ID with WSU

Eh? Urban Sketchers Seattle joined design students from Washington State University in Hing Hay Park in the International District yesterday. There were more of them then there were of us. At the throw down, it was interesting and fun to see how they interpreted the area in their sketches.



I didn't think about it when I asked him, but the young man who took our photo was wearing a UW shirt. He suggested we shout "Go DAWGS!" but the students replied with "Go COUGS!".



 I've sketched the Chinatown Gate before but from the other side. In recent visits to the area I noticed this view and immediately knew I wanted to sketch it. That's the clock tower from King Street Amtrak Station in the background.

Stillman and Birn Alpha sketchbook. TWSBI Go pen; Platinum Carbon Black Ink; Daniel Smith watercolors

As we were walking to the meeting spot from the ID light rail station, I noticed this view with the Smith Tower in the background. I've now sketched the Smith Tower twice in two straight days!


Strathmore Series 500 Mixed Media paper. TWSBI Go pen; Platinum Carbon Black Ink; Daniel Smith watercolors

Colorful Hing Hay Park

9/29/18 Chinatown Gate and King Street Station

This morning USk Seattle met in Chinatown/International District with Washington State University interior design students and their teachers, who were in Seattle for job shadowing and to research local resources. 

Over lunch afterwards, instructor Bob Krikac told me that learning to draw by hand is an important part of the curriculum because he believes clients are more receptive to early design concepts when they see them hand-drafted. As someone who obviously values old-school sketching on paper, I was pleased to hear that there’s still a place for that in contemporary design, where so much of the work is done on computers.

9/29/18 Gateway in Hing Hay Park

I’ve been using a lot of graphite lately, which I love for its expressive, tonal aspects and because it is helping me to see and understand values better. But the heck if I was going to use graphite in the colorful ID and Hing Hay Park! First up was a sketch of the historic Chinatown Gate and the equally historic King Street Station peeking behind it. I sketched a similar view last year during the Lunar New Year celebration when it was mobbed with celebrants. By comparison, it was relatively quiet in the ID today.

Several months ago, I sketched a larger view of the dramatic Gateway in Hing Hay Park. This time I got up close, where a guy was eating lunch next to the bright red metal sculpture.

It was a fun morning sketching with the students and USk Seattle on what might be the last day of our streak of beautiful fall weather.

dispatch from Japan: Shimanami Kaido

I’ve been traveling solo in Asia since the end of August and it’s been amazing. I have so many sketches to share with you, but I’ll start with a small but particularly great part of my journey: biking the Shimanami Kaido cycling route in Hiroshima prefecture in Japan. It’s a 70km / ~45 mile cycling path crossing through 6 islands in the Seto Inland Sea. 

I started in Onomichi and went south, and the bridges spanning across the water got longer and more stunning each time. I was struck by how similar the landscape looked to the Puget Sound (a Japanese Seattlite I met there agreed with me). I wish we could have such a nice bike path in the San Juans - or please advise me if it exists already! The route was so easy to navigate, you just had to follow a blue line painted on the side of the road, and all the hills up to the bridges were graded so it was a very accessible ride for all levels. I saw hardcore cycling groups decked out in spandex, as well as people in day clothes casually riding.

The weather wasn’t the best for plein air, but I managed to fit in several sketches during the 3 days I took to explore the area. I feel like I just skimmed the surface here, even though I ended up biking 200 km (125 miles)!

 

The bridge between Innoshima and Ikuchi Islands. This was maybe 1.5 hours of cycling from Onomichi, so I had a snack and sat on a retaining wall. I liked the contrast of the town cluster below the bridge, and the distant island hills. 

Takara Bridge: this is maybe the most famous one, or at least the one I knew from watching anime. I wanted to show how BIG it is! There were rain clouds looming, so I was going fast with the knowledge I might have to stop at any moment. These islands grow a lot of citrus, so I drank some fresh local orange juice as I painted this, and made sure to include the distant orchards on the farther island. 

Ōshima Bridge: I stayed on this island for 3 nights, so I definitely have a soft spot for this view. Ōshima Island’s main industry is a granite quarry, so I watched boats leaving the stone yards as I sketched, as well as men fishing off the docks in the early morning. The small neighborhood shown here was really charming, with lots of old wooden Japanese houses clustered at the water’s edge. 

Takara Bridge, take 2: I wasn’t that happy with my first painting of this scene, so I found an observatory above the bridge to do a really fast sketch on my way back to Onomichi. it was raining a lot this day, and I needed to catch a ferry a few islands away, so I timed myself to finish in 25 minutes. You can see where it rained on my ink lines.
I was pretty happy with this one because the fast drawing has a lot of energy! But I still think it doesn’t show the scale of the bridge that well…it’s SO big, and really exhilarating to cycle on! 

I’d love to come back to these islands for even longer - you could easily spend a whole month in this area. There are many “island explorer” bike trails branching off the main Shimanami Kaido route with small charming towns and clean, empty beaches. I was constantly torn between wanting to stop to sketch and document where I was, and wanting to continue to see what was ahead.

Sunny Yesler Terrace Park

9/28/18 Looking north up Broadway from Yesler Terrace Park

As a native and lifelong Seattle resident, I’ve seen a few new city parks open, and I’ve usually gotten around to visiting them within several months or a year of their openings. Thanks to Urban Sketchers, today I saw a brand-new park that just opened last month – Yesler Terrace Park – much sooner than I probably would have otherwise.

Formerly the site of the Yesler Terrace public housing development, the 1.7 acre park serves “as a gathering place for current and future residents of Yesler Terrace as well as people who live and work in the surrounding community. The current residents are primarily from Southeast Asia and the Horn of Africa.” A new housing development for a range of income levels was built nearby.

9/28/18 Yesler Terrace Park and the Smith Tower

Having seen only a few photos of the park in the newspaper, I didn’t really know what to expect when I arrived. It’s a wide-open, welcoming space with lots of benches, tables and small sculptures. Looking right past the freeway, there’s a spectacular view of south downtown, the stadium and even a peek at the peak of Mt. Rainier. (And somehow I forgot to take photos of any of it!) If you walk through the park and down multiple stairways, you pass newly landscaped and terraced grounds and eventually end up in the middle of Chinatown-International District. If you are looking for one of Seattle’s most diverse neighborhoods, Yesler Terrace Park would be at its center.

With all of that to choose from, what did I sketch? Streetcar and utility wires criss-crossing Broadway and shadows in the street cast by new construction.

As seems to have become my habit lately, I spent so much time on that first sketch that I left myself only 26 minutes before the throwdown for a second sketch. Looking for the Smith Tower, my favorite Seattle building, I had to sight past one of numerous concrete spheres around the park. It reminded me of one of the early exercises we did in the drawing class I took last month: sketching a ball in the sunlight to practice capturing the core shadow, cast shadow, form shading and reflected light. The whole scene looked like a value study, so study it I did.

This time we had a rain contingency plan that consisted of more than optimism, but luckily, we didn’t need it. The morning turned out sunny, warm and beautiful – a lovely gift for the end of September.

Emerald City Turning Gold

My sketches from ground level to the sky. Zoom sketch here.

Seattle Urban Sketchers met at 2:30pm. for an early autumn sketch crawl on Saturday afternoon, Sept. 22, 2018. I was fortunate to be at this location already, having just finished teaching an urban sketching workshop for beginners through Historic Seattle.

 

Looking up at my 3rd Story window

I had a view of the Seattle skyline  from a third story window in a stairwell of the Good Shepherd Center. Fall colors were beginning to show amongst the greenery of the "Emerald City".

I watched the storm clouds blow in over old brick chimney stacks and power lines strung with vintage glass insulators.

The 100 year old apple trees on the property stood shrouded in nets as this year's crop ripened for imminent harvest.

Perched on the 3rd Floor stairway landing, I had a panoramic view.    WIP Ink Sketch

Kate chose the beautiful facade and arched entryway, along with other sketchers.

After a slow start, our group grew sizably and we had a great collection of sketches at the throwdown from artists age 3 to over 70. See Kate's and Tina's accounts of this event.

I couldn't resist one last sketch in the parking lot before driving home. The apples were very tempting!

On Wednesday, October 17, the Good Shepherd Center will have it's 4th Annual Apple Tasting with support from City Fruit. Tables will be set up at the south end of the main building and visitors may taste these heirloom apples for free. There will be homemade apple pies and more available.

Historic Seattle/USk Workshop and Good Shepherd Center

Michele Cooper's urban sketching workshop collaboratively presented with Historic Seattle

When Historic Seattle invited Urban Sketchers Seattle to collaborate in presenting a sketching workshop, the partnership was a good fit. Members of Historic Seattle, a nonprofit organization committed to the preservation of Seattle’s historic landmarks, love old buildings just like sketchers do. And Good Shepherd Center, the first project that Historic Seattle worked to save and then manage for community events, was an ideal location for Michele Cooper’s popular First Steps in Visual Journaling USk workshop.

Michele’s students had a fun morning learning the basics of sketching. Then in the afternoon, an optional sketchcrawl at the Center and Meridian Park was an opportunity to introduce her students to an actual outing with the rest of us.

The outing featured many sketchable attractions at Good Shepherd Center and Meridian Park, including the historic Seattle Landmark building itself, a playground, gazebo, sculptures and lots of shrouded apple trees protected from insects in this pesticide-free park. Once I arrived, however, I learned that the Great Wallingford Wurst Festival was just a couple of blocks away! I’m not a fan of wurst, but I am a fan of small community festivals (especially “great” ones), so I couldn’t resist.

As Jane and I walked toward St. Benedictine School, where the wurst family event has been held annually for 35 years, the church’s tower called to me as an ideal exercise in graphite. I had my pencil and sketchbook out, ready to go, but then rockabilly music from the festival called to me even more loudly. Forget the tower – I had more fun sketching this group of lively musicians.

9/22/18 Entertainers at the Great Wallingford Wurst Fest

After hanging out at the wurst fest longer than I had intended, watching kids win prizes at the flamingo toss and other sports, I hurried back to the Good Shepherd Center. With only 20 minutes until the throwdown, I went out to the back veranda, where the columns cast stripes of shadows in the late-afternoon sun.

Many thanks to Historic Seattle for opening the Center to USk Seattle!

9/22/18 Good Shepherd Center's veranda

Good Sheperd Center

Good Shepherd Center, which is on the National Historic Register, used to be a place of shelter and education for young women in need. After 60 years of such service, it was supposed to be turned into a shopping mall in 1975 until Wallingford neighborhood residents defeated that proposal. Thankfully, the nonprofit organization Historic Seattle took over management of this Seattle Landmark building, which now hosts a variety of community events.   Originally owned by the Sisters of the Good Shepherd, it is a "Fine example of the Italianate style, embellished with Corinthian capitals and elaborate stone work. Built by architect C. Alfred Breitung in 1906.  (per Tina K. and the website).

We held an unusual afternoon sketch outing yesterday after Michele Cooper's Urban Sketching workshop for Historic Seattle. There were about 20 sketchers and 2 or 3 new sketchers joined us.



I wandered around the grounds. I'd not seen this before in Seattle but the trees were tented to protect the apples.  They are having an heirloom apple tasting on October 17.  Apples have been grown there for 100 years.  




There were many sketch targets on the grounds but I settled back at the front entrance where I did two sketches. I'm continuing to practice for (or getting a head start on) Inktober.  


Loose sheet of "Fluid-100" 140# cold press watercolor paper; Platinum Carbon Black ink; Daniel Smith watercolors.


Stillman & Birn Alpha sketchbook; Platinum Carbon Black ink

More photos

Fire Station No. 2 and Belltown

9/16/18 Fire Station No. 2 and other Belltown landmarks

It was déjà vu all over again.

Just like Friday, I woke today to pouring rain, wondering if I would be alone at the meetup location. An overhang and some large trees would offer some shelter to sketchers who wanted to face Fire Station No. 2 in Belltown, but if we got the thunderstorms and heavy rain forecast by weather.com, it wouldn’t be much fun. In addition, the Storm’s WNBA championship parade at Seattle Center was expected to make traffic and parking difficult in the area.

The hardcore who showed up at the start time!

But again, just like Friday, the showers turned into sunshine, and the handful of sketchers who met me at the start time turned into a strong showing by the time of the throwdown!

Despite the blue sky directly above, I was leery that the rain could return at any moment and reluctant to commit to a page-size composition that I might have to abandon. Instead, I decided to make a series of small sketches in Michele Cooper’s montage style. My first stop was Station No. 2, the focus of our outing. Designated a landmark in 1985, the 1921-built facility houses one engine company, a ladder unit, a medic unit and a reserve medic unit (some of which we saw coming out and back into the station as we sketched). 

One of the fire trucks responding to an emergency as we
sketched.

Next I wanted to capture the Space Needle flying Seattle Storm’s flag. I’m not a basketball fan, but it was exciting to see a women’s team being celebrated as an alternative to the usual Seahawks’ 12 flag at this time of year. (The drops on my Needle sketch indicate that standing under a tree while sketching isn’t necessarily a good strategy when it has been raining all night.)

The historic bell had captured several other sketchers’ attention, and for good reason. From the station that was near the same location in the 1800s, the bell sounded an alarm that could be heard for “nearly 10 miles,” said the plaque. “The horse-drawn engine then responded to the location.”

(Contrary to my speculation, the Belltown neighborhood was not named for this bell, which had an important emergency response role in the 1800s. It was named for William Nathaniel Bell, a member of the Denny party that originally settled Seattle. In addition, Virginia Street and Olive Way were named after his children. It’s a good thing I sketch and blog about my sketches or I’d never learn such local trivia.)

Natalie and Antonella sketching the historic bell.

By then the strong wind had chilled me, so I went to look for coffee. Walking back, I looked up at the numerous cranes and construction sites in Belltown. To complete my montage, I picked an apartment complex going up on Second Avenue and Wall Street (one of many such boxy buildings popping up all over the city).

Once again, hooray for hardy sketchers who say bah-humbug to dire weather forecasts!

Rose Paradise

When my father was in his early 70s he still kept an extensive flower garden.  When I visited, we would walk around the serpentine flower beds and admire various plantings.  He poetically described the size, shape, color. and heredity of each specimen.  In my mind I could hear "Pictures At An Exhibition" by Mussorgsky playing as we promenaded together.   

The Rose Garden at Woodland Park took me right back to my father’s pride and joy, his manicured flower beds.  I heard the same music, felt the same peace. Seeing the gardeners tend to the plots filled me with appreciation for their work and devotion to creating a haven of roses. 

"John F Kennedy". creamy white with pink tips

Captured by the structure of the roses, I realized stems and leaves were almost as important as blooms.  The dark evergreen backdrop of the garden created an excellent contrast to the delicate pink tipped “John F. Kennedy” hybrid tea roses.  

Mardi Gras colors

Determined to get more color on the page, I turned to a bed of bright orange and yellow roses with powerful upright stems and buds ready to burst.  The poodle topiary trees in the background are focal points in several sections of the garden.  I’m certain the color of the roses influenced my choice of a red pen. 

"Memorial Day" has a memorable fragrance

For my last drawing, I let fragrance lead the way.  The “Memorial Day” roses expressed themselves with pinkish lavender color and ruffled edges.  Some of the roses were in full bloom, some were drooping, others had only a few petals left, they all smelled heavenly,

I enjoy the names of roses and got to thinking if there was a rose named Kathleen. I found there are several roses named Kathleen.  You can find a list of roses named after people on Wikipedia. 

Woodland Park Rose Garden

9/14/18 Woodland Park Rose Garden

During the iffy-weather season (and by that I mean September through June), USk Seattle must have a contingency plan for any outdoor event. In August when we planned today’s outing to Woodland Park Zoo’s Rose Garden, it was so warm and sunny that we thought we’d still have a good chance of dry weather by mid-September. Our contingency plan was optimism.

Looking out the window at the downpour as I got ready to leave for Woodland Park, I wondered if I would be standing at the meeting point alone. Only three other sketchers joined me, and we applauded ourselves for being hardcore urban sketchers! Luckily, it was barely sprinkling by then, and in between intermittent spitting, the sun came out! And a little later, many other sketchers joined us.

Although most of the roses were past their prime, the garden was still full of color from late-blooming flowers as well as trees just beginning to turn. (Trivia from the zoo’s website: Spent flowers from the pesticide-free garden are fed to zoo animals, especially the gorillas, who love floral snacks.) The topiary, bushes and lawn were lush and bright green. After all that heat and wildfire smoke, it finally felt “normal” again.

A few weeks ago when a Gage class I was taking met at this same garden, I was intrigued by the fanciful topiary. It was fun tackling one of the funky trees with charcoal, but in the back of my mind, I fully intended to sketch one again sometime in color. I went out to the middle of the garden so that I could place the gazebo in the same composition.

After strolling around a while to admire the well-tended plantings, I walked through the Sensory Garden, which features bells and chimes that can be played, an artificial hill, and other interactive exhibits. I liked the composition of the bright blue poles and slender trees behind them.

Chatting with Carol, who was sketching in the gazebo (she appears in my sketch at the top), I was impressed by her tripod-based sketching easel. She said she learned the idea for it from various urban sketchers who shared photos and instructions online.

Carol's tripod easel

Yay for sketchers who scoff at a little rain!

Sketches from Porto, USk Symposium

I thought it was too late to be posting sketches from the Symposium in Porto. But, encouraged by Jane's recent post with her post-symposium sketches, I decided better late than never. So here are some of the drawings I did during the Symposium sketchcrawls and the classes I took. It was the first time I have attended a Symposium, but I hope it's not the last. It was amazing to be so immersed in sketching and surrounded so continuously by sketchers! I am posting just a few sketches here, but more are on Instagram. I am Sue.Heston on Instagram.



This is one of the drawings I did in Jose Louro's workshop. I also took a workshop with Joao Catarino, and both of these guys stretched the way I think of urban sketching.



What? A watercolor? Charline Moreau demoed a monochrome watercolor underpainting technique that was all about values and it really resonated with me!



This was the scene at the Final Sketchcrawl - sketchers as far as the eye could see (over 500!).



And one of my personal favs from a sketchcrawl in the "upper city" to wrap up a picture-heavy post.