosing! Although the sunflowers were past their prime, I didn’t mind: I liked the composition of the tall plant’s heart-shaped leaves in front of the Needle.

8/18/19 Views from UpGarden

What’s next? I couldn’t decide, so I pulled out the trick that served me so well in Amsterdam: I made a page of thumbnail-size sketches of the compositions I’d spotted earlier.

The first time I sketch again with USk Seattle after I’ve been traveling, I’m always filled with joy and gratitude for my community here at home. I’m fortunate to be able to travel and sketch with people from around the world, but it’s when I do that I am reminded not to take my homies for granted. Many sketchers don’t belong to a local group, so the symposium is their only opportunity to be with like-minded folks. I’m much luckier than that; I can do it several times a month.

Driving home with the top down on the Express Lanes, it was 73 degrees and clear. This is, unarguably, the best time of year to be here. I don’t want to be anywhere else.

A purple Ford Galaxy 500 filled with plants

Good to be back with my homies!

Grande Water, No Foam

8/14/19 Wedgwood Starbucks

Waiting for my beverage, I noticed a grande-size cup of ice water on the counter. Outside on the patio, I saw who the drink was for.

As I was walking out, I showed the sketch to the dog’s human, who was delighted. He told me that his dog had been offered the community water bowl reserved for canine customers, but she had sniffed at it and then looked askance. She wanted her own cup like all the other customers.

Simon Benson House

8/11/19 Simon Benson House, Portland

In anticipation of the taiko concert we were to attend, we arrived a little early to the Portland State University campus. Prominently standing on a corner was Simon Benson House, which was built at the turn of the 20^th century. “This beautiful, century-old, Queen Anne style home was moved in January 2000 from 11th and Clay to its current location and lovingly restored. It is now the home of the PSU Alumni Association,” according to the university’s website.

I checked the time. I knew I would need at least 90 minutes and a full-page spread to attempt the entire house, so in the time I had (about 45 minutes), I bit off this ornate elevation view to sketch. I’m glad I wasn’t worried about getting the perspective right – all those complicated cornices, eaves and arched windows would have driven me batty! And since I wasn’t worried, I’m quite happy that I captured as much as I did.

Beaverton Home

8/12/19 Fountain in the garden

8/11/19

While I was in Portland with my family, several of us from Seattle, L.A. and Boston stayed together in an Airbnb house in Beaverton, a Portland suburb. In addition to a heated indoor pool and spa, the large property included a lovely patio and garden with flowers, fruit trees and even a lion-spouted fountain. Although I didn’t take advantage of the pool, I certainly made time between family events to sketch around the house.

Dynamic Taiko

8/11/19 San Francisco Taiko Dojo

Last weekend I was in Portland for a family event, which included attendance at a fantastic taiko concert that was part of Taiko Jam, a biannual conference. Included in the performance were San Francisco Taiko Dojo, Kinnara Taiko, Kenny Endo and Taiko Center of the Pacific, and a special performance by Kodo distinguished member Chieko Kojima. These performers are among the best of the best, and it was a privilege to see them.

Kinnara Taiko

Some of the most unusual and dynamic performances combined traditional taiko with innovative, contemporary elements and costumes. While the drummers and other percussionists are primarily musicians, almost all performers also seem to be gymnasts or acrobat artists in their movements, which are the most athletic of any musical performers I’ve seen. Cartwheels and tumbles are part of the percussion! It’s thrilling to feel and hear the thundering and see the sheer strength and energy they demonstrate as they pound away with thick, heavy drumsticks as if they were slender reeds.

 

During brief interludes while the stage is being reset, actors provide humorous vignettes to keep the audience entertained. A Kinnara Taiko frog-like character is at right.

I had a ball trying to capture some of that energy and movement in my sketches. (I’d like to smugly note here that while photography and video of the concert were strictly prohibited, sketching was not. 😉)

These San Francisco Taiko Daijo drummers were
not really hitting each other...I just decided to focus
on their figures and not spend time
drawing the drums!

San Francisco Taiko Daijo

Taiko Center of the Pacific

Chieko Kojima, in kimono, first danced improvisationally and eventually pounded on the large drum as a finale. To keep her long sleeves out of the way while drumming, she incorporated a dramatic scarf tying around her sleeves as part of the dance.

This performance by Taiko Center of the Pacific included traditional shamisen and Polynesian dance.

Taiko Center of the Pacific

Tree Study

8/9/19 graphite tree study

Through a studio window, I can see several trees across the street and behind our neighbor’s house. With my eye, I can distinguish them by color and shape and see how some stand in front of others, but I thought it would be an interesting challenge to try to draw them in monochrome and distinguish them by texture only. I didn’t spend enough time on the sketch to bring out the shadows that would have defined the branches more, but I always thoroughly enjoy the sensation of scribbling graphite this way to evoke trees.

Bonus: The tree on the right – a tree I have seen nearly every day the past three decades – turned out to be two trees standing very close together. You can see the two slender trunks and two somewhat indistinct leaders. Only the act of drawing made me observe them closely enough to notice this.

Breezy Gas Works Marina

8/8/19 Gas Works Marina

Amsterdam’s record-breaking heatwave may have scarred me for life. Now I wake every morning and kiss my hoodie. When I see that the temperature is 60, I throw open the windows and yell “Hallelujah! No sweat today!” On a cool afternoon last week (a little cooler than I would usually find comfortable), I sketched at Gas Works Marina, where there’s almost always a stiff breeze. I reveled in being a bit chilly. 

Despite memories of heat I wouldn’t want to endure again, I do otherwise hold much fondness for Amsterdam. The waterbrush I used for this sketch still contains saltwater from the Oosterdok waterway near the NEMO Science Museum, and it was fun to sketch the rest of my time in Holland with that water. When I embed the “DNA” of a location into my sketchbook, the place stays with me in more ways than one.

Greg filling my waterbrush from the Oosterdok

Amsterdam's DNA is still part of my Seattle
sketches.