New View of Cloud City Coffee

 

6/7/22 Maple Leaf water tower from Cloud City Coffee

Less than 2,000 steps from home, Cloud City Coffee is where I cut my teeth as an urban sketcher. For people sketching, I later favored Zoka Coffee because its large interior and unlimited free wi-fi encouraged Internet squatters to become excellent (though unwitting) life models. But one thing Cloud City has that Zoka (or any other coffee shop) doesn’t have is a fabulous sign – one that I have sketched many times.

The first time was early in my sketching life in 2012. A couple of years later I sketched it from across the street instead of from the café itself. Most recently was in 2016 when the sign was repainted and the logo redesigned.

Now that the weather is finally becoming hospitable, I’ve been thinking about cafes with outdoor seating, and Cloud City sprang immediately to mind. I’ve sketched the entire sign often enough that it was time to try a different composition. Surprisingly, even though our neighborhood’s iconic water tower stands right behind the sign when viewed from the outdoor tables, I’ve never sketched the two together (I deftly avoided the tower in my 2012 sketch). It was tempting to include the entire tower, especially with that nice sunny spot on the left, but this tight crop was the one I had liked in an initial thumbnail, and I wanted to try it.

Hardest to resist were the sign’s colors (bright yellow and sky blue), but the entire sign was facing away from the light, so I kept the colors subdued. I gave in, however, to a few letters in Cloud City’s name as homage to the best coffee shop in Maple Leaf.

Virginity a Fond Memory at Cloud City (and Last Chance for the Hero)

12/6/13 Diamine Chocolate Brown ink, Sailor pen, Canson XL 140 lb. paper

Ever since I discovered Zoka Coffee near Green Lake, I haven’t frequented Cloud City Coffee as often. Zoka’s spacious interior and high windows make it more appealing for sketching. But I have a soft spot in my heart for Cloud City, and not just because it’s right in my own Maple Leaf neighborhood: Cloud City Coffee was the first place I ever sketched in public.

12/6/13 Private Reserve Ebony Brown ink, Hero pen, Sketchbook Project sketchbook

That day I had brought with me a nearly new, handbound, leather-covered sketchbook that I paid $160 for shortly after I had made the commitment to draw regularly. I had filled the first several pages with a few still lifes at home. But even back then, I knew in my heart that I wanted to be an urban sketcher. So on the morning of Oct. 14, 2011, I walked the few blocks to Cloud City, bought some coffee, sat down at a table and took the sketchbook out. I was certain every person in the room was staring at me. Before I could lose my nerve, I hastily picked out my first victim (the man on the left in the sketch at the bottom of the post) and started to draw. And thus began one of my now-favorite cold-weather activities: sketching in coffee shops. (When I look at that two-year-old sketch now, I still recall the rush of anxiety and paranoia!)

Today I was on my way home from running errands when I stopped at Cloud City on a whim. After a quick one in my Sketchbook Project sketchbook (only one more page to go!), I got tired of being blasted by frigid air (we’ve had temperatures in the mid-20s all week) every time the door opened, so I moved to the other side of the room. Men in Seattle – at least those who frequent coffee shops in the middle of the day – tend to wear sweaters and crewnecks, so I rarely have opportunities to practice sketching a dress shirt (that pleat in back is challenging). Today I did (top of post). And as I sketched, I felt nostalgic fondness for this place where I lost my sketching-in-public virginity.

(Technical note: After generally rejecting it back in September, I thought I’d give the Hero pen another try. I do like the nib on it, which is similar to those on my beloved Sailors. But I can’t seem to get over the Hero’s significantly heavier weight. And it’s not just the weight; it feels unbalanced in my hand, like the weight is in the back half. OK, Hero – you had your second chance. You’re coming out of my bag for good.)

10/14/11 Pencil

Coffee, Coffee Everywhere, But . . .

12/28/15 ink

One thing Seattle is well known for is plentiful coffee. One statistic says that we have 35 coffee shops per 100,000 residents, putting the total at more than 200 in a city of 84 square miles. (Actually, I was surprised to read that the number was that low – it feels like we have one on every block.) With that many choices, you’d think I would have no problem finding dozens of coffee shops I could sketch in on a cold, rainy day (the second thing we are well known for).

The problem is that I’m picky. For the best sketching, the ideal coffee shop is relatively large (plenty of “victims”); has good interior lighting (preferably natural); has tables arranged at various angles so that I can see profiles as well as fronts and backs; has tables that are sufficiently close together so that I can see people well but not so close that they can see what I’m doing; interesting interior decoration or architecture would be a bonus. And of course, they all have great coffee – but do they have fresh scones? I’ve walked by many of those 200 coffee shops and rejected them outright for not qualifying in one way or another. Up until now, only Zoka Coffee fit the bill perfectly.

12/28/15 ink

Cloud City Coffee, within walking distance of home, is probably my closest coffee shop, but I’ve sketched it more often from the outside – either standing on the street or from one of its outdoor tables when it’s warm – than I have from the inside. Although it was the first place I ever dared to sketch in public four years ago, I’ve only been inside for the purpose of sketching a couple of times. The tables aren’t arranged ideally as they are at Zoka, which is also much larger. Architecturally, Cloud City’s interior isn’t as interesting, either. But the last time I sketched at Zoka, the lighting was different, and the interior was much darker than before. I decided it was time to look for a new regular haunt.

12/28/15 ink

This morning I gave Cloud City another try. People waiting in line had to stand right next to me and my sketchbook, and I couldn’t hide in the corner as I usually try to. But maybe that’s just a habit and not really a preference, because I found that I didn’t care if I was seen sketching. The interior lighting is bright, and I also like the natural light coming in from the front windows. Bonus: I could smell scones baking. Maybe it’s a keeper.

12/28/15 ink

12/28/15 ink

12/28/15 ink

Cloud City Marquee

 

5/13/23 Cloud City Coffee in Maple Leaf

As my favorite neighborhood coffee place, Cloud City Coffee has appeared in my sketchbooks many times over the years – both inside and out. If I counted right, this sketch is my fifth one of Cloud City’s cool art deco sign. The first time was when I had been sketching only a few months (by coincidence, it was 11 years ago almost to the day). Of course I sketched it again in 2016 when it was repainted with a new logo. The best part about the sign is the marquee-like chasing lights that form the arrow.

On the morning of the first day of what we were told would be our “first” (that’s ominous) record-breaking heatwave of the year, it was still early and cool when I stopped on my walk across the street from Cloud City. I’ve sketched the sign in full color so often that I took a different approach this time: Just a quick snapshot of the sign leading lots of locals to their morning caffeine fix.

Cloud City Coffee and Antenna

7/16/14 Platinum Carbon, Pilot Iroshizuku Tsuyu-kusa and Fuyu-syogun inks,
water-soluble colored pencils, Zig markers, opaque white gel pen

Rarely, very rarely, does sketching trump food, because if food is imminent, I’m probably hungry. I’m just not one of those sketchers who can delay a meal in order to sketch it.

This morning was one of those rare occasions. Walking the half-mile or so to Cloud City Coffee, I had every intention of getting a cup o’ joe and a delicious scone or muffin and then finding a table outside to sketch the neighborhood. (I fondly recalled the first time I sketched the Maple Leaf water tower from one of those tables more than two years ago on a warm, sunny morning just like this one.) But just as I was about to cross the street to the café, I spotted Cloud City’s distinctive art deco sign. (I had sketched the other side of this sign a couple of years ago, too, from the café.) I’m not sure the sign alone would have been enough to come between me and a muffin, but yesterday’s over-indulgence in power lines must have whetted my appetite, because then I spotted the cable antenna tower behind it. Cloud City Coffee and the antenna tower: two Maple Leaf neighborhood icons in one.

Even a muffin can’t trump that.

Cloud City (and Purple Fail)

3/14/24 Cloud City Coffee, Maple Leaf neighborhood

 

After I finished my 100 people, I kept going, but at a more leisurely pace. My first stop was Cloud City Coffee on Thursday morning, where I immediately struggled with the purple Uglybook I had started the day before. As the last of my partially used books, my plan was to fill it, then finally begin a fresh book that I would use completely before switching to a new color (a plan I committed to last December). I love the purple book so much that I thought I could muscle through it, despite the challenges. But the problem wasn’t just paper color:

The purple is so dark that I can’t use it in my usual tonal way (with white and black as the light and shadow against the colored paper as a midtone; two more examples of the difficulties shown at end of post). Black hardly shows on it. I thought I could simply disregard tonal drawings and use various colored Posca paint markers (still the best opaque medium on colored papers), which I did with this comic-format sketch at Cloud City. I didn’t really care for the look, but I could have finished off the book that way – until I discovered the deal breaker.

3/14/24 Here, I tried to use the purple as the shadow and white
for the sunlit areas... until I realized I would have had to use the white
Pilot Juice pen on the entire background. And by the way, the Juice
is exactly the same as Posca -- in all the bad ways. 

In my optometrist’s waiting room that afternoon, I pulled out the book and the gold Posca (which looks so cool on purple!) to do a quick sketch. When I started to draw, I realized that the Posca needed priming, even though I had just used it that morning. With the agitator making a loud rattly sound as I shook the pen vigorously, I attracted waiting room attention. By the time I got the pen running, my name was called, and the sketchwaiting opportunity was lost! Any art material that keeps me from making a sketch is a solid deal breaker! Curse you again, Posca markers!

It’s not wasted; I’ll certainly find other uses for the dark purple (it has interesting potential for a near-nocturne or an underpainting color). But that book is no longer a daily-carry. Stay tuned for the new exciting color!

3/14/24 Another attempt here: The gold pen was the light while the paper was the shade,
but I should have colored most of the page with gold.

Cloud City and Maple Leaf Park

 

8/26/24 Cloud City Coffee and Maple Leaf Park

Although we’re both big Macrina fans, Mary Jean and I decided to break the mold and meet at Cloud City Coffee for a change. Just a few blocks further north, Cloud City doesn’t have the variety or breadth of pastries, but the vibe is pleasantly quieter, homier and lower key. Even so, my Nutella croissant was nothing to sniff at – a perfectly fine piece of pastry for an appropriately cloudy Monday morning.

After a bit of chatting, sketching and noshing, we walked to Maple Leaf Park. I finished my page spread with the iconic water tower, the less-iconic Comcast tower and some pickleball players. After that, I went over to get a view of the basketball hoop, where a couple of boys were playing and arguing.

It was fun to catch some sketches before the rain started an hour later.

To-Go is the New For-Here

 

2/5/25 Cloud City Coffee

One unfortunate outcome of the pandemic is that after cafes were allowed to serve food and beverages with reusables again, many decided to stay with disposables. I’m sure that using takeout boxes and paper cups is easier than washing and managing breakable plates and ceramic mugs, so I understand that decision from the often-understaffed café business perspective. But when I intend to stay in a café to sketch, I miss feeling like I am “here.” Even if I say “for here,” I often receive my refreshments as if I am “going.”

Like some regulars who come to Cloud City Coffee, I could bring my own mug to avoid a disposable cup, and I always used to do that when I drove to most cafes. That would make me feel better from an environmental perspective. I guess I should just do that again, but now I always try to walk to my coffee breaks (that’s one way I justify having a pastry), and I don’t like carrying a cup while I walk. Moreover, using my own cup wouldn’t address my personal issue of wanting to feel like I’m “here” and not “going.”

Sigh. Yet another first-world problem (or maybe it’s just my existential one).

Cloud City Redux

4/7/16 inks, colored pencils, Zig marker

Cloud City Coffee, a great coffee shop (and occasional sketching spot) in Maple Leaf, repainted its sign and changed its logo a while back. I’ve been wanting to sketch its new look ever since (I sketched its old sign a couple times, once in 2012 and again in 2014), but I wanted the weather to improve.

Improve it did (by some weird fluke, it’s 74 degrees this afternoon!), so this morning I stood across the street to capture Cloud City’s new colors that coordinate so well with that blue, blue sky.

Even Sketchwaiting Needs Practice

9/8/23 Safeway pharmacy line

9/2/23 Cloud City Coffee

A sketcher had lamented online about not having enough time to sketch. She was asking for advice from other sketchers who seemed prolific, especially those who filled brief, idle moments with what I call “sketchwaiting.” The experienced sketchers chimed in about the fun of filling otherwise dead time with sketching. Much of the advice was about having simple sketch materials with you at all times so that you can take advantage of any sketching opportunity. Wherever you are and with whatever time you have, sketch whatever you see  – that was the common advice. Just jump in and do it.

9/5/23 Cloud City Coffee

9/7/23 Green Lake neighborhood

10/3/23 Green Lake neighborhood

I can easily “just jump in and do it” now, but sketchwaiting did not always come as easily. It takes quite a bit of time of regular, on-location practice before sketchwaiting comes as second nature. If you have very little sketching experience, or even if you have some but most of your practice has come from using photo references, sketchwaiting is much harder. The “whatever you see” is huge and overwhelming (even in a place like a doctor’s waiting room) – how do you choose what to draw? By the time the subject is selected, likely your name has been called for your appointment, and the opportunity is lost.

9/19/23 Green Lake Village

9/20/23 Thornton Place Plaza

I have talked a lot on this blog about the importance of learning to draw from life, not just practicing from photos, and I think this is one more reason. People who sketch from life are already used to distilling the huge “whatever” they see into a sketch, which makes them better prepared even if they have only a few minutes. And the more one practices regularly, the easier it becomes to practice regularly.

9/19/23 Russian Veterans Monument, Orthodox Brotherly Cemetery, Seattle
(I typically wouldn't use color while sketchwaiting, but in this case,
I knew I had an hour to happily kill. Most sketchwaiting opportunities are much shorter.)

Errands and Amenities

 

2/5/24 Maple Leaf Ace Hardware store

My first incentive for getting out for a fitness walk is always the opportunity for a potential sketch. My second is accomplishing any errand on my to-do list that enables me to avoid using my car. Fortunately, I live in a neighborhood where the library, the post office, Chuck’s Auto, both PCC and Whole Foods, and Maple Leaf Ace Hardware store are all within walking distance. On a recent rainy morning, I hoofed it to Ace Hardware for ant bait. (Auughh… if it’s not one kind of pest, it’s another!)

Numerous amenities are also within easy walking distance, including Kona Kitchen (where I occasionally get takeout), Cloud City Coffee, and of course, Macrina Bakery. If an art supply store would open in the neighborhood, I’d never need to walk more than a couple of miles (let alone drive) for any essentials!

2/2/24 Northgate Mall, sketched after a walk to the P.O.

2/2/24 Sketchwaiting at Kona Kitchen

9/29/24 An unfinished Akita sketched outside Macrina Bakery

10/28/24 Subaru outside Cloud City Coffee

Two Thoughts at Cloud City

5/10/16 ink

In addition to the usual umbrella café tables, Cloud City Coffee’s patio has a tent with picnic tables under it, so you can choose to sit in either the sun or the shade. This morning I did both, moving around at will to vary the views.

I’m still thinking about some lessons from Liz Steel’s SketchingNow Edges. In this online course, Liz talks about “lost edges” – deliberately avoiding drawing some lines or “edges” in a composition so that the viewer has to fill in the part that’s undrawn, becoming a more active participant in the viewing. As I sketched the young man eating a sandwich with his back to the sun, I couldn’t really see much of the shoulder that was away from me. Typically I would just fudge what I can’t see and draw it anyway, but this seemed like an opportunity to let the unseen shoulder remain lost.

5/10/16 ink, colored pencil

That was one thought this mid-morning. The other was the fact that it was 65 degrees and sunny on May 10. When I sat in the shade it was cool enough that I was glad I had my sweatshirt; when I moved to a sunny table, I was happy in a T-shirt but didn’t break a sweat. I was wondering if there’s any place on earth where it’s like this all year round – the absolute perfectest weather for outdoor sketching – and if there is, how soon I could move there. 

5/10/16 ink, white gel pen

5/10/16 brush pen, white gel pen

Solstice Celebration

 

Many cultures have traditions or rituals to acknowledge the summer solstice. Here in Seattle, we have an annual (well, except during the peak pandemic years) Solstice Parade and fair in the Fremont neighborhood. I don’t necessarily have any personal traditions around the solstice, but if it’s actually summer-like that day (typically summer doesn’t begin here until July 5), it’s always cause for celebration.

With the day dawning clear, I took a morning walk with my Field Notes sketchbook and planned to sketch whatever caught my eye. Some turned out to be thumbnail composition studies. The one above started out as a study, but the addition of bits of color at the end made me decide it was actually a “real” sketch. Yes, my labels probably seem arbitrary, but I draw the line between a study and a sketch when I stop paying attention to the composition and just have ordinary fun.

6/21/22 Cloud City patron; Mt. Rainier from Maple Leaf Park

By afternoon we were both in T-shirts, and I could finally take my socks off. At Cloud City Coffee, we made a toast with our first al fresco iced coffees of the year, then paid homage to Her Majesty from Maple Leaf Park. Ahhh, summer at last – both on the calendar and in reality!

Cheers!

Selfie with victim.

Maple Leaf’s Most Iconic Intersection

 

4/18/24 The intersection of 88th NE and Roosevelt Way NE, Maple Leaf

Cloud City Coffee was the site of some of my earliest urban sketches, and I’ve sketched there many times since. On a fabulous afternoon last week – it was 62 degrees and sky the couldn’t have been bluer – I noticed that the shop had gotten several new outdoor tables. After its recent remodel that includes a new tented area, the new tables are no longer blocked by parked cars, so I had a better view.

A fresh Uglybook cracked open! I filled the last one in less than 2 weeks!

Behind Cloud City’s iconic sign is an even bigger icon: Maple Leaf’s beloved water tower (also one of my earliest urban sketches). I made a page of small sketches celebrating spring’s arrival (officially recognized as whenever I have my first iced latte al fresco) and possibly Maple Leaf’s most iconic intersection.

Technical note: Although it probably doesn’t look like a comic, I consider this a comic-y diary because I made a more conscious effort to tell a story about this intersection, not just make random sketches of whatever I see. Does it help to seem more comic-y to include commentary as I did? Maybe in a traditional comic, a character (or persona of the author) would be making those comments in voice bubbles, but I also know that some comic artists write text as captions. Super excited about this new format for my urban sketches, I’m having fun trying out different things to make it my own.

Urban Sketchers’ Manifesto Nos. 2 (Part 3) and 3

5/16/12, Copic Multiliner SP pen, watercolor, Stillman & Birn sketchbook

Urban Sketchers’ Manifesto Nos. 2 and 3: Our drawings tell the story of our surroundings, the places we live and where we travel. Our drawings are a record of time and place.

With a sense of urgency, I went back to Cloud City Coffee, this time with a mission: To sketch the Maple Leaf water tower behind its sign. Even though I’ve lived in the Maple Leaf neighborhood for nearly 25 years and have seen the tower nearly every day, it was the first time I closely examined the crisscrossed girders around it or the repeating pattern of the maple leaf motif.

After finishing the sketch, I came home and did a Google search to see if I could find out when the tower is slated to come down. According to the Maple Leaf neighborhood blog post dated Aug. 24, 2010, the city decided not to take it down after all because its antennas still generate revenue. I guess that shows how up to date I am on neighborhood news! (I make no claims to be a reportage sketcher.)

(This is one of a series of blog posts about how I have interpreted the Urban Sketchers manifesto.)

Reckless Video

10/1/14 Platinum Carbon and other inks, watercolor, Zig marker, Caran d'Ache Museum water-soluble colored pencils, Canson XL 140 lb. paper

Greg and I have been renting our weekly movies from Reckless Video for most of the 25-plus years that we’ve lived in the Maple Leaf neighborhood. Back when the movies we rented came on VHS, Reckless was located on the west side of Roosevelt Way Northeast at around Northeast 90^th. At some point, a mysterious night fire turned Reckless and the other small businesses on that block into a blackened shell. But like the proverbial phoenix rising from the ashes, Reckless reopened a year or two later on the same block of the east side of Roosevelt, where it stands today.

The movie medium we rent has gone from VHS to DVD to Blu-ray, but Reckless remains the same. We could probably save a little money by using Netflix or other entertainment services, but we couldn’t get honest opinions about films we are considering from Netflix or discuss the nuances of our favorite TV series with Amazon. We enjoy the simple ritual of walking over to Reckless to return our weekend movie on a sunny Sunday afternoon, or dashing in from the rain on a Friday night to select a movie and then afterwards picking up Chinese takeout from Snappy Dragon across the street.

Neighborhood video rental stores are almost extinct, and even big box places like Blockbuster apparently can’t compete with on-demand entertainment services. I don’t know how much longer Reckless will be in Maple Leaf, but as long as it is, we’ll keep getting our weekly movies there.

I’ve sketched Cloud City Coffee, Mug Bugs Coffee and now Reckless Video, so I have enough to call it a series: Maple Leaf neighborhood businesses.

Urban Sketchers’ Manifesto No. 2, Part 2



5/13/12, Copic Multiliner SP, Tombow, Akashiya Sai, colored pencil, opaque white pen

Urban Sketchers’ Manifesto No. 2: Our drawings tell the story of our surroundings, the places we live and where we travel.

On another warm, sunny afternoon, I walked over to Cloud City Coffee, one of my favorite neighborhood coffee spots (and kind of the inspiration for my blog’s name), and sat down at a shady outdoor table. I love the funky, art deco sign. Just beyond the sign is the venerable Maple Leaf water tower, no longer used for its intended purpose, but much loved as a neighborhood icon. Sketching the sign, I suddenly remembered that the tower is destined to be taken down. I almost put it into this sketch, but decided it deserves a sketch of its own. I felt alarmed: I have to get back there again sometime soon to sketch it before it’s gone. Compelled to snap a quick picture with my phone, I stopped myself.

Taking a photo with my phone is a good way to preserve a monument in my phone. Sketching is a good way to preserve a monument in my memory.

(This is one of a series of blog posts about how I have interpreted the Urban Sketchers manifesto.)

Dog Day Afternoon

7/17/14 Pilot Iroshizuku Ku-jaku ink,
Canson XL 140 lb. paper

Not only is Cloud City Coffee good for an interesting sign to sketch, its outdoor seating on a sunny afternoon is an ideal place to sketch dogs. Two basset hounds (Annie and Bailey) sought shade under the table where their guy sipped an iced coffee, and a golden retriever waited patiently by the door for his lady to come back outside.

7/17/14 Pilot Iroshizuku Ku-jaku ink, Canson XL 140 lb. paper

The Eye and Hand Catching Up

8/15/12 Copic Multiliner SP pen, watercolor, Stillman & Birn sketchbook

When I took Gabi Campanario’s urban sketching workshop a few weeks ago, he tried to teach me the concept of single-point perspective using my eye-level horizon as a guide. This wasn’t a new concept to me; I had read numerous books on perspective that explained this same concept, usually illustrated with cubes standing in the middle of a blank plane and lines extending from their edges to that imaginary single point. My brain understood and accepted what Gabi and these books were explaining, but my eye and hand were having difficulty catching up.

I was ruminating all of this as I sipped coffee and munched a raspberry muffin at one of Cloud City Coffee’s outdoor tables, wondering if I would ever “get” perspective on the sketchbook page and not just in my head. Looking at the outside wall and roofline of the building (which is a renovated garage with roll-up doors) – a scene I’ve looked at many, many times – I suddenly saw that the roofline, floor line and siding lines, if extended, would converge at a single point. I put my sketchbook up to my eyes, its plane parallel to the ground as Gabi had instructed, to find my eye-level horizon, and – OMG! – the single point was sitting there, right on that line! You mean it works in reality as well as in books!? The proverbial light bulb over my head, which had been flickering dimly like it was about to go out, suddenly turned on!

Maybe someday I’ll work on automotive sketching. But for now, I’m happy that architectural sketching has become a tiny bit less intimidating.