Formidable Dome Room at Arctic Club

 

12/17/25 Arctic Club Hotel Dome Room (full panorama)

Decades ago, I attended a work-related event in the Arctic Club Hotel’s majestic Dome Room. Although I hadn’t been back there since, I clearly remembered how spectacular the space was. Of course, I wasn’t a sketcher back then, so I wouldn’t have considered how formidable the Dome is as a sketch subject. Now I know.

While a few stayed in the lobby, most USk Seattle sketchers bravely took on the Dome, which was worthy of our attention. Seeing it as a study of black and white contrasts kept me from thinking about perspective and other such fussing.

To complete the landscape panorama page spread, I went outside to sketch one of the many walrus gargoyles on the historic building, which was built in 1916. Originally called the Arctic Building, it’s a City of Seattle landmark on the National Register of Historic Places.

After the hard work inside the Dome, it was a welcome relief to join other sketchers at a drink & draw at the hotel’s Polar Bar, where the bear himself was a much easier subject. What a fun afternoon!

Polar Bar inside the Arctic Club Hotel (I thought the bar napkin would be a perfect piece of collage to add to my sketch journal page, but the glue I dotted onto the back stayed looking wet even after it had dried, which is not the look I wanted. Not sure what kind of glue would have dried more transparently on that thin, absorbent paper.)

The formidable Dome!

A Library and a Walrus

6/9/17 Seattle Public Library

How many icons can a person sketch in one day? When I started out yesterday for the Urban Sketchers Seattle gathering, I didn’t know I would end up sketching several icons, including two on my “must sketch someday” list.

6/9/17 View facing east on Madison Street

The meeting place was the Fourth and Madison Building’s seventh floor terrace – a pleasant outdoor space for nearby workers to bring their bag lunches and for sketchers to catch unusual peek-a-boo views. The one I (and many other sketchers) chose was looking east on Madison Street toward St. James Cathedral at the top of the hill looking very tiny in the steel and glass canyon.

However, that’s not one of the “must sketch” icons I was referring to. For one I went down to the building’s lobby, where a large window faced the Seattle Public Library’s downtown branch. Although I’ve sketched inside this flagship library building several times, I’ve never sketched the whole building, although I’ve wanted to. Designed by Rem Koolhaas and Joshua Prince-Ramus, the unusual and striking building has always seemed too intimidating. Yet as I gazed at it yesterday, I had the same feeling I had while sketching in Positano or the Walt Disney Concert Hall in L.A.: The architectural lines are so unconventional and unexpected, who would know if my sketch were wonky? I took it on.

By then I had only five minutes left before the sketchbook throwdown, so I quickly went back up to the seventh floor terrace for the other peek-a-boo view I’d considered: The Space Needle hiding behind the “Darth Vader” (Fourth and Blanchard) Building.

6/9/17 Space Needle and Fourth & Blanchard Building

However, that, too, is not one of the two “must sketch” icons I was referring to. The second one was a walrus on the side of the Arctic Building. One of few old buildings in Seattle with any kind of gargoyles or other cool exterior decorations, it has walruses all the way around, way above eye level. Luckily for me, this one was adjacent to a parking lot, so I could stand next to it instead of on the street, where I would have had to look straight up to sketch. As a bonus, the Smith Tower was right next to it! 

Whew. I think I hit my Seattle icon quota for the year.

6/9/17 Arctic Building walrus and Smith Tower