A Summer Teaser

3/26/15 Various inks, Caran d'Ache Museum water-soluble colored pencils, brush pen, Canson XL 140 lb. paper

The Maple Leaf water tower has been the subject of my sketches many times. Sometimes I enjoy getting into all the details of the complex, criss-crossed girding and the maple leaf motif going around the tower. Today, under a mostly clear blue sky and 70 (!) degrees, it felt like the best of summer, and my mood was just as lazy. On a shady bench but not too far from the sun, I sat on the opposite side of Maple Leaf Park to take in the long view of the water tower holding its own next to the cell tower.

To those of you still sloshing through snow, I’m sorry if I sound like I’m gloating. If it makes you feel any better, here’s what KING 5 weather shows for the next few days:

Maple Leaf Park

3/31/14 Platinum Carbon ink, watercolor, Canson XL 140 lb. paper

Spring has definitely sprung! The blue sky and temperatures in the low 50s invited Greg and me to walk a few blocks north to the Maple Leaf Park, which opened last fall after much anticipation. I’ve sketched the lower playground area a few times, but hadn’t yet climbed the stairs to the upper level, which has a playfield, walking path and, on a clear day, a view of Mt. Rainier.

With so much to choose from, I dithered a bit about what to sketch. Then I spotted the public art – Confluent Boulders by Patrick Marold. The sculpture is made from two sliced-up boulders taken from the Cedar River and Tolt River watersheds, which both feed the Maple Leaf reservoir (which is now hidden beneath the park). I composed the sketch so that our neighborhood icon, the (now defunct) Maple Leaf water tower, would be behind the sculpture. I’ve sketched the water tower several times – all by itself from across the street, while standing practically under it, and from a distance partially obscured by a tree. I think I like it in today’s composition best with the sculpture in the foreground and looking out over our fresh park.

I have a feeling I’m going to be sketching at this park often!

Photo by Greg Mullin

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.)

Maple Leaf Ace Hardware

12/27/19 Maple Leaf Ace Hardware at 90th and Roosevelt

The Maple Leaf Ace Hardware store has been owned and operated by the same family since 1973. Greg spends a lot of time there when he’s working on a project. It’s right next door to Reckless Video, which is also owned by the Stephenson family (and which I sketched last spring). Always involved in community events (like the summer ice cream feed with free ice cream bars donated by the Stephensons and the Halloween parade), the two businesses and the family are the cornerstone of the Maple Leaf neighborhood.

After taking my walk/sketch route as far north as the Northgate post office, I came back south on Roosevelt, which has several coffee shops where I could have stopped to claim my reward sketch. Although it was only 40 degrees, I was feeling nicely warmed up after 45 minutes of walking. Instead of stopping for coffee, I picked up our weekend movies at Reckless and then stood on its porch to sketch the hardware store. (I regretted it 20 minutes later when I finished the sketch – my hands were numb and my teeth were chattering.) This may be my most iconic Maple Leaf neighborhood sketch: I got the utility tower, the blue water tower and Ace Hardware all in one composition.

It’s All About the Process

8/16/23 Green Lake neighborhood

 “Sketching is a good practice for all ages and, surprise, it has nothing to do with the end result. It’s all about the process — a process that improves our general well-being.”

Well, duh. That’s how I felt reading this recent article on the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco’s website, which points out six benefits of drawing. Nearing the 12^th anniversary of my life as a sketcher, I have always found the process benefits of drawing to be self-evident. People who enjoy sketching for the sake of sketching – the pure experience and not the product that results – seem the happiest (benefit No. 5) with the habit, and they also seem to have an easier time forming the habit. Those who focus solely on results rather than process seem doomed to quit (I’ve seen it happen many times).

8/22/23 Maple Leaf neighborhood

One of the biggest benefits for myself is mindfulness (benefit No. 4). Sketching obviously requires attention and close observation of the subject, but the whole experience becomes a moment of focus. This instantly has a calming effect (No. 5), which is as therapeutic as yoga and meditation.

Nodding my way through the article, I disagreed only with one suggestion: “You don’t have to keep your artwork or show it to anyone else. Rip it up if you don’t like it.” Maybe this tip is helpful to those who are especially hesitant or intimidated by sketching. I don’t recommend it, though. Instead, keep the sketches, but tuck them away, and don’t look at them for a while. A year later, if you’ve kept up the practice, pull out those old sketches. You will be amazed and impressed by how much you’ve improved, even if you don’t feel like you have. It’s gratifying and instantly encouraging to see that progress, which wouldn’t be possible if you toss sketches.

(Incidentally, I wonder whose beautiful drawers full of Prismacolors are shown in the article’s leading image? Heart eyes emoji!)

8/23/23 Maple Leaf neighborhood
(This sketch was all about scaling -- showing the magnificent size of that tree!

8/26/23 Maple Leaf water tower

8/30/23 Roosevelt neighborhood

8/31/23 Maple Leaf neighborhood

9/1/23 Maple Leaf neighborhood

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.

Taking My Wacky Palette Outdoors: Maple Leaf Park

 

1/17/26 Maple Leaf Park

We’ve been enjoying a solid run of dry, sunny days – a weird weather pattern we often get around mid-January. Temps can drop into the mid-30s overnight but warm up to the mid-50s by afternoon. As you might guess, we urban sketchers are loving it!

It means I’ve finally had opportunities to take my wacky, values-based palette outdoors for some real urban sketching. (Although I know being inside cafés and other locations is also urban sketching, it doesn’t  scratch the itch I feel all winter.)

When I see sunshine, my first stop is usually Maple Leaf Park. I’ve sketched there so many times that most views have become “nothing” to me. By that, I mean that it takes something like a new palette to give me a nudge and see the park with fresh eyes. In addition, the “nothingness” is actually helpful in seeing values instead of subjects.

The pale blue water tower was almost the same color and value as the sky, but the sky was a bit darker blue. I used pink and pale chartreuse, the two light values in my current palette, for those. Then I used the two darkest hues, blue and violet, for everything else. It’s wacky, but I like it. 

Using pink and pale green also solves a dilemma I’ve had many times when sketching this scene: How to show contrast between the water tower and the sky when they are so similar in both hue and value (which, I suppose, was the design intention – trying to make the tower less obtrusive).

What I didn’t like is my messy dry-on-wet application of Caran d’Ache Neocolor II for the sky. I think I should have used my tried-and-true “licking” technique as I always used to for skies. Note to self for next time. Also, I realize now that I forgot to add a layer of a midtone crayon to darken the grass as I had intended!

Maple Leaf Water Tower

7/1/13 Platinum Carbon and Diamine Grey inks, Kuretake brush pen,
watercolor, Stillman & Birn Alpha sketchbook

More than a year ago, I sketched the Maple Leaf water tower from the comfort of an outdoor café table at Cloud City Coffee. Today I felt like setting up a more interesting composition, so I walked up closer to it with a tree in between.

Three Kinds of Roundish

1/13/19 Maple Leaf Park

The Maple Leaf water tower is probably my most-often sketched artifact within walking distance of my house. On days when our usual mid-January doldrums are broken by well-deserved sunshine, I don’t care where I go – I just start walking, and Maple Leaf Park is where I often end up.

As I studied the tower, I was thinking about color but found myself reaching for my trusty Blackwing pencil instead. In bright sunlight, the tower is full of interesting cast shadows from the girding around it. But the most intriguing – and challenging – are those difficult shadows that describe its form – a cylinder around the middle, a saucer on top and another on the bottom. I love graphite for that type of shading; I haven’t used any other medium that is able to express roundish shading in quite the same way.

The Mountain Delivers

 

5/10/24 Macrina Bakery, Maple Leaf neighborhood

Several years ago when I had promoted an Urban Sketchers outing to Maple Leaf Park, I oversold it a bit: “The biggest and best highlight is a completely unobstructed view of Mt. Rainier – possibly the best within the city limits!” (I used to make my living in marketing; so shoot me.) On that August day, Her Majesty laughed her head off as she stayed hidden behind clouds.

Caffeine and sustenance before the park outing. 

Seeing that the weather forecast was clear and warm toward the end of last week, I recalled that 2017 outing. As I sent out an ad hoc outing announcement on short notice, I said to myself, “Come on, Your Majesty – don’t make a liar out of me again!”

For early birds, I started the outing at Macrina Bakery across the street from the park entrance. I enjoyed meeting a couple sketchers who were new to USk, and we all had fun chatting and sketching our pastries and coffee (above).

Walking across the street to the park, I looked up at the clear sky and breathed a sigh of relief. This time, I delivered on my promise of a fantastic view of Mt. Rainier. While Her Majesty was the main attraction, the Maple Leaf water tower and the Confluent Boulders sculpture were also popular subjects (good backup material in case The Mountain was under cover).

5/10/24 Maple Leaf Park

It was the first outing of the year that felt like summer – and it’s only May! I know that doesn’t bode well for the climate or the snowpack, but right now, I couldn’t be happier.

"Confluent Boulders" by Patrick Marold

Jim and Paula make homage to Her Majesty.

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.

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.

Maple Leaf Park: Old is New Again

8/18/17 Confluent Boulders sculpture at Maple Leaf Park

“The biggest and best highlight is a completely unobstructed view of Mt. Rainier – possibly the best within the city limits!”

That’s what I wrote on the Urban Sketchers Seattle blog to promote yesterday’s outing to Maple Leaf Reservoir Park. Perhaps I oversold it just a tad, as the cloud cover never did reveal The Mountain. Still, a good turnout of sketchers found plenty to sketch in “my” neighborhood park on a beautiful morning.

Sketched in March 2014: Same view, very different style

As you know, I sketch at this park regularly, so I was bound for a redux, no matter what view I chose. But it had been more than three years since I sketched this view of Confluent Boulders and the iconic water tower behind it, so it didn’t feel old. (At right is my sketch from 2014 just to show how much my style has changed.) It was especially enjoyable this time with the warm sun at my back and Natalie and Anne for company. 

As I was just saying about the sketch I did of the Interstate 5 overpass near Green Lake, familiar views feel fresh when I try to imagine them being seen through the eyes of a newcomer. Maple Leaf Park was new to everyone who joined the outing yesterday, so it was fun to imagine seeing and sketching it for the first time.

Maple Leaf Houses (Plus New Spray Bottle)

7/21/17 water-soluble colored pencils

Whenever I sketch at Maple Leaf Park, I find myself compelled to sketch the historic water tower that dominates the park and landscape. Since I sketch at the park so often, I decided I should find a different focal point once in a while. On this visit I ignored the water tower completely and instead sketched the houses and trees on one side of it.

The Honest Co. hand sanitizer spray bottle

Technical note: For my spraying technique, I had been using a tiny travel-size perfume atomizer. It works well enough (it made it onto my Top 10 last year), but I’ve been looking for one with a finer mist. Shortly before we left for Chicago, Greg was shopping at Target for travel-size products and picked up a bottle of hand sanitizer, thinking it might work for my sketching needs. I cleaned it out, and sure enough, it puts out a wider but finer mist than the perfume atomizer I had been using. 

This was the first sketch I tried with the new spray bottle. The trees got a little blurry because I was holding the nozzle at the same distance that I used to hold the tiny atomizer, which is too close for the new bottle’s wider but finer output of water. I get the best results when I hold it about an arm’s length from the sketch.

Tooth or Consequences (and Some Thoughts on Travel Sketching)

3/26/15 various inks, Caran d'Ache Museum
water-soluble colored pencils, Canson XL 140 lb. paper

You’ve heard me complain about how the texture of my favorite Canson XL 140-pound paper has changed – it’s now rougher, especially on one side. That slightly extra toothiness isn’t a problem with watercolor or ink applied with a waterbrush; in fact, I prefer the additional texture with liquid media. But it’s not great with fountain pens, and it’s a particular nuisance when using my very soft and flexy Pilot Falcon nib, which sometimes snags on that textured surface.

I’ve discovered, though, that colored pencils, which I often use as a secondary medium to wet media, can really take advantage of Canson XL’s high tooth. A couple weeks ago I stood on the sidewalk near Maple Leaf Park to sketch the lower part of a tree (with the water tower in the background), and I liked how fast and easy it was to impart the tree bark’s rough texture using soft Caran d’Ache Museum water-soluble colored pencils. Perhaps this change in Canson XL isn’t so bad after all.

This reminds me that I’ve been meaning to “think out loud” a bit about travel sketching. If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you’ve watched me identify and eventually resolve a couple of major “issues” related to sketching while traveling. In 2013, it was the sketchbook. In 2014, it was the bag. We’re going to France in May, and this could be my first trip abroad that I don’t have a substantial sketch-related issue to resolve in preparation for it! Two years of continually refining my materials and methods have brought me to the point of having a sketch kit that is just as ready any day to fly across an ocean as it is for awalk to Maple Leaf Park.

Still, there’s always room for improvement, and lately I’ve been thinking less about which materials to use and more about how best to use them to optimize my traveling time. Travel sketching often requires striking a balance between time spent sketching and time spent experiencing. In addition, conditions and circumstances always play a part: Is it too hot, windy or potentially unsafe?

From a purely material standpoint, the simplest and lightest sketch kit of all would consist of nothing more than a waterproof pen, a waterbrush and a tiny mint tin of watercolors. They would require so little space, I could shove them all into a jacket pocket and dispense with a bag altogether.

Sketching with my clipped-on watercolors.

From my perspective, though, it’s not as simple as it sounds. The single biggest complicating factor in using watercolors while traveling (or anytime on location) is not about the materials themselves – it’s about needing a more stable setup while painting. It’s difficult to paint standing up (although, as a last resort, I still occasionally do it with my clip-on setup shown at left). If I want to paint, I almost always have to find a place to sit or a stable surface to set the mixing palette and paint box. I’ve used some precarious perches (like the tops of railings or a flat rock), but that’s not ideal. Certainly I’m bringing my watercolors to France – who could possibly go to France sans aquarelle!? – but here are some related thoughts.

One thing I’ve been doing for quite some time is using materials that are easy to use while standing or in otherwise less-than-optimal sketching conditions. Ink applied with a waterbrush instead of watercolors is probably the single best example of such a compromise. Colored pencils are also easy to use in nearly any condition (and acceptable in places like museums that otherwise prohibit wet media). The other day at Maple Leaf Park, I had a comfy bench in the shade that would have been ideal for using watercolors, but I tried a sketch with other media instead. Although I sometimes miss the rich complexity of watercolors, in that case I liked the resulting sketch’s simplicity. When I can’t mix my own colors, I tend to simplify the whole composition, which is almost always a good idea. More important: I could have done it standing – and in a very short time.

Of course, lots of colored pencils and waterbrushes filled with inks take up space and add weight to my bag. I’ve always got one eye on minimizing even as I try to optimize.

(More thoughts on this subject later, I’m sure, as I get ready to pack my bag.)

Blue Angels

8/5/18 Blue Angels viewers at Maple Leaf Park

Seattle’s annual Seafair festival is a weeks-long summer mashup of community parades, food events and other crowded activities that culminate on the first weekend of August with hydroplane races. The highlight of Seafair weekend is the flight of the Blue Angels. Having grown up on Lake Washington where the racing and flying take place, I don’t get as excited about these events as the rest of the city seems to. I like to watch the Blue Angels, I suppose, but it’s not that big of a deal to me.

Greg and I walked up to Maple Leaf Park, where a small crowd had gathered to see them. Several miles away, the angels were not exactly roaring past our faces. While everyone else watched the tiny dots dip and fly, I stepped back to sketch the spectators.

8/5/18 Maple Leaf water tower

15 Seconds of Fame

One of my sketches just got its 15 seconds of fame!

A board member and newsletter editor for Lakeside North Condominium in the Maple Leaf neighborhood contacted me recently, asking permission to use this image in the condo’s newsletter. He learned I was a Maple Leaf resident when he found this sketch of the Maple Leaf water tower, which I sketched more than a year ago, on this blog.

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.

Make Sketch While the Sun Shines

2/27/20 Maple Leaf Reservoir Park

I knew it wasn’t going to last; rain was slated for the next day. I dashed out to Maple Leaf Park to sketch our water tower that I’ve sketched so many times before. This time I skipped the white leaf motifs around the tower’s belly and went for the shape.

Off the Page

 

2/11/22 Maple Leaf Park

This is the same water tower at Maple Leaf Park that I’ve sketched many times. Usually I draw the whole tower – I enjoy the never-ending challenges of proportion and rendering the form of cylindrical and rounded shapes.

On this sunny afternoon, I thought I’d try a composition that would include about three-fourths of the tower. Surprisingly, this was more difficult than I expected. I had to let my pen point draw the rest “off the page” to the right, but even so, getting the proportions right wasn’t easy. I wanted to cover up the part I wasn’t drawing, but that wouldn’t have been easy, either. It means I need to practice this kind of “off the page” composition more often!