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!

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.)

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.