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!