Daffies and Cherries on Dibble

 

4/4/25 Crown Hill neighborhood

Although the cherry trees on Dibble Avenue Northwest are on my regular petal-peeping route, it’s not a destination that I would consider for an Urban Sketchers outing. A narrow street full of parked cars, trash cans, basketball hoops, utility poles and other street stuff that I enjoy sketching, it’s probably not the kind of view most sketchers like. I did, however, encourage everyone who attended the Sunset Hill outing to at least peep the petals, if not sketch them, since Dibble in Crown Hill is only a mile or so east of Sunset Hill.

Dibble Ave. NW

With the top down, I cruised slowly down the block, looking straight up at the blossoms arching over the street from both sides. Then I turned around and came back to sketch from a spot I had sketched a few years ago that has become one of my favorite cherry blossom sketches: The pink blossoms as a backdrop to the daffodil-fringed traffic circle.

With bittersweetness, I must concede that our all-too-brief petal-peeping and -sketching season is coming to a close. But if this is its finale, I’m good with that. As a resident of the Sunset Hill street and I had just concurred, if we could have cherry blossoms all year round, they would no longer be precious and special.

Technical note: After all the trees I’d been sketching, my Pentel Pocket Brush Pen ran dry when I started this sketch, so I had to bring in a gray Faber-Castell Pitt Artist Pen for an assist. I like the way the gray ink made the cars and utility pole fade out more than compared to drawing and shading with the same Pentel ink. I’m going to try to remember that in the future.

Pink Clouds, Pink Snow

 

3/29/22 Dibble Northwest, Crown Hill neighborhood

Dibble Avenue Northwest in the Crown Hill neighborhood has been a regular stop on my petal-peeping tour for years. If sketching cherry trees is the goal, some would say narrow Dibble is too “messy” – lots of cars, a basketball hoop or two, wires and poles everywhere. But you know me – I like the challenge of finding a composition in all of that.

Lots of pink snow.

When I had checked on the Dibble cherries only eight days earlier, the blossoms were still tight buds; they seemed to have popped open overnight. In fact, lots of petals were already on the ground, which is a sign that they are past their peak. Last year when I sketched there, it was April 8 – more than a week later in the year. (That time, I had sketched it from the opposite side of the same traffic circle.)

Most years I stand on a sidewalk to sketch, but this composition required standing in the street. I had to move out of the way of a few cars and a garbage truck, but on that beautiful afternoon, it was worth it. Bonus: I took the top down for my ride home!

Dibble Intersection (Plus Paper and Pinks)

 

4/8/21 Dibble NW, Crown Hill neighborhood

Dibble Avenue Northwest in Crown Hill is a regular stop on my annual petal-peeping tour. Narrower and tightly packed with parked cars on both sides, the street is a bit more challenging to sketch from my mobile studio than other favorite spots. I would prefer to stand on the sidewalk, but they are narrow too, so I didn’t feel comfortable taking up pedestrian space.

As luck would have it, I found a parking spot on the “wrong” side of the street facing this traffic circle at the foot of the block lined with cherry trees. Almost as much as the cherries, the small, crooked bush caught my eye. Surrounded by daffodils, backlit by the early afternoon sun, it was a beacon of spring cheerfulness. (I sketched the same intersection from the sidewalk in 2016. That sketch was made on March 17, a full three weeks earlier in the season than this one, confirming that the cherries were late in blooming this year as I had suspected.)

Legion Stonehenge White paper

Technical notes: I tried a new paper with this sketch: Legion Stonehenge White, which is one of the samples I tried when I reviewed the Legion sample pack for the Well-Appointed Desk. (I bought a 9-by-12-inch pad of it and stitched a few sheets into a signature, just like I used to do when I bound my sketchbooks regularly.) Its weight is 90 pound, so I was concerned about how well it would hold up to my spritzing technique. It buckled, but not intolerably; its 100 percent cotton content probably kept it from buckling even worse (as 98-pound Canson XL mixed media paper does). Even Stillman & Birn Beta, which is 180 pound, curls a bit. I haven’t sketched on the opposite side of this Stonehenge page yet, though, and that’s usually when buckling bothers me, so we’ll see how it is next time.

What really makes this Stonehenge paper distinctive, from my perspective, is its texture. Apparently a favorite of printmakers, the tooth is lighter than typical cold press papers and S&B Beta but heavier than hot press, which makes it a joy to use with colored pencils.

This year's sakura picks.

Which brings me to . . . pink pencils. Every spring, I add a couple of pink watercolor pencils to my bag. To my constant dismay, the Caran d’Ache Museum Aquarelle collection does not include a cherry blossom pink (the closest is 571, Anthraquinoid Pink, which is coral, not pink). I usually choose the relatively cool Cd’A Supracolor Light Purple (091) and then add a second pink to scramble with it (“scrambling” is a technical term referring to the use of two pencil colors together without blending them; yes, I just made that up). This year my second color is a vintage Sanford Prismacolor watercolor pencil in Pink (WC2929), which is slightly warmer than the Supracolor.

(Geek note: This natural-barrel Sanford is probably younger than the vintage set with colored barrels shown in my review. But this pink one was still made in the USA, so it was probably from the end of Sanford’s era. Contemporary Prismacolor watercolor pencils still have natural barrels like this, but they are no longer USA-made nor Sanford-branded.)

A Top-Down Ride to Dibble

3/18/15 DeAtramentis Document Brown ink, watercolor, Caran d'Ache Museum water-soluble colored pencils, watercolor,
Zig markers, Canson XL 140 lb. paper

After sketching the cherries on Sunset Hill, I still had one more place I wanted to catch before the wind and rain blew the blossoms away – Dibble Avenue Northwest in the Greenwood neighborhood. About a block and a half of that street is illuminated with pale pink trees. Much younger than the ones on Sunset Hill, these trees have trunks that aren’t nearly as stout, but the branches are fuller, spreading all the way across the street.

The morning looked like rain, but by afternoon, the sun came out, and I knew it might be my only opportunity. I bundled up in two layers of Polartec and took the top down as I drove to Dibble. Most of the trees there had dodged utility wire butchering, but then I found this one, still glorious in its fleeting beauty.

When I returned to my car, the seats and floor were covered with petals from the trees I had parked under. Fleeting, indeed.

Pink Snow on Dibble

3/17/16 brush pen, inks, watercolor, colored pencils

According to my blog a year ago, the day had been warm enough to take the top down to drive to the Greenwood neighborhood. It was a little too chilly for that today, but the sky was blue enough, and the sun was out on Dibble Avenue Northwest, where cherry trees line both sides of the street just south of 77th. The traffic circle in that intersection was sunny with daffodils. Pale pink snow fell all around me as I sketched.

Spring is Springing!

3/18/16 brush pen, watercolor, ink

Yesterday was a little too cold to take the top down to Dibble Avenue, but not today! Wearing multiple layers of Polartec, I could still feel the chill in the wind, but I didn’t care – as far as I’m concerned, spring is on its way!

One thing I love about driving a convertible is that I catch more scents around me. Granted, some city smells (like exhaust) aren’t my favorite, but this afternoon was made for my Miata. I rounded the corner on 32^nd Avenue Northwest near Sunset Hill Park, and even before I spotted the cherry trees, I could smell their delicate scent. I’d entered fairyland, the block on 33^rd where the trees are particularly old and gnarly, thick branches spreading wide across the street. The third and last of my must-see cherry blossom spots each year (the other two are the UW Quad and Dibble), this street was at its absolute peak today.

3/18/16 ink, colored pencils

As I did last year and the year before, I walked slowly up and down the block a few times (on either sidewalk and even the middle of the street – hardly any cars came by), looking for an individual tree to sketch. Each has a distinctive, knobby trunk as broad as a boulder. I picked the one for this year’s portrait – its branches wide open, welcoming spring.

One Cherry on Dibble

3/21/22 Crown Hill neighborhood

 The cherry-blooming schedule can be irregular and unpredictable. Dibble Avenue Northwest, one of my regular stops on my annual petal-peeping tour, can be as early as mid-March or as late as early April. Although I had a feeling those cherries would be late this year, given the unusually cold winter we had, the equinox made me restless for spring. Besides, some cherry varieties bloom earlier than others. As soon as the rain stopped on Monday, I took a drive to Crown Hill.

As expected, most of the buds on the trees lining both sides of the block were still tightly closed. One sakura, however, once pruned in the traditional umbrella shape but now a bit overgrown, had her arms spread wide with pink splendor in a front yard. By the time her slower sisters got around to blooming (probably not for a couple more weeks), she would be done. I pulled over, hopped out, and caught her in her prime.

More Pink!

4/3/18 Dibble Ave. NW, Crown Hill neighborhood

After the UW Quad and Sunset Hill, the third regular stop on my personal hanami tour is Dibble Avenue Northwest in the Crown Hill neighborhood. A narrow residential street with cars parked on both sides, one block is lined with cherries. Younger and slenderer, these trees lack the stocky, knotted trunks of the ones on Sunset Hill. Nonetheless, I am always impressed that they are wider than they are tall, the pink-covered branches reaching across the width of the sidewalk. They also seem less tended and pruned, and I enjoy their asymmetrical shapes.

Yesterday was overcast, so I didn’t have the benefit of a blue sky and shadows for this sketch. But it was a bit warmer too, so I was able to stand on the sidewalk instead of sheltering in my mobile studio.

Still some buds! It's not over yet!

Dibble on Crown Hill

3/22/26 Crown Hill neighborhood

When Sunday afternoon turned out dry and even partly sunny, it was a good opportunity to check out a couple more of my favorite pink streets. Although Dibble Northwest on Crown Hill is a narrow, quiet and somewhat messy residential street (a broken-down basketball hoop has had a prominent spot on the block for years), every spring it turns into a pink fairyland. Not the grand fairyland of Sunset Hill (see tomorrow’s post), but more like the fairy who insists on wearing dirty jeans with her tiara. No matter – the trees are still lovely.

Like the cherries on Capitol Hill, these were not yet at their peak, but they were lazily working up to it. I think the party begins this weekend.

Early Petal Peeping

 

3/29/21 Dibble Ave. NW, Crown Hill neighborhood

Dibble Avenue Northwest in the Greenwood/Crown Hill neighborhood is a regular stop on my annual petal-peeping tour. Sometimes the cherries are in full bloom by mid-March; other years I’ve had to wait until early April. Last year, they were at peak by late-March.

They’re late this year. Most trees were still full of tightly closed buds, but a couple had arrived early to the party. I was nearly done with the sketch when a black kitty appeared and took a seat by the basketball hoop for a few seconds – not long, but long enough.

Technical note: Capturing the form of a white apple tree was no problem with the solid blackness of water-soluble carbon, but pale pink blossoms are another matter. I can hardly see the shadows, and I don’t want the shading to be too dark with such delicate pink clouds. Finding the right shadow color for sunlit pink is always a challenge, too. As I mutter this to myself, I can already hear Kathleen Moore’s voice in my head from the graphite tree class: Make thumbnail value studies first to find the form. Yes, teacher. (I was so eager to go out and play that I obviously didn’t do my homework.)

Last Chance

4/6/20 Sunset Hill neighborhood

A street in the Sunset Hill neighborhood is on my blossom-peeping list every year. These cherries always seem to peak a week or two later than Dibble Avenue or the University of Washington Quad, but I was afraid I might have missed them. Sunny and even warm, Monday seemed like it might be my last chance.

Sketching from my mobile studio, I thought wistfully of how pleasant it would have been to sketch from the sidewalk as I have in some years past, smelling the blossoms. But with so many dog walkers, runners and families passing by, I didn’t think I should.

This gnarly tree seemed very familiar, so when I got home, I checked my blog: Indeed, I had sketched it two years ago on a cold afternoon from nearly the same parking spot.

A bit past peak after all, the sakura were still glorious. I’m looking forward to next year when I can sketch them from the sidewalk again.

More Kwanzan Cherries (Plus Techniques)

 

4/27/23 Kwanzan cherries, Maple Leaf neighborhood

The Kwanzan cherries seem to have an even shorter season than the earlier sakura, so I’m sketching them as fast as I can. Unlike the spots on my annual petal-peeping tour like Sunset Hill, Dibble Avenue, Capitol Hill and the UW Quad, where large groves of cherries grow together in a dramatic display, the Kwanzans in my part of town seem to grow only as individuals or in small clusters. If I discover a concentration of Kwanzans, I’ll be there in a minute, but for now, I’m happy to sketch the onesies and twosies I find on my walking routes. These two are very close to home – just a couple of blocks away.

Process notes: I’m usually not aware of routine techniques I use, but for some reason, I was more conscious of them with this sketch. I thought it would be a good opportunity to point out watercolor pencil and compositional techniques I use frequently:

Selective activation: A huge benefit of water-soluble colored pencils is that they can be activated selectively as desired to control values or the intensity of color. I think this unique, easy-to-use attribute of watercolor pencils is something many (maybe most) sketchers don’t take advantage of – they activate every part of the sketch equally. (It’s fine to do that if you are using the pencils as a substitute for watercolor paints… but at that point, why not use paints? )

The trees are obviously my focal point, so I fully activated the colors as vibrantly as possible. I didn’t want the shrubbery to overtake the trees, but I did want them dark enough to serve as a background for the tree trunks, so I activated lightly with a dry brush. The shadow under the foreground car was actually the darkest value in the scene (in reality). I didn’t want the eye getting locked onto that spot, however, so I applied the pencil fairly heavily but kept it dry. My intention was that the large but not-too-dark shadow spot would balance the otherwise top-heavy composition.

I like the blossom texture that occurs so easily
with Hahnemuhle's paper.

Dry into wet: For a long time, my favorite technique for activating foliage has been to apply dry pencil pigment heavily, then spritz with a water sprayer to activate. Ever since I started using the Hahnemühle 100 percent cotton sketchbook, however, and especially because it works so well with fluffy blossoms, I’ve been doing it the other way around: Spritz the paper liberally first, then apply the pencil pigment. The sizing and weight of the Hahnemühle paper are critical for this technique because thinner or lower quality papers will pill or otherwise not hold up well. The strong, irregular tooth on Hahnemühle also lends itself well to blossoming trees: The pigment sticks to the texture in an airy, organic way. It’s the ideal combination of paper, pencil, water and subject matter.

When the trees leaf out fully in a couple months, I’ll try this dry-into-wet technique and see if I like it as much as my standby dry-then-spritz method. It might not be as effective if I want a dense foliage look, but it will be fun to experiment.

"Licking" a Derwent Inktense Iris Blue (900) pencil...
not a bad match for Seattle's sky last week!

“Licked” sky: This was my first attempt at using the “licking” method for the sky with Derwent Inktense. If the sky takes up a large part of the composition, I would typically spritz the area liberally. In this case, the spots of sky were small, so I applied water carefully with a waterbrush instead. Then I used the waterbrush to “lick” pigment from the Inktense pencil (which, to my relief, accomplished the task as well as Caran d’Ache Museum Aquarelles do. Yes, I’m always comparing Inktense to the best watercolor pencils in the world – no point in letting them get off easy).

Pruned and Unpruned

4/2/19 Tony's cherry tree, Beacon Hill neighborhood

Tuesday dawned clear, but the news was foreboding: Rain would begin as early as that night and would continue through the week. My time was running out.

My first stop was my brother-in-law’s house in the Beacon Hill neighborhood, where I sketched his cherry tree last year with buds still tightly closed. It was colder then, so I stayed in the car to sketch it. This time, two weeks later, the old tree was fully in blossom, and the morning was warmer, so I stood across the street to catch a bit of the downtown skyline in the background. He keeps the lovely tree well pruned in that traditional umbrella shape.

After taking a lunch break with Tony, I had to eat and run because I still had more cherry trees to catch. Across town in the Sunset Hill neighborhood, a block flanked by old cherries is my favorite place to view and sketch sakura. I caught the pink fairyland at its peak. Every year, I try to choose a different tree; each has a different character and a different story to tell. Unlike Tony’s neatly trimmed umbrella, the one I sketched (and most of the ornamental cherries on this block) was a free-spirited mess of blossoms tangled among the utility wires. Examining closely, I also noted that the blossoms are different. Tony’s tree has fuller clusters, while the ones on Sunset Hill have looser petals. And they’re both different from the trees at the UW’s Quad.

The sky was completely overcast by the time I drove home with the top still down. It was getting late in the afternoon, so I didn’t stop, but I cruised down Dibble Street in the Crown Hill neighborhood to check the last place I always look for cherries. They were at peak bloom, too. Alas, my clock ran out – at least for this year.

Such fleeting beauty.

4/2/19 Sunset Hill neighborhood

Tony's tree

Sunset Hill trees

Fairyland is in full bloom (unfortunately on trash day)

Look at the gnarly trunk and roots on this one!

Fleeting

4/5/20 cherry tree, Maple Leaf neighborhood

The sakura across the street was past its prime, and the wind and rain had shaken down a flurry of petals, but I still enjoyed seeing it every day from our bedroom window. I wanted one more try at capturing both its fleeting beauty and its unruly shape. For most of my life, my brain was stuck on the notion that trees are supposed to be taller than they are wide. It wasn’t until I started sketching them that I noticed how many are the other way around.

Color notes: After sketching on Dibble Avenue, I decided that the two pencils I had picked out for my palette of spring optimism back in pre-pandemic times (it feels like eons ago) just weren’t right. I’ve switched to Caran d’Ache Supracolor Salmon Pink (071) and Raspberry Red (270). Like the other two, these are a bit too warm for cherry blossoms, but I like the way they go together. 

Salmon Pink (071) and Raspberry Red (270)

Waning Pink

 

3/31/22 Sunset Hill neighborhood

3/31/22 Sunset Hill cherry tree

The Sunset Hills cherry trees, favorites on my annual petal-peeping tour, caught me by surprise. When I went to check on them on March 21, their buds were tightly closed. They typically peak in the first week of April, so I assumed they still had a way to go. Exactly a week later, though, a friend reported that they were at peak! I went to see them on March 29 on my way home from sketching Dibble Avenue Northwest, but didn’t have time to sketch them then. We had some rain after that, and by the time I got over there again on March 31, they were well past peak – piles of pink petals on the pavement. I made a mental note to check on them more frequently next year.

Instead of trying to capture a street view, I focused on a couple of trunks. At Sunset Hill, I do tend to sketch more tree portraits than street views because these are among the oldest cherries I visit each year. More than 80 years old, the one above is the same tree I drew from a photo for a class assignment a year ago. The reference photo I had used was taken from the side that shows the tree’s fantastic roots wrapped around its trunk. This sketch is from the opposite side, where slender, blossomed tendrils are trying to catch up with majestic branches.

In the second sketch, I caught a younger tree with daffodils behind it.

The street wasn’t quite as pink and fluffy as I’ve sketched it in the past, but the trees are still my favorites.

The Sunset Hill cherry trees at their peak on 3/29/22

As many petals on the ground as on the branches.

Pink Canopy

3/31/20 Crown Hill neighborhood

Dibble Avenue Northwest in Crown Hill is on my checklist of places I go cherry blossom peeping each spring. Imagining that the trees were at peak, I was very sad that I might miss them this year. Then last week I saw David Hingtgen’s sketch of them, and I could resist no longer. The next day I had to go pick up a prescription at the pharmacy anyway (that’s considered an “essential” activity; I felt no guilt going out), so I made a roundabout detour in the opposite direction to Crown Hill first. Safely sequestered in my car, I marveled at the pink canopy overhead. The trees shook their blossoms in the wind, oblivious to everything, and for a moment, so was I.

Cherries for Chandler

 

4/4/23 Crown Hill neighborhood

Just as I was about to head out for Crown Hill to check out the cherry blossoms, I heard the devastating news: Artist, urban sketcher and author Chandler O’Leary had died suddenly at the age of 41. I was so shaken that I almost cancelled my plans, but I also knew that nothing consoles or comforts me like sketching does, so I went out anyway.

The block of cherries on Dibble Avenue Northwest, which is on my annual petal-peeping tour, weren’t yet at peak; I’d say they were still at about 60 to 70 percent. It was cold enough that I might have been tempted to sketch from my car. On this day, however, I wanted to feel the chill and the wind – I wanted to feel the whole experience of being among those spectacular, old trees. I walked slowly up and down the block, recognizing ones I had sketched previously like acquaintances. Other trees surprised me because I hadn’t noticed them before.

Although I didn’t know Chandler well, I had been a fan of her work long before I took her urban sketching workshop back in 2015. I hadn’t seen her in person in a long time, but following her Instagram account always delighted me. She observed the world with a keen yet quirky eye, spotting things most of us might miss. Indeed, she went out of her way to have experiences that most of us would miss because we’re more likely to travel the faster, more convenient route. Her artwork reflects those observations with a joyful appreciation for nature, small towns, lighthouses and especially life’s many surprising oddities.

From her Instagram account where a family member had announced her death:

She was just 41 years old, and leaves behind an astonishing body of work as an author and artist. In her short life, she filled countless sketchbooks and created public art and signage, paintings, drawings, textiles, artist books, photographs—you name it, she did it. She did it with passion, dedication, and exquisite beauty. “Artist” barely encompasses all her extraordinary talents, as she was also an engaging teacher, podcaster, blogger, historian, travel expert, musician, feminist, and collaborator.

Although it had sprinkled briefly on my way there, by the time I had arrived on Crown Hill, the sky was a painfully beautiful cyan. Sketching these pink blossoms on that cold, sunny afternoon, I thought about how Japanese poets use the fleeting sakura season as a metaphor for the brevity of life. The blossoms weren’t at peak, but with all the rain and strong winds we’ve been having lately, waiting for a better time might be too late. Extraordinary as I stood there, these trees were good enough for me.

Right Out Front

4/6/18 Maple Leaf neighborhood

While I’ve been chasing cherry blossoms around town, our neighbor’s tree across the street has been quietly flowering. It’s a bit misshapen, and the upper branches have stopped blossoming, but we still enjoy it from our front porch. Like the ones on Dibble Avenue, this old cherry is wider than it is tall. In fact, I mis-scaled it, and I couldn’t get its full width into my composition.