Scootering to Portland

In August, I was dying to get out of Seattle while the weather was warm enough for me to ride anywhere. Over 5 days drove down to Portland on my scooter, camping one night each way, and slept in a hammock in my friend's garden while in the city. My scooter friend accompanied me for one night.

Because I was avoiding the interstate highway, I took the long scenic route around Mount Rainier, over Mt. Saint Helens, and southwest through southern Washington into Oregon. And on the way back I went due north on the pretty side roads parallel to I-5 and the Columbia River. We stopped for a roadside burger at Scaleburger in Elbe off Route 7.

Before finding our first camping spot, we stopped in Morton for an outdoor beer and talked to an old timer at the pub about his Burning Man days ("not this year") and how the town has changed.

I didn't get much time to sketch because there was so much driving. On my last day, my phone died while I was camping in the forest, leaving me sans map in the middle of nowhere. I pulled into the first drive through espresso stand I found and the barista let me charge. While I waited, I drank a cappuccino and sketched their rusty pickup truck/sign. As thanks, I did a quick watercolor of the espresso shack and gave it to them.  

 It was a great and challenging ride!

daily drawing 2

The second chunk of my daily sketch endeavor. I'll keep this going until at least the end of October. 

10/4: Pono Ranch in Ballard. nice sketching spot close to the bridge - big patio with industrial stuff scattered around, fun to draw! it was incredibly empty while we were there despite being a weekend.	10/5: Neon Boots in Belltown. quick pint with studiomates to do an inktober sketch. the shirtless guy at the table behind was playing magic the gathering.
10/6: Hellbent Brewery in Lake City. I went up here to work on a commission (to draw the brewery) and felt super content with life over the fact that people pay me to do stuff like this sometimes. My friend Dan met me there after I was done working.	10/7: breakfast outdoors at Bounty Kitchen in Queen Anne, after errands.
10/8: at the studio, friend Eric gave his MFA lecture presentation from inside the storefront window as we sit outside on the sidewalk. it was so great to attend an event like this, it's been so long!	10/9: Citizen Coffee in Lower Queen Anne. I'm going to all the outdoor cafes I can before winter starts. Seems like this place is better during bar hours, but they close early now.
10/10: first date with a guy from Hinge - we got coffee and then took a long walk around Central. it was nice. / view of the South Park Bridge, where I ended up because I was dying to ride my scooter somewhere.	10/11: my apartment. it poured rain all day long and I had a zoom call with my friends from the East Coast in the evening.
10/12: Pike Place Market. I was craving a doughnut, but all the places close before 3pm now :( at least I got to sketch this part of the market, which I haven't done before.	10/13: another work meeting on The Lotus in SLU. Jonathan tells me about his family dog who was just "sent to the farm".
10/14: it was super nice outside, so I biked over to the park on 12th Ave by Ba Bar to do work on the picnic tables. I sketched this group of people having lunch together.	10/15: met a couple friends at Chuck's Hop Shop, but they wouldn't let us sit outside without a reservation (despite 80% of tables being vacant), so we bought beers and sat at a sidewalk table across the street & sketched. I'm really enjoying painting trees all sorts of non-green colors lately.

daily drawing

I've been making a point to do one solid sketch every day. It's an answer to my desire for a bit more structure in my life. I live alone & am self employed & single so I have to account for all my time by myself. day in day out. No more regular events anchoring the months. With all the wildly scary and depressing news out there, it’s important to fall back on something positive and immediate. 

I’ve been daring to go out for coffee again (outdoor seating only) while the weather is still nice. It’s been comforting to sit in places where I can overhear conversations and watch the world go by as I sketch, as all urban sketchers can appreciate. And making sure I do something every day that grounds me and consistently makes me happy is therapy.

Here are the first 12 days of my project, September 22 - October 3.

9/22: morning coffee at Broadcast on 20th Ave, listening to two guys chat in Arabic (?).	9/23: work meeting with my writing partner Jonathan. he's working as the caretaker of the Lotus, a 1909 floating lodge moored by Mohai. great views of Lake Union from the cabin!
9/24: dinner at my friends' place in Capitol Hill. we drew Sara while she participated in a distanced performance, which took place over an hour long phone call. it involved a 3 way call between her, a stranger, and a robot prompting conversation & narrative.	9/25: grocery run to Lam's Seafood Market on King St, my favorite food store in the neighborhood. I've wanted to draw this place for a while. Sketching it made me notice how the awnings were attached to the original part with lots of different materials.
9/26: A Saturday where I forced myself to not work on client projects. I ended up at Ada's Technical Books on 15th Ave, where they now have street parking partitioned into distanced tables & chairs. REALLY hoping all this outdoor seating stays a thing forever.	9/27: Sunday plein air club meetup. We ended up at a picnic table on Seattle University campus. drawing those boring buildings in the background was surprisingly fun.
9/28: Feeling lonely, I went up to Bhy Kracke park to take in some sunlight and eat a bag of Dick's. the way a guy was encouraging his dog to fetch made me laugh.	9/29: we watched the presidential debate in the studio, everyone was on edge and I dissociated by drawing this.
9/30: I landed at this cafe i've never been to before, London Plane. It's a really nice, very distanced place to sit and sketch in Occidental Square.	10/1: my scooter friends and I took a little ride down to Burien to eat donuts and sit in Seahurst Park and do the first day of Inktober (clearly I got a head start). it was a smoky day, and the bluffs came in & out of view.
10/2: my sketch friend Alexander has wanted to draw this tower on Swedish Hospital on Jefferson St so we met up and sat in the parking lot across the street. I've discovered my side-hobby of feeding crows peanuts goes really well with my outdoor sketching.	10/3: biked to London Plane again, where I ate a massive cinnamon bun all by myself and drew trees turning fall colors. Pioneer Square has really changed in the last few months.