Double Fun in Queen Anne

7/23/22 Seattle skyline from Kerry Park, Queen Anne Hill

USk Seattle’s outing in upper Queen Anne was two events in one: A celebration of our 13^th anniversary and also participation in the 76^th quarterly World Wide SketchCrawl.

Prepared for the meetup at Kerry Park and its sweeping skyline view, I brought along my panorama-format Stillman & Birn Beta sketchbook. I pack the book whenever I travel, expecting to see and sketch some new skylines, but I haven’t traveled much since 2019. It had been a long time since I’d sketched the Kerry Park skyline (I think 2017 was the last time), so I decided to pretend I was a tourist in Seattle and sketch the postcard view of the Space Needle (unfortunately, Her Majesty Rainier was hiding behind the thick overcast). Plenty of actual tourists stopped by to snap their selfies as I sketched (and some asked me for help taking their photos) – it was a popular spot.

Detail view of the panorama

After that, I took a walk around the Queen Anne neighborhood, which I dearly love for all its beautiful, old homes. (My first apartment was in Queen Anne, so it’s also nostalgic.) Along the way, I made a small sketch of Queen Anne United Methodist Church.

Circling back toward Kerry Park for the throwdown, I made a brief stop at Parsons Garden, which always feels cool and serene compared to the touristy skyline. I caught some girls picnicking just before a mom came by to break up the fun.

In the early years, USk Seattle used to try harder to make our outings coincide with the SketchCrawls, but truthfully, we admins don’t always remember to check the dates when planning. Lately it has fallen by the wayside. But after we sent out the announcement for the Queen Anne outing, Parker Gambino, enthusiastic urban sketcher and SketchCrawler, informed us that the date coincided with the 76^th SketchCrawl. Formerly an active member of USk New York City, Parker now lives in Seattle. I was grateful to him for reminding us of the SketchCrawls again.

What a great turnout – I counted more than two dozen at the throwdown! 

Toward the center in baseball cap is Parker.

No, this isn't the throwdown... this was Stephanie's impromptu Gab & Grab! She generously gave away several heavy bagfuls of sketchbooks.

daily drawing 2

The second chunk of my daily sketch endeavor. I'll keep this going until at least the end of October. 

10/4: Pono Ranch in Ballard. nice sketching spot close to the bridge - big patio with industrial stuff scattered around, fun to draw! it was incredibly empty while we were there despite being a weekend.	10/5: Neon Boots in Belltown. quick pint with studiomates to do an inktober sketch. the shirtless guy at the table behind was playing magic the gathering.
10/6: Hellbent Brewery in Lake City. I went up here to work on a commission (to draw the brewery) and felt super content with life over the fact that people pay me to do stuff like this sometimes. My friend Dan met me there after I was done working.	10/7: breakfast outdoors at Bounty Kitchen in Queen Anne, after errands.
10/8: at the studio, friend Eric gave his MFA lecture presentation from inside the storefront window as we sit outside on the sidewalk. it was so great to attend an event like this, it's been so long!	10/9: Citizen Coffee in Lower Queen Anne. I'm going to all the outdoor cafes I can before winter starts. Seems like this place is better during bar hours, but they close early now.
10/10: first date with a guy from Hinge - we got coffee and then took a long walk around Central. it was nice. / view of the South Park Bridge, where I ended up because I was dying to ride my scooter somewhere.	10/11: my apartment. it poured rain all day long and I had a zoom call with my friends from the East Coast in the evening.
10/12: Pike Place Market. I was craving a doughnut, but all the places close before 3pm now :( at least I got to sketch this part of the market, which I haven't done before.	10/13: another work meeting on The Lotus in SLU. Jonathan tells me about his family dog who was just "sent to the farm".
10/14: it was super nice outside, so I biked over to the park on 12th Ave by Ba Bar to do work on the picnic tables. I sketched this group of people having lunch together.	10/15: met a couple friends at Chuck's Hop Shop, but they wouldn't let us sit outside without a reservation (despite 80% of tables being vacant), so we bought beers and sat at a sidewalk table across the street & sketched. I'm really enjoying painting trees all sorts of non-green colors lately.

Dick’s on Queen Anne and La Marzocco Café

11/8/19 Dick's on Queen Anne Avenue North

Dick’s Drive-in has been a Seattle-area institution for 65 years. When I think of the family-owned chain of burger joints, I think first of the one on Broadway (which I sketched few years ago) with its classic drive-in shape (though in-car dining is no longer an option). The one in lower Queen Anne has a more modern building, but it’s still a neighborhood icon. On a brisk and still-partly-foggy morning, I started the Seattle USk outing with a sketch of Dick’s.

Chilled after standing for more than an hour in the shade, I went back to the meetup location – La Marzocco Café – to warm up. Housing indie radio station KEXP (DJs are visible through a window, and the station’s broadcast is the café’s soundtrack), the café is also a large public space for town hall meetings and other events. There’s also a vinyl record shop and espresso-making equipment shop inside. I didn’t have much more time than a hasty sketch of café patrons in front of me, but I’d enjoy going back to take advantage of the many seating (and therefore composition) options. The coffee and snacks aren’t bad, either!

11/8/19 La Marzocco Cafe

Definitely not a She-Shed

It was fun sketching today in the Queen Anne neighborhood around the library.

Along with several others, I sketched those sheds.They were covered in debrie, moss and almost falling down.  Definitely not "She-Sheds"!




Ellie arrives by scooter.


Susan and Victoria had matching Lamys on a lanyard!

Many of us were interested in the old sheds in a nearby alley. 


The throw down and the group photo were both inside the library as we had a meeting, today, too.  There were several sketchers new to the group....Welcome All! 




Eric is missing from the above group.  

Our meeting was a discussion of the experiences had by those who attended the Urban Sketchers Symposium in Amsterdam this summer. We also talked about experiences and lessons learned from other symposia.

Ellie’s Scooter Plus Symposium Sharing

9/14/19 Ellie's Aprilia Scarabeo (with Kate's Prius behind it)

Ellie Doughty rides an adorable Aprilia Scarabeo scooter. When USk Seattle met in the Queen Anne neighborhood today, I didn’t get farther than the meetup point because I wanted to sketch the scooter right there where she had parked it. Bonus: I knew she wasn’t going to move it anytime soon.

Our sketch outing was in a slightly different format than usual. After sketching, we had our throwdown in the Queen Anne branch library conference room. We then stayed on for a brown bag lunch and informal presentations by those who attended the Amsterdam symposium. In addition to sharing information about their workshops and other symposium experiences, several participants passed around their Amsterdam sketchbooks. Since I had very little opportunity to see Seattle sketchers while there, it was especially fun to hear about everyone’s experiences and see their sketches.

Sharing symposium experiences

We all liked this alley!

Welcome to Reema (front) visiting from Minnesota!

El Diablo #3

This was my third time drawing at El Diablo Coffee, on Queen Anne. The first time, several years ago, I went alone and drew the students studying (below).


The second time was with Urban Sketchers Seattle and was the first time I met Tom Ettel. We sat together and chatted as I drew the cluttered counter (center). We have since become good friends and frequent sketching buddies.

This time, Tom, is brother Peter, and I headed to El Diablo again to find it had relocated a couple of buildings north. We sat upstairs and, after disturbing a couple of newly accredited therapists having an intense discussion about their new practice, we got to work. After all the walking around and chatting, I didn't have to finish on site (above).

I'll increase the contrast and add some hatching later.

New and Old in Queen Anne

8/31/18 Queen Anne cell tower

This morning’s sketch outing in the Queen Anne neighborhood was an interesting time management (or lack thereof) exercise for me. As I approached the area, which is especially rich in older buildings (many of which seem to be in the process of being converted to condos), a crazy cell tower on West McGraw had caught my eye. I decided to make that my first objective. Lacking color, it made a good exercise in graphite tones, and with all those strange shapes and angles, the tower was a fun challenge.

Completely losing track of time (in a good way) in that drawing, I realized I had only about 25 minutes left before the throwdown – and I hadn’t yet sketched any of the architecturally interesting buildings. I hoofed it over to the street where several stood and picked the Queen Anne United Methodist Church to sketch (below). After hastily putting in a few lines, I slammed down a Pitt brush marker for shading, scribbled in some color and power lines, and called it good.

It was great to see such a strong turnout this morning!

8/31/18 Queen Anne United Methodist Church

Queen Anne neighborhood

We gathered this morning outside the Queen Anne Library. It was closed for renovation but there were many interesting public buildings and private homes and gardens to sketch in the blocks around.



Our numbers grew by the time we had our throw down and group photo, though one or two sketchers had to leave early.  Thanks to Kathleen K. for investigating this area for us!  




After we first gathered, I walked down to Top Pot Doughnuts with Tina to use the facilities. We got coffee and then sat at a cafe table to sketch this jumble of satellite dishes.

 

I walked back up to our starting neighborhood and looked around. I went back to the scene I first noticed. Kathleen told us that this street lamp was part of the history of Queen Anne Boulevard. It has been transplanted to the front of a home owner's yard. In the background is the Queen Anne Masonic Center next door.

I found an image and some information about the street lamp:
https://i2.wp.com/qahistory.org/wp-content/uploads/queen-anne-boulevard-1982-800.jpg
http://qahistory.org/boulevard/

From Afar: an atmospheric perspective workshop

Hey Seattle USkers, I wanted to let y'all know I'll be teaching a workshop in the fall 10x10 series, From Afar (Oct. 20 in Eastlake). I'll be teaching some methods on making your compositions have greater contrast between close & distant objects in interesting and fun ways, using principles of atmospheric perspective. Although the workshop is not for beginners, it's pretty approachable as long as you have some grasp of watercolor techniques (i.e. it's not your first time ever picking up the medium). 

The subject matter will be Queen Anne hill & Westlake as seen from the Eastlake neighborhood. I love capturing the trees and buildings stacked up on the hill, topped by the 3 antennas I never get tired of it. The techniques can certainly be applied outside of Queen Anne views though! And since it'll be in October, we might even get some stunning fall foliage. I hope you can make it to my first official Urban Sketchers workshop, I'm very excited. 

Here are some sketches which show some examples of these techniques - to me, the typical Seattle landscape is a hill with buildings peeking through trees, and I love painting these kinds of scenes. 

Kerry Park: popular, rain or shine

Kerry Park

Through some complicated circumstances, one afternoon I found myself with a borrowed car & a couple hours to kill in the city, which obviously I wanted to fill with sketching. It was a super foggy, cold, rainy day, so the car became my mobile studio since drawing outside was out of the question.

I've been up to Kerry Park a couple times to take in/sketch the stunning skyline, Sound & Ranier views, but I also wanted to capture the crowds who gather here for photo ops sometime. I knew I could get a decent view of the overlook from the street parking, so it was the perfect opportunity to sketch the scene I had in my head. 

In my urban sketches, I aim to get a wider view than what you'd expect, incorporating the context of the scene. In this case, the scenery – usually the main attraction at Kerry Park – becomes a backdrop for the main subject, the people. Next time I want to do an even wider view, getting the sidewalk and condo buildings in too!

First attempt - I like the distorted distant buildings, but the view wasn't as wide as I wanted.
The clouds were so low you barely see the Space Needle at times.

Bonus: At the western end of the same street of Kerry Park just a few blocks away, there's another super stunning overlook that is almost always nearly empty, if you want a great view sans crowds of sightseers. The below sketch was done on the last day of 2017, one of those magical amazingly clear days which compel EVERY Seattleite to go outside.

Watching the sun set over the Olympic mountains was a great way to end the year, even if my hands froze while drawing this.