03.30.11_drawings from a typical life drawing session in Seattle

pen and ink with watercolor washes_a good, quick economical technique

1 minute poses on a single page

A Dominican in Seattle

Note:  At our last Sketchcrawl we were lucky to have Orling "Arty" Dominguez join us from the Dominican Republic.  She was here for a conference for Secondary and primary art educators.  Here is her post from that sketchcrawl on the Sound Transit Light rail.

In Dominican Republic we have a saying that goes like this: "the rain doesn't stop my party", well, after visiting Seattle I had to change that to "the cold doesn't stop my sketching". It was freezing on the morning of March 20th (45 degrees) and I was ready to spend the day sketching with the Seattle Urban Sketchers. The warm welcome and the joy of the group easily made me feel at home and ready to go!
Here are a couple of sketches done during the sketchcrawl along the Light Rail Train line.
Thanks to the group and specially to Gabi for the invitation. You made my quick visit to Seattle a very special one. Thank you all!!!

I'll be posting other sketches from this trip at my blog: http://www.drawingbythepound.com

Now, back to my 80 plus degrees, I am kind of missing Seattle!

Orling "Arty" Dominguez
www.drawingbythepound.com

The New El Golfo Fire Department

Wednesday Staff Meeting

Happenstance and The Sons of Norway; "Gud Signe Norigs Land" In Ballard

Quite by accident, saturday morning I came across a bunch of joggers with Norwegian flags.  The last time I saw so many crosses on the move was in a biathlon, so I was naturally intrigued.  After I was finished with a meeting in Ballard, I decided to follow the joggers.  They funneled into a function hall aptly named the Leif Erikson Hall, which happens to be not only the meeting house for the fraternal group Sons of Norway, but also the location for Ballard's annual Norwegian Festival.  I ate some Karbonade and mulled around the hall which according to the program would be a dance floor soon enough.  Between raffle prizes of Codfish and nordic unpronounceables, I drew Bob Johnson conduct his Norwegian Male Chorus to belt a rendition of Gud Signe Norigs Land. 

 After the choir finished I approached Mr. Johnson and he assured me that this song is second only to the national anthem in its patriotism.   I like this drawing because it pivots around the depicted face: ever so often during the song, Mr. Johnson would check his music, allowing me to draw with some accuracy.  In the sketch, as you travel farther from his concentrating and communicating head, Mr. Johnson's limbs are on the move and in my experience, were increasingly relative.  Thus, in their gestural lines, my mark-making contains the experience-based improbability of Mr. Johnson's movements, and by their very nature they are a function of time.    A photograph in this instance would have been leveling in its amount of data and limited in its scope to designate cognition of the perceptual events.

Proud old men dressed to the tens, signing and moving to the words of fore-bearers is a comforting thing; it hints at an often lost sense of continuity in a secular and shifting time.

Signs, Symbols and Halibut at the Terminal

...I thought about Mondrian's frustration this as I drew this Boat.  It is a Halibut Longliner built 100 years ago in the Nordic style. I haven't reduced its wooden form into some angular derivative, not retreated fully into crude romantic scribbles. I think this idea, this meaning distilled in form, is part of third way that is a balance between objectivity and subjectivity.  Schjeldahl would have readers believe that quality in Art proceeds in evolutionary shifts, as in from cubism to suprematism.  I however believe them both, in their classical rigidity and wispy sipirtulism, to be the Scylla and Charybdis  through which quality must pass...

San Juan Capistrano

While visiting my cousin Charles in Long Beach, his girlfriend Lynn was kind enough to take me to the mission and wait while I drew it. Initially the place was crawling with school kids on field trips, but they filtered out as I drew and it was nice to sit in the garden and draw while Lynn took pictures.

Trip to Mexico

Seatac

El Golfo, Mexico

A train to somewhere

Really enjoyed the "field trip" aspect of our last outing. Below is what I drew on my little 4x6 hardbound sketchbook plus a bigger pencil drawing on a Canson 9x12 drawing pad. Really fun to see that Lori and I drew the molecular sculpture from the exact same spot.

sunny spring day_corson building_georgetown

a beautiful spring day_perfect for a sketch in the afternoon

03.19.11_modern seattle townhouses

sketched on an early spring day. it was sunny and just warm enough

to be comfortable while taking the time to make the sketch.

Link Light Rail

My first ride on the Link Light Rail and it was convenient and comfortable. Can't wait until the line extends north of Seattle. Here is my take on Shimomura's Rainier Valley Haiku and an exterior view of the Tukwila station.

The Sculpture @ Othello Station_rendered with charcoal

part of my latest effort to sketch outdoors with charcoal

Met up with the group at Othello Station.

Second stop - Tukwila Station

Started some sketches at Tukwila, then headed down the street for some lunch before returning to finish. Helped to warm up the hands a little.

Intrepid Sketchers

I've always loved field trips. Here we are, preparing to leave the Othello stop and move on to Tukwila.

I laughed when I looked again at Gabi's earlier post of this sculpture. Chopsticks? Tassel? How did I not see those? Ah well, it was cold. Below are the haiku's which surround the block. The full name is "Rainier Valley Haikus" by Roger Shimomura.

Art along the Sound Transit Light Rail

Yesterday was my first ride on the light rail.  It was so easy and along the way you get to see some great public art.  On the train to the first stop I was able to get a sketch of fellow urban sketchers...but not enough time to watercolor as well.

Frank C., Olivia, and Sharon on the light rail.

First stop was Othello Station were I sketched and painted "Rainier Valley Haiku" by Roger Shimomura.

 

Rainier Valley Haiku

Second stop was Tukwila Station and boy was it cold....but we weathered it and I was able to get in a sketch  but had to take a picture and do the painting of it later.

"Soundings" by Clark Wiegman @ Tukwila station

20 March 11 - Light Rail sketchcrawl

Was this our first real "crawl," moving from place to place? Whatever, it was a lot of fun and kudos, as always, to Gail for the organization. Wasn't quite as warm as we might have hoped: this first one was done (wimpishly) from the Starbucks inside the Safeway by the Othello station, the backs of the structures facing MLK Way. Loved the diversity in the signs: East African grocery, Chinese restaurant, Vietnamese...

Map of Light Rail art

View Sound Transit art in a larger map

To get in the mindset of Sunday's sketch outing, I thought it'd be good to embed this map from a Seattle Times story about the public art along the light rail system. Click on the flags to see images of the art installations.

The first stop tomorrow, as announced by Gail on the mailing list, will be Othello, where you can't miss this fun sculpture:

Reminder: Riding the Sound Transit Light Rail>Sunday March 20th Sketchcrawl

Get ready for a fun sketchcrawl riding Sound Transit to Tukwila Station.  We will make a couple of stops along the way to sketch art at different stations.  We will most likely be stopping at the Columbia Station, Rainier Beach Station and Tukwila Station. Meeting time is 9:30 am at the entrance of the Sound Transit Westlake station entrance adjacent to Nordstroms on Pine St.  If you have an Orca Card you can use that to purchase your fair or you can buy tickets at ticket vending machines located on the mezzanine level of the station. This will be a longer sketch crawl since we are traveling.  Any ideas for good lunch locations are welcome.  Share your ideas on our google group site! 
 

UW Finals Week

Last Sunday,  I went to Cafe Solstice again.  It was filled with students studying for finals.
Here is a sketch from a different view point.

Escape to Costa Rica

Carnival was going on , so three of us volunteers escaped to a quiet Costa Rican beach for the weekend.

Panama city

Another view of the city from the hostel patio.

Boquete, western Panama

I spent a week volunteering at a nonprofit in Boquete, Panama. boasting a perfect year-round climate, it is 3,500 feet up in the mountains near Volcan Baru. Famous for coffee, cloud forests and 900 kinds of birds.

Calle de San Francisco, Casco Viejo, Panama City.

Panama City

Just back from a couple weeks in Panama. I did a couple sketches in the old part of Panama City - Casco Viejo. Narrow brick streets, overhanging balconies, and roads that lead right to the beach.

Georgetown Art Attack

The 4810  Studios in Georgetown had aerialists performing and it was fantastic!

Cafe Solstice

I got a new watercolor sketchbook that is a little larger format.  10 x 7 Canson Montval Water Color Field Sketchbook.  Anxious to try it out, I did this sketch at Cafe Solstice in the U District.  I was pretty happy with the paper.  It isn't quite as smooth as the Moleskine watercolor notebook...I will have to get use to it.

Cafe Solstice- U District