Wintergrass

The "Friday Sketchers" ad hoc outing was to sketch at Wintergrass, a local bluegrass festival.  There certainly was a lot of jamming in the hall ways! 


Two musicians in a jam session.


My first sketch of the day.... a concertina player in the lobby playing by himself.  He got up and moved but I had enough done that I could finish it.


Bass player in a jam session.... just drew her.

Here's the group!

L to R:  Gordon, me, Angie, Lynn, John, Tina, Francisco, Rachel, Wanda (a friend of mine visiting from Portland).  Angie and her father, Francisco, were new today!  Welcome! 

Catching a Historic Fishing Boat

2/26/14 Vintage fishing vessel moored at South Lake Union.

We made it in the nick of time.

Ever since Greg and I read the article in The Seattle Times about the fleet of vintage wooden fishing schooners that would be mooring at South Lake Union for a couple of weeks, we’ve been wanting to get down there – I with my sketchbook, he with his camera. But the weather has been so consistently wet and cold since then that we were afraid we’d miss them before they made their journey to Alaska. Today – temperatures in the 50s and sunny – was our opportunity!

When we got there this afternoon, though, we didn’t see any of the fleet of nine ships, some more than 100 years old. We stopped in at the Center for Wooden Boats (which currently has an exhibit about these historic fishing vessels) to ask if they had all left. It turned out that just one ship, the Kristiana, was still moored there, and a staffer pointed it out.

I regret that we missed seeing the full fleet, but I’m happy that I was able to sketch at least one. The Kristiana was built in 1945, among the youngest of the commercial fishing schooners that are still working hard to bring in tons of halibut and black cod (which I eat a lot of, so I’m grateful) each year.

The rain is supposed to return tonight, so we really did get there in the nick of time.

Two fer

Today was the first outdoor sketch of the season!  It was blue sky, sun and 54 degrees.

It is also two for one.

First, it's another for my series of Renton public art as it is a newly installed sculpture called "Going Global".  The artist is Benson Shaw.

Second, it fits  the Urban Sketchers' weekly theme of "signs", as it is a new "Welcome to Renton" sign.

I sat in the sun on the sidewalk next to a very busy main street.  It was so warm all I needed was my light fleece sweater.  Fortunately, I did not have an experience similar to the sculptor's.  When he was installing it, an out of control car came "careening over the cub and smashed into a pole"!  

The Seattle Bouldering Project

I recently discovered Urban Sketchers Seattle through their Facebook page and attended my first monthly outing last week.  February's sketchcrawl was at The Seattle Bouldering Project. It was the perfect venue for a rainy Sunday and a great way to hone my craft while meeting other like-minded and talented artists.  I look forward to next month!

Sketches were drawn on my iPad using the Paper app by FiftyThree and a Pogo Connect stylus:

MOHAI Sketcher in Residence

Today was my day to be at the MOHAI as an Urban Sketcher in Residence.  I spent the morning viewing many of the exhibits at the museum.  This was my first time to go in all the galleries since their move from the Montlake location and I am very impressed with the quality of all the rooms! 

Look forward to many, many future visits.

 

 My first demonstration sketch looking out the window towards Queen Anne Hill.

 

 

The afternoon was spent in Gabi's wonderful exhibition demonstrating my sketching techniques.  It was a fun experience talking to many interested visitors  and the kids were a joy to see their enthusiasm in drawing their own sketches.

 

Later I went out and watched the Seattle Hip-Hop demonstrations

that were a special part of today's events and also sketched in the exhibitions of things from my childhood.

 

 

 

 

I saw the Lombardy Trophy at the Seahawks parade and so I decided to find / sketch the first Seattle World Championship Trophy that is on display at the MOHAI!  Maybe the Lombardy will join the Sonic's trophy at the museum???

 

 

 At the end of the day I went outside to view the historic fishing schooners that were docked alongside the museum.  The Vansee and the Polaris are two of the oldest working schooners that will soon head to Alaska for the upcoming fishing season.   Worth a visit to see these wonderful ships before they leave.



Upcoming Line to Color Workshop at Washington State University

Frank and I  have been asked to give our "Line to Color" workshop at Washington State University this April 18-20 Friday-Sunday. Joining us will be Gabi to who will be  giving a workshop and presentation of the Urban Sketchers movement.  

We look forward to a great weekend working with students from the Design + Construction Department.   There are open spots for the public to take part in this as well.  If you are a Coug or a Husky or just a person who is interested in learning how to sketch, this might just be the event for you. 

For registration information contact: 

Bob Krikac (Faculty advisor at WSU) rkrikac@wsu.edu. 

Cost is $200.00 for the weekend workshop and will include  Friday evening Presentation and Gallery Reception,  Saturday Workshops, Sunday panel discussion,  final workshop and group sketchcrawl.  

A big thanks to Royal Talens and Canson for sponsoring this workshop with watercolors and watercolor sketchbooks.

At the Gates Foundation Visitor Center

Took my Cornish drawing class last Friday to sketch at the Gates Foundation Visitor Center, then stayed later to sketch.  I had the wonderful opportunity to work on this project for over a year with Olson Kundig Architects, the project turned out so beautifully.  It's a great place to sketch and the VC staff is very welcoming.

I painted using a simple triad of Nickel Azo, Permanent Alizarin Crimson, and Cobalt Blue.  It's amazing how many colors you can mix with just a simple 3 paints. I wish I had adjusted the perspective more to get a better sense of the wide angle, but I was tired and hungry!

Bending my Pen at the Seattle Bouldering Project

The Sunday outing to the Seattle Bouldering Project reminded me of trips to the rock climbing gym as a kid. My father was a rock climbing enthusiast and took me to a rock climbing gym beneath the Fremont Bridge before the area's redevelopment.

The Seattle Bouldering Project offered some great opportunities to explore perspective due to the space's lack of perspective. The slanting walls and odd angles made people the only reliable indicator of scale and perspective.

This was also a great opportunity to draw the human form. Drawing outside, people often become secondary to the landscape around them. At the Seattle Bouldering Project, the human form became a dominate element in my drawings because people played a critical role in defining the space.

            I also enjoyed drawing at the Seattle Bouldering Project because it had such a subterranean feel. In the basement, the low ceiling and curved walls made the space feel like a cave or grotto. I could almost imagine the Oracle of Delphi was prophesying at the back of the room.

Seattle Bouldering

What a great place to find for a rainy February sketch outing! The staff was so friendly and welcoming. I started downstairs with the kids/family section. I loved seeing toddlers in diapers climbing the walls with the parents carefully coaching them on.

I meandered upstairs and started the sketch below, took some notes and a photo to remember the colors and finished it at home. I loved the angles and planes juxtaposed with the stretching, grasping organic shapes of the climbers.  

 After eating some lunch I went back to the space and did some additional sketches of figures and climbing accessories. You can see them on my personal blog, www.olysketcher.com.

SBP

There were some beautifully done sketches at the Seattle Bouldering Project. I especially admire those who could capture the bodies as they clambered up the walls of the climbing volumes. I could only suggest their movements because they moved so quickly.

Seattle Bouldering Project

The boulders were placed inside the two story industrial office building like a series of architectural study models. Only these models were crawling with limber dancers on a vertical stage.

Sketching at Seattle Bouldering Project

Our February sketch outing this morning was at the Seattle Bouldering Project. It was a good thing we were indoors! The sunny and dry morning quickly turned to rain. Seattle Bouldering was the perfect spot. There was a mezzanine overlooking one of the main bouldering rooms and  great options for views up close on the mats. The sketches generated from this outing were quite varied in content and what an opportunity for figure drawing. Movements were slow and most people held poses long enough that you could quickly get the gesture down. A successful sketching day!  We continue to get more new people coming to our sketch outings infusing new life to our group!  Thanks all for coming.  Remember to post your sketches on our flickr photostream.

A Second Day of Gestures: Seattle Bouldering

After filling several pages of my sketchbook yesterday with gestural sketches of martial artists and dancers at the Tacoma Dome, I got to fill several additional pages this morning with more – this time of climbers at Seattle Bouldering Project. A practice facility for rock climbers as well as a recreational venue on its own, Seattle Bouldering offers two floors of colorful artificial mountains for climbers of all skill levels. It was a fun and challenging outing for Seattle Urban Sketchers!

I warmed up on the lower level where very young children – one still wearing Pull-Ups! – were climbing as quickly and fearlessly as monkeys. After a page of trying to make my pen keep up with those squirrels, I decided I was ready to take a wider view. I went upstairs to the top level overlooking the tallest boulders, where more advanced climbers carefully chose toeholds and handholds to work themselves up to the highest points. Even though I knew the foot-thick cushioned floor would break their falls if they faltered, I still felt my heart quickening with sympathetic apprehension. After a while, my own upper-body muscles started to ache as I knew theirs would be. Sketch after sketch, I gained appreciation for the amount of sheer strength and agility necessary to cling to a vertical surface. Spiders we were not meant to be – though many that I sketched today came as close to being spiders as I’ve seen.

Before it was time to share with the group, I got my fill of dozens more one-second gestural sketches – the kind of exercise I can handle!