Year of the Ram and Bruce Lee

2/7/15 Dancing lion (sketched mostly
from memory)

After last night’s deluge, the Pineapple Express gave us a brief reprieve this morning. We took advantage of it by dashing out to the Chinatown-International District to see the Lunar New Year celebration outside the Wing Luke Museum. Unfortunately, we were a little late, so the firecrackers started blasting away just as we got there, and with a huge crowd in front of me, I could hardly see the lions dancing! I had a slightly better view of one of the drummers, but I had to sketch the lion mostly from memory of the tiny glimpses I was able to see by standing on my toes. (I’d had a slightly better view two years ago when I met up with a few Seattle Urban Sketchers there.)

2/7/15 Drummer during the lion dance.

After the lion dance, we went inside the museum, where more festivities were taking place in celebration of the Year of the Ram. We shied away from most of the hub-bub, though, and ducked into a quieter area of the museum showing an excellent exhibit of Bruce Lee’s life. I sketched a bronze bust of Bruce that was conveniently close to a corner, where I could stand without getting in the way. (“No Photography” signs were everywhere in the exhibit, so I felt somewhat smug being able to sketch it!) I know the classic bust form is usually armless, but I found it sad and ironic that a man whose arms and hands were such an important part of his martial art form would be portrayed armless. Maybe it was a metaphor of his life being tragically cut short (he was 32 when he died in 1973 of cerebral edema).

The rain was already starting again on the drive home, and now the deluge is back. As we like to say around here, at least we don’t have to shovel rain.

2/7/15 Bust of Bruce Lee at the Wing Luke Museum.

April Sketches

This has been an odd month for me. I have found myself spending more time traveling around Seattle with less time for organized drawing. The result is a melange of drawings with no theme.

My April started out with the Washington ASLA (WASLA) conference. WASLA partnered with the Washington Recreation and Parks Association to host a three day conference at Magnuson Park. Between social events and presentations, I found the time for a couple of sketches around the park.

During the Free First Thursday, I visited the Wing Luke Museum. I was particularly interested by the relief carvings of the 8 Immortals from Judy Chow's. Below are my four favorite sketches.

Finally, I found some time while volunteering at the A/NT Gallery to sketch the construction site across the road. The exposed concrete tower skeleton and the concrete form work were fascinating. This is one of the many towers going up in South Lake Union.

I hope everyone had a good time sketching this month. I was unable to attend this month's sketch outing, but I look forward to seeing you at next month's meet up. Keep your finger's crossed for mild weather in May.

Welcoming the Year of the Dragon!

Like David H. last weekend I did the WW Sketchcrawl solo. Escaping the lack of power and water in Olympia, I came up to Seattle's International District in hopes of catching the opening Lion Dance. I missed it but caught the dragon at the Wing Luke and colored it using Brushes on an IPad. 


I still have to work on the second dragon sketch. Think I'll use real paint for that. 


I may go again this weekend for the full celebration depending on the weather prediction. It's such a colorful and lively event and Seattle's ID was listed as one of the top places in the country to celebrate the lunar new year.

Gee How Oak Tin Association

Thanks to Gail for negotiating with the Wing Luke Museum staff, who allowed us enough time to do a few sketches in the historic portion of the museum. This view of the Chinese family association room is very much like Gail's you can see a few posts prior to this one.

Wing Luke Family and Friends Day

We had a great time at the Wing Luke and got to go on the Hotel Tour.  We tried to capture the rooms in the Freeman Hotel but we were moving so fast that it was difficult to sketch,  so I ended up doing montages of small sketches in each room.  The museum staff let us go back to the hotel portion to sketch for about 40 minutes. I was able to finish my sketches and took pictures so I could add color later.  Here is an article about Wing Luke Museum: Seattletimes Wing Luke Museum Article
You tube video of the wok installation Wok Installation @ the Wing 
You tube video about the Wing Luke Museum.

Kitchen and Association Hall

Scrim from 1909 Nippon Kan Theatre and Yick Fung Co. Grocery store

Association Hall

Winging It

At the Wing Luke Museum,we had a very informative tour and were shown great views of the Freeman Hotel and the historic shop below. With the time left we shifted into speed sketching. That was kind of fun and left me thinking that we might like to do it again just for the exercise. Lori and I stood at different angles from this Mah Jong table, located in the upstairs of the hotel near the Association Room. Thanks to Gail for spotting this free and different opportunity and to the museum for having us!

Wing Luke Museum

Thank you, Gail. This was a great location for sketching. I really enjoyed the tour and learning more about the International District. Fun tidbit was learning that Wing Luke made friends in school through his sketches.

We took the guided tour then had a short time to sketch in a few of the hotel rooms. The limited time forced me to jump right in and sketch directly in pen - something I rarely do. The quick sketches made me sketch loose and fast. Not the greatest sketches, but I learned a little about working quickly and directly.