Soggy Folklife

5/24/24 KEXP/Cafe Vita at Seattle Center

As rain dripped off our heads, Kim and I wondered whether we would be the only ones who showed up for the USk outing at the Northwest Folklife Festival. Before the pandemic, USk Seattle used to sketch at Folklife nearly every year. Although Memorial Day weekend weather is always iffy, I don’t recall rain ever falling on our Folklife outings. Well, there’s a first time for everything.

Busking drummer

Apparently the only sketchers intrepid enough to show up in the rain (never mind that we’re both admins leading the event), Kim and I retreated to KEXP radio station’s Café Vita on the Seattle Center grounds. In addition to being the actual broadcasting studio, it’s a huge venue that also hosts town halls and other community gatherings. As part of Folklife, the station was holding a panel discussion to help performing musicians, “Financial Fitness for Gigging Artists.” As I sketched, I learned a lot about business and financial issues that musicians face and how to resolve them.

Near the throwdown time, the rain had stopped, so we ventured back out to the Armory meetup location. I had a few minutes to fill, so I followed the sound of drumming and found a drum soloist busker. Listening to music through his headphones, he drummed along with it.

Kim and I were delighted that a few other sketchers did show up, and we high-fived for being among the USk Seattle hardcore.

Where da heck are the rest of the sketchers??!

The hardcore showed up for the throwdown!

Drizzly U-District Street Fair

5/18/24 U-District Street Fair

After a streak of good weather during USk Seattle outings (well, except for soggy Cinco de Mayo), our luck ran out today: The U-District Street Fair was mostly damp to drizzly. Still, I managed to duck under awnings and trees to catch the general fair ambiance of tents and attendees, a balloon man, and two members of a jazz group performing on the stage.

Eventually I got chilly and tired of being dripped on by trees, so I retreated to Ugly Mug Café and Coffee Roasters, where the windows cast a nice backlighting on patrons.

5/18/24 Ugly Mug Cafe

Our luck was back for the throwdown, when it finally stopped raining and the sun even appeared briefly. (By this afternoon when I was back at home, it started pouring! I feel bad for the vendors, who probably lost a lot of sales to the miserable weather.)

For three decades before the pandemic, the annual U-District Street Fair was one of our favorite summer (or near-summer) events. Begun in 1970 with roots in activism for social and political change, this was Seattle’s first street fair and the country’s longest-running festival of its kind. It came back strong in 2022 after a necessary pandemic pause, but we didn’t attend the last couple years. Despite the rain, it was good to be back today, especially with USk Seattle. (The last time USk Seattle met there was in 2019.)

Speaking of USk, Monday is my 12-year anniversary since I joined Urban Sketchers Seattle!

12 years with my tribe!

UW Quad Protest

5/9/24 UW Quad

The day before USk Seattle’s outing to the University of Washington Biology Greenhouse, student protests of the university’s involvement with support to Israel started heating up. News reports said the pro-Palestinian protest encampment was still relatively peaceful, though, so I wasn’t concerned. I was, however, a naughty USk admin: After leading the group into the greenhouse, I went out to the Quad, where the encampment had been set up. I saw a good opportunity for sketch reportage!

OK, that’s what I told myself, but if truth be known, I just wanted to sketch in the sun. Two winters ago, USk met at the greenhouse when it was chilly out, so the greenhouse’s warmth was welcome. This afternoon, though, the hot, humid greenhouse was less appealing; I preferred 70-degree sunshine!

Even if my primary motivation wasn’t journalistic, I did find it an interesting challenge to tell the story of the encampment on a comics-like page (above). How different the Quad looked, covered end-to-end with tents, compared to the last time USk Seattle met there to sketch the fairyland of cherry blossoms.

After finishing that montage, I found myself suddenly hungry, so I wandered over to the HUB for a snack. I’ve been inside the HUB maybe three times since I graduated in 1985, and every time I’ve been shocked by how much everything has changed since I was a student. I open the same doors I opened nearly daily for six years, but inside, nothing looks the same.

Still, I enjoy the vibrant energy of the UW campus, especially between classes when students stream by in all directions. As I caught snippets of conversations, I realized not everything changes; students still talk about the same kinds of things.

Saturday with the Boys in the Boat

This past weekend was the opening day of boating season in Seattle and the Windermere Cup races at the University of Washington. Lots of people and boats, gray drizzle, but for me, the highlight was getting to sketch the interior of the actual UW Shell House made famous in both the popular book and the recent film, The Boys in the Boat.

That story–a true story–is about a ragtag group of University of Washington rowers who beat the national favorites and traveled to Germany to race in the 1936 Olympics. In front of Hitler, they WON the gold medal! A proud moment for our country and a legacy that is still celebrated here in Seattle and especially at the UW. Drawing this space was an emotional experience, I felt like I was connecting with that legacy and the young men who lived and worked in this very same spot.

This drawing was challenging! It’s an enormous, fairly complicated space that was initially used as an airplane hangar, and the backlighting from the windows made it very difficult to see. Scaffolding was in the way too, but I kept calm, measured with my pencil, and drew in each bay of structure. Then working left to right, I started to draw in the details…some I couldn’t see well enough to figure out, but I think I got close enough!

Soggy Cinco de Mayo

 

5/4/24 Cinco de Mayo celebration at El Centro de la Raza, Beacon Hill neighborhood

 

As I drove to the Cinco de Mayo celebration at El Centro de la Raza, the rain was just starting, and I thought how fortuitous it was that we had chosen an indoor venue for our second International USk Week outing. The weather got the last laugh, though, when I saw that while El Centro is a former school building, the festival was outdoors! Nonetheless, a few other hardcore sketchers showed up for the festivities, which included lots of traditional Mexican music and dance, food and colorful vendor booths.

When I made a pit stop inside the school, I spotted a Dia de los Muertos display for the social activist Roberto Maestas. One of the floral-decorated skull heads called to me, especially since it was a way to sketch without getting wet.

The rest of the sketches are of some vocalists, a vendor booth and a bust of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (El Centro de la Raza means “the center for people of all races,” so many cultures are honored there). Every sketchbook should have at least one page containing drops of the local DNA.

Mark found a way to stay dry.

I (mostly) didn't.

Seattle Chinese Garden for International USk Week

5/1/24 Seattle Chinese Garden

When I looked at my blog to see when I had last sketched at Seattle Chinese Garden, I was surprised to find that it was six years ago. I think USk Seattle has met there since, but I must have missed that outing. In any case, it felt familiar yet fresh to be back there again with other sketchers.

Since the garden’s annual Peony Festival is next weekend, we were all hoping we’d see some blooms, but our recent weeks of cold must have discouraged the flowers. I know how they feel, since I was fully dressed for winter – sweater, down parka, gloves – and I was still chilly from the brisk wind, even though the sun was out. As a result, my choice of sketch subjects on Wednesday morning were determined by whether I could stand in the sun.

I began with a curved pavilion rooftop where Tom was sketching (upper right, top of post) and a peek of the “Dragon Seeker” stone sculpture (lower right), which was made in Thailand more than a century ago. (I sketched more of the carp the first time I visited the garden in 2015).

Wandering through different parts of the garden, I came upon a bamboo grove with lovely sunlight filtering through. Of course, a scene like this begs for watercolor, to which I sighed and conceded. As usual, I felt the obligatory tug to use a medium that would be a struggle but that also compels me (below).

Bamboo at Seattle Chinese Garden

Relieved to be done with that, I continued wandering the well-tended garden and made two more additions to my main comic-y spread. It’s always satisfying to put a few finishing borders and captions on.In case you can’t read the sticker (made by Kate), May 1 – 7 is International Urban Sketchers Week (see the hashtag #USkWeek2024). Sketch groups around the world are having events this week to raise awareness of USk and, of course, to sketch together as we did.