Out and about ...

I was bummed to miss today's ad hoc sketch outing and this month's sketchcrawl and struggling to find time with my work schedule lately...so I have been multitasking getting sketches in when I can while out and about. Here are a couple from some recent events I attended...

Damien Echols presentation at Town Hall Seattle September 28th, 2012

Damian Echols, author of Life After Death, of the Memphis III who spent 18 years on death row spoke at the Town Hall Seattle (with KIRO Radio's Luke Burbank and Innocence Project attorney Kelly Canary). I have never thought to ask a sketch subject to sign a sketch, but since I was standing in line to ask Echols to sign my book I thought it would be fun to ask him to sign my sketch. Very interesting talk. I'm looking forward to reading his book.

Geoffrey Castle Concert in Snohomish Tim Noah Thumbnail Theater September 15th, 2012

I discovered Geoffrey Castle on my very first outing with the Seattle Urban Sketchers thanks to Gail who organized a sketch event at one of his concerts. He is an incedible electric violinist who plays a fascinatingly eclectic mix of fiddle, classical, and metal electric violin. I decided to go to his concert in Snohomish on my  birthday at a cute little venue in Snohomish. Geoffrey Castle rocks! Thanks Urban Sketchers for introducing me to him. I am now one of his biggest fans and this is my second attempt to sketch him in action which is no small feat given how fast he moves!

Beautiful Day at Sculpture Garden

The sun, the wind, the clouds, the mountains and the absolute vivid light of our glorious September. We had a lovely morning of sketching, watercoloring and sharing with the students and instructors from WSU.

Sketching with WSU students at Olympic Sculpture Park

It was a fun morning sketching with the WSU interior design students and WSU instructors Bob Krikac, Kathleen Ryan, Linda Johnson.  About 40+ students, their instructors  and a handful of Seattle Urban Sketchers dotted the Park.  I hope someone who took pictures will post it on our blog.  I walked around for about a half an hour trying to find a place I haven't sketched.  I found this spot near the Claes Oldenburg Typewriter Eraser.  A view through the trees.  I was intrigued by the peek-a-boo view of the sculpture and the trail beyond.
The second sketch I did in about 5-10 min. before we had to meet up again and watercolored at home.
This was the view of the park looking south.  You can see the Calder Eagle sculpture to the right of the sketch.

Olympic Sculpture Park

Very cool to sketch (and collage) today with a bunch of WSU sophomore interior design students and their professors Bob, Kathleen and Linda. Go Cougs!

motion, attitude and force

powerful sculptural artists at the Park, this morning; Calder and Serra charcoal work, like figure drawing.

AdHoc sketch outing at Oympic Sculpture Park

Reminder of adhoc sketch outing this saturday at Olympic Scuplture Park with WSU students and their instructor Bob Krikac.  Meet Saturday September 29th 10:00 am at Paccar Pavilion.  http://seattle.urbansketchers.org/p/september-15-16-29-sketch-outings.html

Fremont, Seattle

Susan Miller and I were out for a sunny but chilly day in Fremont, sitting across from The Red Door. The Red Door has a long Fremont history. When it was moved to this spot in 1999, in the middle of gentrification projects, the Seattle Times said, "Out with the rowdy, in with the Audi" Not sure that came to be.

Japanese Garden Sketches

Had a chance to do some quick sketches at the Japanese Garden Sunday, and I mean quick. Frank B

oregon truck

charcoal, conte. 

A recent visits to the coast of Oregon, farmland and great old trucks. 

Perhaps, I should paint it yellow.

Space Shuttle trainer

I've watched the pieces of the SpaceShuttle Full Fuselage trainer arrive and be assembled and I've sketched these pieces andevents before.  The FFT is the full size model of the Space Shuttle on which every astronaut trained.  The museum's bid for one of the actual shuttles did not win but I think the FFT will be more educational and interesting.

It is nearly nearly fully assembled.  It was open today for one day and then will be closed until November for completion of the assembly and the displays.  I made sure to see it.  I was very excited to finally be able to walk along the pay load bay. 

First I photographed it thoroughly and attended the presentation by a group of astronauts and mission control specialists.  Then I had to do one sketch.  This took me about 2 hours.  I was seated next to the wall, across from the Shuttle landing simulator.  I heard a lot of crashes as visitors failed to successfully land in the simulator!

Hanging over the payload bay is the Boeing Inertial Upper Stage (IUS) launched from the payload bay after reaching orbit.  It carried satellites to geosynchronous orbit 26,000 miles above Earth.  Several probes also used the IUS to send them on their way to other planets in the solar system.  Boeing Aerospace designed and built the IUS under contract with the Air Force.

Hanging off the the right is a 1:2 scale model of the Hubble Space telescope. 

The Charles Simonyi Space Gallery will not open until November.  I found this to be a very interesting and exciting exhibit.  I encourage you to watch the website  and visit once it is open again.

On my personal blog I have my notes from the presentation and some photos.

This is a composite of my sketches from a trip to Diablo Dam in the Cascades. The paper is a piece of scrap left from other sketches and it resisted accepting the watercolor. I won't use it for watercolor again! Frank B

Crumbling Dock at Jack Block

My first attempt left me a little bored. 

It wasn't chunky and tactile enough, so after half an hour I started over 

and zoomed in on what I thought was the more interesting part of the scene.

I actually got some color applied on site, using Prismacolor pencils. 

But then I cheated and filled in the blue sky in Photoshop.

A hidden delight

Never even knew about this great spot with some of the best views of Seattle. Sunday's outing was great.
I loved sketching to the sound of sea lions. Wonderful seeing everyone's sketches...inspiring.

Views from Jack Block Park

Jack Block Park has such wonderful views I found myself walking around a bit to really find a spot I liked.  Too many choices!  Here are two views I captured.  The first is looking through the legs of the lookout tower toward the Port of Seattle and downtown Seattle.  I was drawn to the angular platforms of the lookout platforms and the tower itself creating and interesting framed view.
The second was the fishing pier and view of Magnolia and Queen Anne.  The repetition of the pier structure drew my attention  with its pattern of positive and negative shapes creating peek a boo views of the city.

View Through the Tower Look Out at Jack Block Park

View of Magnolia and Queen Anne Hill from Jack Block Park

Introduction - Kate Buike

This is my first post as a brand new contributor to Urban Sketchers Seattle.  I'm Kate Buike.  I just found Urban Sketchers on 21 February 2012 when Gabi Campanario appeared on a local show promoting his book, The Art of Urban Sketching.  Right then and there I said to myself, "That's what I want to do".  That Sunday, 26 February, I attended my first Sketch Crawl with this wonderful group and I've missed few since.

I just retired in August 2011.  Though I have a couple volunteer activities and lots of interests and hobbies, there was room for more.  Urban Sketching has brought me back to the practice of art and sketching that I enjoyed when I was young(er).  I had a some training and showed my art a little but after getting my first SLR camera in 1974, all my artistic expression went into photography.  Until now. It has been decades since I drew or painted and I am enjoying renewing my skills.  I especially am enjoying this group!

I was born and raised in Michigan.  I’ve also lived & worked in England, Germany, Southern California and now Washington. I have a Masters Degree in Social Work and I’m a medical Social Worker with a past specialty in Oncology.  I've been married for 32 years.  My husband is a computer professional. 

I live in south King County and have been showing a bit of my area of Puget Sound in my sketches.  I chose this one to post here first not because it is my most recent one but because it represents where I live and it amuses me.  This is a Boeing 737 fuselage on a train, presumably headed for the Renton Boeing plant.  I often see trains like this passing through town.  The first time I saw one, I thought it looked very funny.  I had time to draw this as the train was waiting for cars to be towed! It was during Renton River Days and somehow some parked cars were blocking the train's passage. 

Plane on a train:

My Blog: Red Harp Arts
My flickr page:  RedHarp

Jack Block Park

Another beautiful Sunday in Seattle to sketch outside on the water.  Enjoyed the ride over to West Seattle on the water taxi with a few other sketchers and some Dallas Cowboy fans (they were still in a good mood because it was before the game against the Seahawks). 

This is my second sketch looking back toward West Seattle and the large barges that were moored next to the park.  The colors on the rusting hulls were fantastic and I would like to go back again to photograph them. 

Another good turn-out with three tables of sketch books to admire at the end of the session. 

Jeff and I found a little hole-in-wall place to grab a burger / pint (Seahawks on TV) before returning to Seattle on the water taxi.  Overall a great day!

Seattle Skyline

On a beautiful, sunny Sunday morning at Jack Block Park, it was difficult not to be seduced by the expansive Seattle skyline that stretched from downtown Seattle north to Queen Anne Hill, across Interbay to Magnolia, and finally across the Sound to the tip of West Seattle.
Because I was drawing in a 5" x 8" sketchbook, I decided to use three page spreads to cover the panorama and join them later in Photoshop. The first spread shows the downtown area from the Space Needle on the left to CenturyLink Field and Safeco Field on the right, with the Harbor Island industries in the foreground.

This next view is of the entire panorama after the individual spreads were knitted together. It’s quite small here but the original is about 26 inches wide.

Jack Block Park - September Gathering

I think this is my favorite new place to sketch in Seattle. It has the obvious beautiful skyline view but also many opportunities to sketch industrial and decaying marine subjects that always interest me.  Jack Block Park (run by the Port of Seattle) isn't easy to find but worth the effort. Great weather and good company, a nice way to spend a sunny Sunday morning.

Jack Block was a former Port Commissioner and the area was a wood treatment plant and shipbuilding facility that was so contaminated that it became a Superfund site cleaned up by the E.P.A. in 1994.

This sketch was pen and ink with a watercolor wash in a Moleskine sketchbook.

Later at Jack Block Park

I missed the official sketch crawl because I had to make an airport drop-off; since I was so close, however, I wound my way through the maze of Harbor Island/Spokane Street/ Pier 5 freeway columns and explored the park on my own. 

Peek-a-boo view from the hill 

Looking back on the park from pier

Sorry I missed everyone! See you next time!

Haircut

Waiting for a haircut from Eunice at Nola in Fremont.

Additional Sketch Outings for September

September 15th and 29th are additional sketch opportunities for people who want to take advantage of more outings.  Please see http://seattle.urbansketchers.org/p/september-15-16-29-sketch-outings.html  for specifics.
Remember this Sunday's sketch outing at Jack Block Park.

Sketch Outing This Sunday September 16th

Join Seattle Urban Sketchers in a sketch outing to Jack Block Park in West Seattle.  We will start at around 10:00 AM.  

You can catch the 9:30 am Water Taxi to West Seattle from Pier 50 on the Seattle Waterfront.  Arrive at Seacrest Park at around 9:45 am and walk or bike to get to Jack Block Park.  People can also drive directly to the park in West Seattle.  

See Link for pictures of the Park http://seattle.urbansketchers.org/p/september-16-sketch-outing.html

The following link lists Fares and means of payment.
http://www.kingcounty.gov/transportation/kcdot/WaterTaxi/WestSeattleRoute/Fares.aspx

Day and Night

I was disappointed to miss the adhoc sketch outing. All the work from that looked great!  Here are two sketches I have done recently.  One was done in the early after noon on a bright sunny day.  The other was started at dusk and finished as the light dropped off so much that I couldn't see my page.

Bocce Ball Lawn at JM Cellars

Moon Gazing at the Japanese Tea Garden, Washington Park Arboretum

The Ballard Locks.

The Ballard Locks.

Mark Selander Machine Art Show

I have a show going up tonight at Annie's Art and Frame in Ballard (2212 NW Market St) from 6-9. It's all watercolors and prints of machines I have painted at Seattle area construction sites and it will be up all month. Come check it out!

Hiram M. Chittenden Locks

Like others as I was sketching the trestle it closed and I had to think about what it looked like in the open position.  After a while I noticed it was moving back into the open position and I could check what I had drawn from memory.  Sketching things that move adds complexity to the process and Sunday we had lots of moving parts (boats, seagulls, people and the trestle) to include in the compositions.

This stately building at the Locks is one of my favorite.  I enjoyed all the ways that others captured a detail or included it in larger panoramas. 

Ballard Locks - Seattle Urban Sketchers Bonus Gathering

Great lunch with Beth, Teresa and Constantine at the Lockspot Cafe, enjoyed meeting up with everyone on a bonus sketch outing.

Pen and ink with a watercolor wash in a watercolor Moleskine.

Ballard Locks

The arm of this bridge was reaching skyward most of the morning, but when it lowered and the doors of the locks opened and shut it was like watching the two perform some form of industrial ballet. I tried my relatively new brush pen for this painting. I like the portability but struggled to get enough water on the page for sky and sea, so resorted to the old fashioned brush and cup.

Olympic Peninsula

I've spent a couple of weekends on the Olympic Peninsula recently playing tour guide to visiting friends and family. Here's evidence of a couple sites. 

We were at Hurricane Ridge in time for the wildflowers. I'd forgotten my walking shoes so I took a few minutes to sketch a quick scene. 

Then yesterday I hiked to the top the the zig zag stairs in downtown Port Angeles and claimed the view in a quick few minutes. 

Ballard Locks

I used a handy 0.4 Pilot G-Tech-C4 pen to fill this sketchbook spread.

At the Ballard Locks with Tommy Kane

We enjoyed perfect weather for the impromptu sketchcrawl with Tommy Kane at the Ballard Locks. So many sketchers turned out that one shot wasn't enough to fit the group!

It was great to have Tommy and Yun in town to join for the sketchcrawl today at the Ballard Locks. I lived in Ballard for many years during college and used to wait tables down the street on Shilshole so this was my old stomping grounds but I haven't spent much time there recently so it was nice to sit for awhile on a little bench with this peek of the East side of the fish ladder.