Three USK 10X10 workshops in October Part #1: Andika Murandi's Sketch 'n Chill

Back in June, I signed up for three of the Fall USK Seattle 10x10 workshops. They usually fill up very fast and I didn't want to miss them. I didn't realize until the first one that they were back to back on the first three weekends in October. It has been an intense period of sketching and learning.

I got in a routine: prepare my sketching bag with the right supplies the previous evening; the morning of the workshop get up, eat breakfast, and travel to the workshop location. After the three hour workshop, get some lunch and take some time to walk around and sketch some more. I know what you are thinking: poor you, all that sketching...

My first workshop, on October 6th, was Andika Murandi's Sketch 'n Chill: No-Stress Interior Sketching. We met at the Grand Central Bakery on Occidental Square in Downtown Seattle, a beautiful space with plenty of seating.

Andika started the workshop discussing the importance of line quality and making us practice drawing straight lines in all directions, then he showed us how to look at different types of interior perspective and simplify them into big shapes. He demonstrated those concepts by sketching the Grand Central Bakery atrium starting from the large shapes and working his way to the details.

With all that information in our heads, we spread around the Grand Central Bakery atrium to work on our first sketch; after a throw-down, we divided into two groups and moved to different local coffee shop for a second sketch.

My first sketch of the Grand Central Bakery atrium, looking straight at the entrance towards
Occidental Square in one-point perspective.

After the first sketch, half of the attendees moved to Caffe Umbria. This was a more complex space and we were able to practice more of the tips and approaches that Andika discussed in his demo. You might be able to spot other urban sketchers in the room.

I loved the workshop. Andika was clear in his explanations and generous with his time and tips and I learned a lot from the exercises.

After the final throw down and some food, I decided to take a walk downtown. It was a beautiful fall day, unusually sunny and warm for Seattle. I wanted to get to Westlake Park later in the afternoon, and on the way I passed the Seattle Art Museum with the huge Hammering Man sculpture. I loved the light, the colors of the buildings, and the perspective, so I decided to stop and sketch the view. For the non Seattleites, the Hammering man is a 48-feet, 26,000-pound kinetic sculpture created by Jonathan Borofsky and installed in 1992 to honor the working class men and women of the world.

The corner of 1st Avenue and University Street.
On the left, the Hammering Man sculpture in front of the Seattle Art Museum.

Here I am in WestLake Park, where a protest had been quickly scheduled after the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. I arrived early enough for a sketch an empty WestLake Park,  follow by a sketch of some the people at the rally.

Westlake Park, on 4th Avenue between Pine and Pike streets. The first sketch was done first, when the park was almost empty, and the second during the protest rally after the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.

What a beautiful, satisfying, and exhausting Saturday.

[Part 2 with workshops from Jane Wingfield and Eleanor Doughty can be found here]

Greenwood's Spiritual Side

One thing I like about Urban Sketchers outings is that they take you to new places. This past weekend, I got a chance to experience the 'spiritual' side of Greenwood.

First stop in the itinerary is the Sakya Monestary, a Tibetan Buddhist temple set in the middle of residential area. Several things caught my attention right away: the bright colored exterior, the bell-shaped stupa (chorten) with the prayer wheels, and the snow lion statues, among other things. I whipped out my iPad with procreate app for this one. The lion statue was drawn using a continuous line drawing method. The stupa is such a prominent feature that I drew it twice. I sketch all linework on site then add the colors later on.

The Stupa (Chorten) with Prayer Wheels, and Snow Lion Statue

Sakya Monastery building and Chorten

I walked a couple of blocks to the next stop, St. John The Evangelist Catholic Church. This time, it's analog time with my trusted papermate marker and moleskine sketchbook. I applied the same method that I use to sketch interior spaces – I reduced the scene into basic shapes without worrying too much about the correct perspective. It turned out to be more challenging than I thought; I miscalculated the height of the tower, and got caught up in detailing the brick texture. In the end, I decided to go back to the basic and not stressing out about the little mistakes. After all, urban sketching is all about 'capturing the essence of space'. In the end, it turned out to be a pretty productive sketch outing.

St. John The Evangelist Catholic Church

Sketchin’ and Chillin’ with Andika

Andika shows us how he makes confident lines.
(Photo by Jane Wingfield)

“Sketch ‘n’ Chill,” the title of Andika Murandi’s USk Seattle 10x10 workshop, is irresistible: Who doesn’t enjoy sketchin’ and chillin’? And the subtitle is even better: “No-stress interior sketching.” I’ve long admired Andika’s sketches of interior spaces that convey depth and complexity and yet stay small and simple. His workshop would be a good opportunity to learn his approach. I signed up immediately!

For the first half of the workshop, we met in Pioneer Square’s Grand Central Arcade, where Andika led us through practicing the very basics of any kind of drawing: making bold, confident lines instead of jaggy, tentative ones. By moving the whole arm and shoulder, not just the wrist, even when drawing in a small sketchbook, lines will be more controlled, continuous and consistent. 

He urged us to forget about erasing tentative pencil lines; instead, he encouraged going straight in with ink and “embracing the mistake.” To reinforce this attitude, he showed us examples from his own sketchbook where he had made incorrect lines initially and then restated them, but left the old lines in place. When he pointed them out, we could see the “wrong” lines, but they otherwise disappeared into the rest of the composition, which was confidently presented.

Line-drawing practice

Rooms can be simplified into trapezoids, rectangles and triangles.

As an architect, Andika pays attention to perspective in his sketches, yet with a casual, “no stress” approach. Most traditional lessons in perspective drawing begin with illustrations of one-point or two-point perspective in which the point where all those lines meet might be way outside the composition and halfway down the street. Instead of starting with a horizon line and vanishing point, he showed us how interior spaces can be simplified into rectangles and trapezoids (one-point perspective) and triangles and trapezoids (two-point perspective). Once you see those basic shapes in a room and form a composition around them, the rest is just details. Stress-free perspective!

With those lessons and line exercises under our belts, we proceeded to our first sketch within the Arcade’s large interior. I chose the two-point perspective of one of the main doorways somewhat complicated by the stairwell in the center of the room. I initially got the height of the stairwell wall wrong, but I drew the lines confidently and left them boldly in place. 😉

4/21/18 Grand Central Arcade

True to his personal philosophy of relaxing with a beverage and sketchbook in a café, for the second exercise we split up into two groups, each going to a nearby coffee shop. I was in the Caffe Umbria group, and I went to a back corner of the café. I again chose a two-point perspective looking toward the front of the room. (I was planning to “chill” with a mocha as Andika would do, but learning to draw always makes me hungry! I sketch ‘n’ scarfed a grilled veggie sandwich.)

4/21/18 Caffe Umbria

Before taking this workshop, my usual approach would have been to focus first on the two men sitting in front of me, then add the roaster, tables, chairs and other details around the men, and finally fill in the windows and walls in the background. But often what happens is that my scale or placement is off on the tables and chairs, so when I put in the walls and windows behind them, the whole room tends to skew. With Andika’s approach, the first lines I made were the shapes of the trapezoids and triangles of the walls, ceiling and floor. Although I probably didn’t get the perspective perfectly accurate, when I used those lines to guide the placement and scale of the details, they tend to look right.

Similar to Gabi’s “Pocket Urban Sketching” concepts or Sue Heston’s “sky shapes,” both learned in last year’s 10x10 workshops and that I find myself using often, Andika’s simple, straightforward approach is one that I could grasp easily in an hour and then practice immediately for reinforcement. I left the workshop feeling confident that I could use his approach for interior spaces whenever I want to show the whole room – without thinking about where all those perspective lines eventually meet up. Sketch ‘n’ chill, indeed!

Final throwdown

A stress-free group! (Photo by Jane Wingfield)

Rainier Tower

One of the neat things about working in the heart of downtown Seattle is that you are experiencing the growth of the city firsthand. One of the larger developments currently underway is the Rainier Square on Union St. between 4th and 5th Avenue. Demolition of the old Rainier Square building revealed the base of adjacent Rainier Tower in all its glory. Designed by architect Minoru Yamasaki (also the architect of IBM Building and Pacific Science Building in Seattle, and of course the original World Trade Center), this building has fascinated me since the first time I saw it due to its unusual inverted tapered curving base. Since I work only a block away, I've been witnessing the 'unveiling' process of the tower base as the adjacent building went down brick by brick.

I figured that this view will not last, since a new tower will soon be built right next to it. I decided to do a couple of quick sketches from two different angles. The first one was taken from 5th Avenue between Union and Pike st. looking south.

Rainier Tower, sketched from 5th Avenue between Union and Pike looking south

Rainier Tower, sketched from 5th Ave looking south

 A couple of days later, I stood at a corner of Union st. and 4th Ave and sketched the tower from a slightly different angle.

Rainier Tower, sketched from 4th Ave between Union and Pike looking south

Rainier Tower, sketched from 4th Ave looking south

Sketchcrawl at Hale's Ale Brewery

The spring sun shone on quite large group of urban sketchers outside of Hale's Ale Brewery this morning. I was hoping to spend some time outside to sketch the building and surrounding neighborhood, but ended up staying inside for the entire session.

Hale's Brewery interior, sketched from the steps

The brewery was a challenge to sketch due to its complex overlapping shapes and lines. I started my process by focusing on the basic shapes and placing them in the overall scene (ie. the phone booth, the row of storefront windows, the guardrail, the tanks, etc.) and not really worrying too much about perspective. Once I had these basic shapes down, I added some details (ie. pipes, railings, steel ladders, mullions, etc.) and slowly populating the frame with more lines. Lastly I incorporated hatches to create shading for depth.

Hale's Brewery interior, sketched from the entry lobby

Lunch with Frank

After finishing a couple of sketches, I headed into the bar with the intention to sketch some more. There I came across Frank Ching enjoying his beer. I ended up joining him for a quick bite and chat. He shared his sketching tricks and I shared the story of my college time back in Indonesia studying architecture and having bunch of his books on my desk as reference. Who would've thought that I'd be sitting here having lunch with the master himself.

Gong Xi Fa Cai

Today's outing was planned to coincide with the Chinese Lunar New Year Celebration at International District Chinatown. The day started quite nice with a little bit of sunshine. We met up at Hing Hay Park just as the celebration kicked off with firecrackers and the famous lion dance. One of my goals was to catch and sketch the dancers, but I just couldn't get a good view amidst all the people who got there before me. After a few failed attempts, I decided to walk around the block and came across the Chong Wa Benevolent Association's building. I figured a quick sketch of the roof and brick details would be a good warm up to start the day.

Chong Wa Benevolent Association, ID Chinatown, Seattle

The weather started to turn as the sun disappeared behind thick cloud. Throngs of people started to fill the streets. I stood in the middle of King Street looking west to capture the festivities. As you can see, sketching to me is much less about accuracy or precision, and more about capturing the essence of time and place. 

S King St Looking West, ID Chinatown, Seattle

I went back to Hing Hay Park and sketched the scene around the pavilion and the main stage. At this point it got fairly chilly and my fingers started to get numb. I finished a quick one and joined fellow sketchers to warm up and share sketches at a nearby coffee shop. Gong Xi Fa Cai from Urban Sketchers Seattle family!

Hing Hay Park, ID Chinatown, Seattle

Introduction: Andika Murandi

Greetings fellow sketchers! I am super excited to be writing my first post for the Urban Sketchers Seattle blog. It's been great meeting up, learning and sharing with fellow sketchers these past several months and I am looking forward to keep being inspired by this group of wonderful artists.

Sketching with a company

My name is Andika Murandi. I was born and raised in Indonesia, moved to Oregon in 2000 to pursue a graduate degree and spent 14 years in the small town of Eugene. Yes, I am a Duck! :)  My family and I moved to Seattle back in 2014 and have been loving it. There is something about the Pacific Northwest that makes you want to stick around. I am married with 2 daughters who also love to draw. I guess it runs in the family. 

My love of sketching started when I took a permanent marker and drew all over the entire bedroom wall when I was 6 years old. I love to draw stuff and that was the main reason I went to architecture school. As a practicing architect, I always try to find time to keep my passion of hand drawing and sketching alive. I am one of the few in my office who still keep a drafting board on our desk. 

Working in downtown Seattle means there is never a shortage of things to sketch. I like to take a quick stroll during lunch time, and spend 15-30 minutes sketching on the spot to capture the essence of the place. It's a beautiful place we live in and I feel blessed to call it home.

Lunch time at Westlake Park

The legendary corner of Pike Place Market

The Alaskan Way Viaduct just before its temporary closing

I am honored to be invited to contribute to this forum and look forward to many years of sharing. May we always sketch.


My Flickr page: defragments