SAM with WSU Students

 

10/10/25 Seattle Art Museum's Hammering Man

SAM interior

Every October, Washington State University professor Bob Krikac and his colleagues bring their interior design and landscape architectural students to Seattle for a variety of educational opportunities. Meeting with USk Seattle is on Bob’s agenda each year, and we always look forward to sketching with about 50 young people. Bob and the other instructors feel strongly that observational drawing on location is an important skill for any design student to learn (and I certainly agree). What could be better than giving the students that experience with Seattle USk?

This year we chose the Seattle Art Museum for our joint outing. In the center of downtown Seattle, the museum building itself, especially the huge Hammering Man sculpture, and surrounding buildings are great practice in architectural drawing. In case of rain, we could all duck into the museum’s free lobby area. (About halfway through the outing, we were happy to have that option, as the morning’s drizzle turned to rain.)

At right is "Little Cloud Sky," the long-term exhibit over the SAM lobby.

I got a good opportunity to sketch both outside and inside SAM, including the newish Little Cloud Sky long-term exhibit over the lobby. The herd of three-dimensional cloud faces is cute and uplifting, I guess. Compared to Middle Fork, the huge hand-built tree that hung over the lobby for several years, or the crazy overhead cars before that, these rubbery smiley faces are a bit underwhelming. They are, however, a deceptively difficult perspective challenge, so there’s that (if you’re into that kind of thing).

As always, it was invigorating to be around the enthusiastic students, who were all eager to draw.

One of our biggest throwdowns ever!

Cheerful but deceptively difficult to sketch!