Wallingford Farmers Market

7/31/13 Platinum Carbon ink, watercolor, Stillman & Birn Beta sketchbook

Whenever I visit farmers markets with a sketchbook (OK, I admit, I never visit farmers markets without a sketchbook), I usually head for buskers and other musicians to sketch. But today I wanted to sketch more of the market itself to contribute to the Urban Sketchers Flickr weekly theme thread, “Markets,” so I decided to take a wider view at Wallingford Farmers Market. I knew I wanted to capture the rows of tents and colorful produce, but I was having difficulty finding a compelling composition. On top of that, the flat, dark gray sky was keeping all the shadows away, which was also frustrating.

As I pondered all of this, I heard a voice repeatedly saying, “Copy? Have a nice day,” so I looked for its source. The voice belonged to a Real Change newspaper vendor hawking this week’s issue of Seattle’s advocacy publication for homeless and low-income people. A-ha! He was exactly what my composition needed.

When I bought a copy of the paper from him and showed him the sketch, Yemane Berhe, originally from West Africa, asked me to e-mail the sketch to him in care of the newspaper.

Shopping for organic corn, peaches and blueberries, I noticed the sky growing even flatter and darker. Thunder rumbled deeply in the distance. I made it home with the top down before the drops began to fall.

A Family of Cellists

7/3/13 Sailor pen, Diamine Eclipse ink, Stillman & Birn Alpha sketchbook

I hadn’t been to the Wallingford Farmers Market since it moved from Wallingford Center to Meridian Park, so I was eager to check it out on this warm and clear-blue-sky day. As soon as I got near the neighborhood, I remembered why I rarely visit this market: Traffic is bad there even when it’s not rush hour on the afternoon before the 4^th of July holiday, and today it was both. Parking was even worse.

 

Feeling hot and frazzled when I finally got into the market, I wandered around a bit looking for a sketch. Hearing saxophone music in the distance, I walked closer to see who it was: the man who seems to know only five songs! I sketched him last year at Phinney Farmers Market, and today I would hear all five songs again.  

 

Just then a family carrying large instrument cases walked by, so I followed them to a shady tree on the other end of the market. After a few minutes, they set up stools in the grass and started tuning up – two parents, a boy and a girl, all with cellos. The boy (center), named Calun, said he’s been playing for five years, but he sounded like an adult with many more years of experience. One by one, the other family members sat in the grass and let Calun play solo.

 

I forgot all about my stress and frustration getting there and looking for parking. Sketching a cello concert in the grass will do that.

Knives and Chefs

8/14/13 Diamine Chocolate Brown ink

The overcast sky and stiff wind were clues, but the temperature read 75, so I took the top down and headed out for the Wallingford Farmers Market. Maybe the musicians knew something I didn’t, because none were to be found at this market that is usually popular with buskers.

 

Without my usual farmers market “victims,” I set out to find new ones. My first was Andrew, Your Knife Sharpening Guy, who has been sharpening knives by hand for more than 15 years.

 

I walked around to the back end of the market and found a cooking demo in progress by chef Kailee Krupa and her team from Burgundian, a Wallingford neighborhood bar and restaurant. I was about to ask her more about the restaurant when the sky suddenly opened up, splattering my sketch with huge drops.

 

Quickly making my rounds to pick up corn for dinner and a copy of Real Change from Yemane (whom I sketched a couple weeks ago), I ran out to my drenched car, popped the top up and drove home.

8/14/13 Diamine Eclipse ink, Stillman & Birn Alpha sketchbook

The Season’s First Farmers Market

 

6/11/25 Wallingford Farmers Market

June is when all the neighborhood farmers markets start opening, and last Wednesday I went to my first of the season. Although Wallingford is one of the smaller ones, I like it because it’s held at Meridian Park (one of few city parks that don’t use pesticides) with big shade trees all around.

Of course, my favorite subject is buskers, and this young man sang and played a fiddle with a bow as well as by strumming. When I got home, I sketched a few of the fresh local strawberries I bought. Ahhh – summer at last!

Meridian Playfield Entrance

7/31/13 Platinum Carbon ink, watercolor, Stillman & Birn Beta sketchbook

Although I rarely visit the Wallingford neighborhood (mainly because of parking issues that I’ve complained about previously), one thing that always catches my eye when I’m driving east on North 50^th Street is the stone archway at the entrance to Meridian Playfield. Since I was planning to go to the farmers market at the park anyway, I went a little early to get a jump on the parking situation, walked around the park to the 50^th and Meridian intersection and crossed the street to get a good view. Until today, I didn’t realize that the zig-zagging stone wall visible through the arch opening is actually a gradually sloping wheelchair ramp.

Known for its pesticide-free grass and plants, Meridian park is home to the historic Good Shepherd Center as well as the Wallingford Farmers Market.

Market Music

6/28/17 ink, colored pencils

You all know by now how much I enjoy sketching buskers, and our many neighborhood farmers markets are my favorite places to find them. Wednesday in Wallingford, I spotted Erik, a young man playing classical music on a keyboard. The duo Zack and Chris on bass and guitar were singing original blues in the sunshine. Yesterday at the Lake City Farmers Market, I sketched a harpist quietly playing and singing in the shade.

Who knows what I’ll find this afternoon at Phinney Farmers Market. Nothing says summer to me as much as strolling through a market, live music playing in the background, and picking up fresh strawberries on the way out. 

I hope you’re enjoying the start of summer as much as I am!

6/28/17 ink, colored pencils

6/29/17 ink, colored pencils

Whidbey Ice Cream at Wallingford Market

6/25/14 Diamine Chocolate Brown, Diamine Grey and Pilot Iroshizuku Ku-Jaku inks, Sailor pen, Caran d'Ache Museum water-soluble colored pencils, Canson XL 140 lb. paper

It was the first day of school last year when I sketched the Whidbey Island Ice Cream Company’s cart at Wallingford Farmers Market. Today I tried to take in a wider view along with the ice cream vendor. After spending a half-hour hard at work on that sketch and watching all the people walk away with chocolate-dipped ice cream bars, I couldn’t resist getting one for myself – mocha mousse flavor!

6/25/14 Diamine Chocolate Brown and Grey inks, Sailor pen, Caran d'Ache Museum
water-soluble colored pencils, Zig markers, Canson XL 140 lb. paper

With that indulgence under my belt, I had to go work it off – by making a second sketch, this time of the flower vendor from a distance.

Ahh, summer!

Marimba at the Market

8/5/15 Kuretake brush pen

Even before I had pulled up at the Wallingford Farmers Market, I could already hear the distinctive percussion rhythms that feel so summery: marimba! Not your typical buskers, Nyamuziwa Marimba Huru were performing under large trees that seemed a perfect stage set for their multi-tiered instruments. It was hard not to sway and dance to that festive music! But I resisted – at least while I finished the sketch.

Rabbit Stew

6/17/15 Sailor Doyou ink, Caran d'Ache Museum water-soluble colored pencils, Canson XL 140 lb. paper

“Little rabbit, where’s your mammy?”

I’m not sure what the significance of rabbits is for this “old time” band, but the lyrics of the reels and other songs performed by Rabbit Stew String Band seemed to be peppered with references to them.

Whatever the significance, they played wonderful toe-tapping tunes this afternoon at Wallingford Farmers Market. The little tyke seemed to agree.

No Boring Mastery Here

 

11/2/22 Self-portrait in poor lighting... not my best look.

Writer and artist Austin Kleon has an intriguing post about the art of imperfection. It’s about happy accidents, allowing mistakes and repairs to show, and wabi-sabi. According to Austin’s matrix (go look at his post), the opposite end of the spectrum from imperfections and unintended actions are perfection and deliberate actions, with the result being boring mastery. I think we all know artists who may have fallen into this quadrant after years of success. They have boiled down their success to a formula that they keep following with perfect proficiency (rewarded by sales and acclaim). Unfortunately, the consequence is that they aren’t trying anything new.

I would hope that I never get to the point where I fall into boring mastery of any skill (which seems unlikely, as there’s always more to learn). In fact, I’d have to say that I spent most of 2022 in the other quadrants struggling, making mistakes and happy accidents, and pushing myself to keep going.

6/29/22 A violin busker at Wallingford Farmers Market

Although I took a few formal classes and workshops in drawing trees, taking on large urban scenes, and crosshatching, my most challenging learning opportunities were self-initiated and self-directed (and sometimes self-tortured). The biggest and longest challenge was the 100 days I spent in February through May trying to develop skills in drawing from memory and imagination. Whew – that was tough!

Then right on the heels of that, I spent 30 days in June making daily compositional studies. Studying composition with Ian Roberts’ YouTube tutorials possibly had the greatest impact on my art life in that it changed the way I see and approach composition.

The rest of the year I tried smaller, self-directed experiments and challenges, most of which are ongoing. During and after France Van Stone’s crosshatching courses, I used InkTober to continue practicing “dirty crosshatching,” especially with portraiture, which is a subject area I had been wanting to develop.

11/22/22 Compositional study from photo

Inspired by YouTubes, friends and other artists I follow, I’ve been poking around in the painting world – without ever touching a paint brush! Primary and secondary triads, the Zorn palette, “underpainting” – I’m teaching myself to think like a painter (and maybe someday I might even paint, but I’m in no hurry; there’s plenty to learn just using dry materials).

One surprising outcome of all my self-study was that I finally embraced drawing from photo references. As a dyed-in-the-wool urban sketcher, I resisted using photos for most of my first decade of drawing. I still believe strongly that drawing from direct observation is the most effective way to develop skills – and I believe there’s no substitute for it. But I now also see the value of using photo references for deliberate practice. Chiefly, using photos enables me to practice specific techniques and skills more often – and a key to developing skills is always practice. Accepting photo references as a part of learning became a learning in and of itself.

7/7/22 Geese at Gas Works Park

In summary, 2022 was a year of frustration, struggle, happy accidents, imperfection, joyous discovery and just about everything except boring mastery, which made it a very good year, indeed. I look forward to whatever new things I learn in 2023. Best wishes to you for a creative year ahead!

(On the last day of the year, my mom used to say it was good practice to pay bills, return letters and phone calls, and otherwise tie up loose ends before midnight so that old business wouldn’t be carried into the fresh year. Shown in this post are a few random sketches from 2022 that I never got around to blogging about. In most cases, my intention was to develop themes of related sketches to blog about together, but these ended up being one-offs.)

8/19/22 Ducks at Green Lake

The First Day of School

9/4/13 Diamine Chocolate Brown ink, S & B sketchbook

By 3:30 p.m., the line was long in front of Whidbey Island Ice Cream Company’s cart at Wallingford Farmers Market. Most of the vendor’s customers were under the age of 12. I overheard one mom in line saying to another that the “homemade ice cream bar – hand-dipped in chocolate” was a reward today because, after all, “it’s the first day of school.”

Meanwhile, over at the demo booth, chef Clara Moore of Knife For Hire Picnic Foods was cutting fresh corn from a cob.

9/4/13 Diamine Eclipse ink, Stillman & Birn Alpha sketchbook

Three Tones at the Farmers Market

6/29/16 brush pen, Gelly Roll pen, colored pencils

Farmers markets are all about color – flowers, produce, primary-hued tents. The other day in Wallingford, it was hard keeping the colors in my bag, but I’m also interested in exploring values on toned paper. It was helpful that the tents really were white, and I let myself have a small color fix with a few pencil scribbles.