Emerald City Turning Gold

My sketches from ground level to the sky. Zoom sketch here.

Seattle Urban Sketchers met at 2:30pm. for an early autumn sketch crawl on Saturday afternoon, Sept. 22, 2018. I was fortunate to be at this location already, having just finished teaching an urban sketching workshop for beginners through Historic Seattle.

 

Looking up at my 3rd Story window

I had a view of the Seattle skyline  from a third story window in a stairwell of the Good Shepherd Center. Fall colors were beginning to show amongst the greenery of the "Emerald City".

I watched the storm clouds blow in over old brick chimney stacks and power lines strung with vintage glass insulators.

The 100 year old apple trees on the property stood shrouded in nets as this year's crop ripened for imminent harvest.

Perched on the 3rd Floor stairway landing, I had a panoramic view.    WIP Ink Sketch

Kate chose the beautiful facade and arched entryway, along with other sketchers.

After a slow start, our group grew sizably and we had a great collection of sketches at the throwdown from artists age 3 to over 70. See Kate's and Tina's accounts of this event.

I couldn't resist one last sketch in the parking lot before driving home. The apples were very tempting!

On Wednesday, October 17, the Good Shepherd Center will have it's 4th Annual Apple Tasting with support from City Fruit. Tables will be set up at the south end of the main building and visitors may taste these heirloom apples for free. There will be homemade apple pies and more available.

Holy Smoke! Intrepid Sketchers make their First Steps Into Visual Journaling, a 10x10 USK Workshop in Hazy Seattle

Saturday, August 25

Seattle wasn't its usual bustling self with sidewalks and parks full of locals and tourists enjoying the last weekend in August. Unhealthy air quality caused by smoke from wildfires burning in Canada and multiple states has taken its toll on all outdoor activities for the past few weeks. Air quality announcements advise people at risk to stay indoors. How would this work out for beginning students coming to my USK 10x10 First Steps Into Visual Journaling Workshop?

I handed out badges and pencils as my full class arrived. We loaded up on coffee, quiche and breakfast goodies from the Grand Central Bakery and pulled up our seats at the long wooden table inside the Arcade. I had planned for everyone to start the day with some quick warm up exercises. We covered materials, lettering, simple figures, how to use watercolor pencils and water brushes with or without pens, and more!

Warm up exercises and getting to know our materials

Many of my students were healthy enough to brave the unhealthy air for just a 10 minute dash out into the square for some first steps in sketching figures. They were practicing my patented 6-stroke method!

 
In my bag was a packet of handouts with illustrations on brick buildings and alleyways.

I had planned to go out onto the cobbled square with my students around noon for a demonstration and assignment but the air quality app I was using was in the orange zone; hazardous, limit outdoor activity, no strenuous exercise!

I stepped out of the big glass doors onto 1st Ave S. to check on the visibility and smoke factor for myself. As you can see, there was so much haze that things started fading out only a block or two away. There were so few people in this usually busy Seattle tourist area that you would never know that it was a summer weekend in August. Even Occidental Square had few people other than a food line provided by local charities for the homeless.

So it was on to plan "B". Just in case we were smoked out, I had a digital handout ready. I sent step by step instructions to everyone's smart phones illustrating how to take the first steps into drawing and painting cars. I call it Cars: Inside the box. I demonstrated each step. Carefully avoiding the "P" word (perspective) the approach is to draw and connect simple shapes. Everyone amazed themselves with their results. You can see how well they've done when you see the "throw down"  below.

I asked everyone to share their favorite sketches of the day on the old wood bench in the Arcade.

Intrepid new urban sketchers meeting the challenge safe inside the Grand Central Arcade

Thanks to my fantastic students and everyone at the Grand Central Building for accommodating the weather situation. I loved sharing some tips and techniques with this group and can't wait to see you at the next USk Seattle outing! You have what it takes to be an urban sketcher wherever you go! You took off smokin'!

Thanks also to Tina Koyama, who popped in to cover this event for Seattle Urban Sketchers blog.

Michele’s Visual Journaling

8/25/18 Michele demo-ing the 6-stroke figure inside Grand Central Arcade

Although Michele Cooper has taught First Steps in Visual Journaling several times, I’ve always managed to be out of town when it was offered. Yesterday I was finally able to catch up with her in Pioneer Square to sketch and photograph her popular USk 10x10 workshop in action. Known for her delightful sense of humor, Michele gently eased her students toward documenting their day’s activities with sketches and words.

The exercise I caught her demo-ing was her signature “6-stroke people” – like stick figures but with realistic human proportions – which she uses frequently to sketch people in the middle and far distance of an urban environment. Steering her students away from getting bogged down by facial or clothing details, she suggested that they “indicate, don’t illustrate.”

Michele showing some of her favorite sketching tools.

The smoky sky was back again, which kept her workshop mostly indoors. Undaunted, Michele showed her students that urban sketchers adapt to changing, unpredictable circumstances, and they made themselves at home inside Grand Central Arcade.

After eavesdropping on Michele and her students for a while, I became famished and decided I needed a sandwich from Grand Central Bakery. You know I rarely sketch my food: If I’m hungry enough to have it in front of me, I’m too hungry to sketch it. However, inspired by Michele’s montage style of visual journaling, I stopped myself from devouring the sandwich long enough to make the world’s fastest sketch. After scarfing it down, I looked around Grand Central Arcade to make a couple of small sketches next to the sandwich: Michele giving a demo and one of the ceiling lamps.

Before heading home, I walked out to Occidental Park to fill the rest of the page with some ping-pong players and a flower basket hanging from an iconic Pioneer Square lamp post. I guess the sandwich didn’t have to be quite so prominent on the page, but that’s what happens when I sketch hungry.

8/25/18 Inspired by Michele's montage style, here's my sandwich center stage surrounded by other elements of my day.

Some of Michele's students ventured outdoors to Occidental
Park to practice their 6-stroke figures.

Last Summer for Bothell Country Village

Bothell Country Village is a unique place where character abounds. Naturally it is one of the favorite sketching locations for Seattle Urban Sketchers, who met there today for what may be the last time. The property has been sold and the village will be dismantled after April, 2019.

I wanted my composition to look like a patchwork quilt, with some old and some new "pieces of fabric." Except my quilt is made of the fabric of time.

Fading into history

Keepsake Cottage Fabrics has been at "The Barn" since 1984. The owner, Julie, told me they will have to relocate to a warehouse and try to continue their business online.

Sketching from across the street under the covered porch by the bakery.

The windmill originally came from a wheat farm in Waterville, Eastern Washington.

I was surrounded by blue lace cap hydrangeas and borders of summer flowers in full bloom as the day turned from a cool, overcast 60°F to a pleasant partly sunny 70°F towards lunchtime.

Ann was on the front porch, documenting all the beautiful bolts of fabric lined up along the wall.

Tina was across the street on the covered boardwalk, sketching the barn with graphite and kneaded eraser.

Meandering paths lead you through a whimsical world of duck ponds, home decor, restaurants, one of a kind toys, gifts, antiques and more.

It seems there is never enough time in the 2-3 hours that we spend sketching during each outing. How could you possibly document it all?

See IG and Flickr tags #uskseattle for more sketches from our outing on Friday, August 3.

A small family runs their flower stand at the Friday Farmers' Market. June 1 - Sept 28, 2018

Cooking up a Surprise in Hip and Historical Columbia City

In a show of solidarity with our fellow sketchers in Porto, Portugal, Usk Seattle met in the Columbia City neighborhood today. We knew that the participants at the Porto Symposium were attending workshops and sketching on the street in Portugal at this very same moment.

The hip and historic Columbia City Neighborhood at Rainier Ave and Ferdinand

A sketchers' party on the street. Kate on pastry security duty.

Kate made badges and signs for our "Porto Pity Party" and Michele and Kate cooked up a surprise for those who met at "Geraldines" corner this morning. There were fresh baked Portuguese style pasteis de nata and our own Starbucks coffee to start the day. Patrick, USkSeattle friend and baker, came through with the tasty egg custard tarts. Thank you, Patrick! In true urban style, we spread a Portuguese print tablecloth over the Seattle Times newspaper box (Hi, Gabi!) and everyone helped themselves.

The Myers Music Street Clock leaned over in curiosity to get a closer look, much as the Clerigos Tower in Porto curiously peered at what was going on around it. (A nod to Isa Silva for a witty symposium logo)

The clock across the street was once located on 1st Ave

As we walked down Rainier Ave toward the Columbia Branch Library, Kate and I talked about the dramatic changes in the neighborhood since it was built. The branch's landmark 1915 building is the smallest of the libraries built for Seattle with gifts from philanthropist Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919).  The branch itself dates to 1909, two years after Columbia City was annexed into Seattle.

Sketching the Carnegie Library front door and patron

Carnegie would be astounded at how the library is used today.

Not only can you pick up a great book for your summer reading, you can play a game of chess, catch up on your email, research anything online or even engage in a popular art activity.

You can download and print a coloring sheet for your branch. Coloring sheets are available for all 27 Library locations. What a great way to start your urban sketching skills!

Download the coloring sheet

We are also celebrating the 9th Anniversary of the founding of Seattle Urban Sketchers. Kate had signs made up for that, too, which we proudly displayed at our sketchbook throwdown. See Kate's blog post with more photos.

Then we had lunch at Pagliacci.

Refuge from the Heat Wave at Bellevue Botanical Garden

As our heat wave continued, USk Seattle found refuge at Bellevue Botanical Garden for their monthly outing today. It was cool and comfortable in the shade of the forested garden. The outside temperature climbed from 78°F to 91°F from the time we met at 10 am. until many left the parking lot after lunch at around 2:00 pm.

I was amazed at the transformation from the old familiar gardens that I last visited at least a decade ago. New buildings, teaching centers, pathways and further development of emerging sections of the garden were everywhere in evidence. I went looking for something familiar. First, I found the "Hobbit Door" as I walked along the path beyond the Tea House. Although I was on my way to the Yao Garden, I just had to capture this enchanting little feature.

I was entranced as always by the serenity of the Yao Japanese Garden. I found a cool shady spot at the south end of the pond and spent the rest of my sketching time there. I sketched the summer sky reflected in the pond and the rocks and plantings bordering it all around. Somehow I was subliminally influenced to go to the gift shop and buy two rocks with images on one side and sayings on the other. They make good paper weights!

I dumped out my sketch bag on the studio table and used the garden map for a bit of ephemera on my journal page.

With the air conditioning on full blast, I made the 1 hour commute back home where the gauge on the deck said it was 92°F in Marysville! Isn't this supposed to be the weather in Porto during the symposium? I think we've switched climates!

First Steps into Visual Journaling Workshop is a Wrap!

I went to Occidental Park on Monday before the workshop to see if anything had changed since the last time I was there and to do a few warm up sketches. Oh, and to check out the food trucks.

My warm up sketches in progress on Monday. Sorry, no food trucks on Saturday.

Saturday, May 19,  I met with my students in Occidental Square for Seattle's USK Workshop #8 of the 10x10 Spring 2018 program being held around the world this year. Ten, or so,  instructors in each area are teaching various aspects of urban sketching in the cities where they live.

Geared toward beginners, my workshop "First Steps into Visual Journaling" gives some easy, basic touchstones of urban sketching to those who are new or those who just haven't picked up a sketchbook in a while.

New urban sketchers, all smiles at the end of a First Steps into Visual Journaling Workshop with Michele Cooper

I couldn't have asked for anything more: Here I am on a beautiful Seattle Saturday with my enthusiastic students, ready to take their first steps into urban sketching. See Jane Wingfield's review here on Seattle Urban Sketchers blog.

Pens, pencils, sketchbooks, coffee and quiche in the Grand Central Arcade building. Photo credit: Jane Wingfield

We had a fantastic venue, rain or shine, with pretty much the entire indoor arcade and huge wood tables to ourselves for the first part of the workshop. Due to the 9:00am start time, we even had the bakery and coffee shop easily accessible without the usual long lines typical of the late morning and lunch crowd. Many used the Grand Central Bakery cards as part of the collectible ephemera incorporated into their visual journals.

There's always something interesting going on in Occidental Park.

There is a plethora of "street furniture" in the neighborhood to sketch.

Standing, sitting or on the run, sketchers are busy capturing their day in their visual journals.

The street gets busier as the morning progresses. The students progress as they get busier!
We even shared the sidewalk for a while with a large tour group.

A savvy urban sketcher in "secure" sketch mode while a tour group stops by.

I managed to get some photos of my students at work on their assignments.

 Photo left: Getting the sky shape


Following are a few of the visual journal pages from the workshop generously shared by some of my students. Aren't these new sketchers (and a few more experienced ones) fantastic!

PS. I wanted to give priority to my students in this post but I am working on an article with my sketches and some images of my illustrated pages from the workshop. I will post that one soon.

Even practiced sketchers are welcome at the "First Steps" workshop. Nice work!

The shadows of our tree-lined park with all the identifiable elements of this particular urban scene.

Choose simple subjects when trying out new materials. This student combined all her 10x10 classes so far on the right hand page.

Plaques, signs and conversations overheard while sketching can be used to inform the narrative of a visual journal.

This page has a couple of mini photos taken on the spot and info overheard from a tour group that paused nearby.

This spread is well composed with all the elements of a visual journal.

Each individual makes this a visual journal that is uniquely their own, a record of their personal experience and reportage of their on location observations.

Line, shape, form and texture all expressed simply and beautifully with a water soluble ink pen and waterbrush.

This spread aptly documents the experience of being in Seattle's first neighborhood on a beautiful May morning.

Thanks for coming, everyone! Thanks for giving me permission to post your journals. I had a blast teaching, sketching, and sharing the day with you!

Thanks to Jane Wingfield for covering the workshop in your superb article and review. Read it here.