Sunday in Ballard

Before the USk Seattle Meetup at the Nordic Museum, I stopped in Ballard a couple hours early to draw the neighborhood.

The art/frame shop nearby on Market St, Annie's Art & Frame, carries some of my prints for sale, and they have been asking me for a while for artwork of more Ballard spots. So I finally got over to the Farmer's Market and found a nice area out of the way to capture some of the activity there. Some friends met up with me to draw too. I exaggerated the orange of the trees with my tempera paint sticks.

 

 

I fully intended to scooter over to the Nordic Museum to meet with the USk group, but it started raining pretty hard and we sat down with hot drinks at Miro Tea and I couldn't get myself to leave. Especially since the street ahead was cleared of market stalls and parallel parkers, it was a great view! 

A Wet Ballard Troll

 

10/15/23 Frankie Feetsplinters outside the National Nordic Museum

The public and media alike have been falling in love with the giant trolls of Way of the Bird King, an art installation by Danish environmental artist Thomas Dambo. The sixth and final troll in the Pacific Northwest was installed last month. Made of reused, natural materials, the sculptures celebrate “the human experience of art by amplifying the connections of cultural heritage between Coast Salish tribal communities and Scandinavian traditions.” 

While some sketchers like Kate Buike and Allan Andoy Carandang have already finished sketching all five in the Puget Sound area (the sixth is in Portland), I hadn’t gotten around to any yet. Happily for me, the last one was in Ballard outside the National Nordic Museum – a terrific location for a USk Seattle meetup yesterday.

Ballard neighborhood

My weather app said rain would be starting an hour or so after the outing began, so I arrived a bit early to get a head start on Frankie Feetsplinters. It’s a good thing I did, because sure enough, it started spitting by the time I finished. The spitting turned into full-on rain shortly after, but intrepid USk Seattle members kept right on going, some with umbrellas to protect their sketches (see below)!

Dodging the rain for the rest of the outing, I found a doorway of a closed business across the street from a gorgeous maple I had been eyeing. 

Finally, I ended up where most other sketchers did, too – inside the lobby of the Nordic Museum, where I used the last few minutes to capture Alex sketching the lobby. Many thanks to the museum for graciously allowing us to have a dry throwdown there.

Alex sketching in the Nordic Museum lobby

Intrepid sketchers!

Mandatory troll selfie

Hello, Frankie!

We met at the National Nordic Museum in Ballard today. Most of us sketched the troll named Frankie Feetsplinter. He was built by Thomas Dambo and volunteers. It started to rain very soon after we began sketching and sketchers chose shelter under umbrellas, moved indoors, or just embraced the rain on their paper. 

Northwest Trolls - Way of the Bird King

That's Alexander and Roy behind the troll.  

 

A few Sketchers had already left by the time we took the group photo

Fire – Under Control

5/5/21 Fire engines at controlled burn site, Ballard neighborhood

I had a rare opportunity this morning to sketch a controlled burn. Michele had let me know that the fire department was planning a firefighters’ training session over three days in the Ballard neighborhood. A house that was planned for demolition would be burned for training purposes.

Arriving shortly after the morning session was to begin, I got a great parking spot facing the intersection where a couple of the fire trucks were staged. Wearing oxygen tanks, firefighters ran back and forth with ladders, hoses and other equipment.

House on fire!

My view of the burning house was partially blocked by a parked car, but I could see the roof where most of the action was. (Eventually a fire engine blocked my view entirely, but I had captured what I wanted by that time.) I wouldn’t have had a problem with standing on the sidewalk to sketch, as only a few people were watching, but the huge cloud of smoke rising from the back of the house kept me inside my car. (I had déjà vu of our terrible wildfire weeks last summer when we could smell smoke even through our sealed doors and windows.) Though the front door facing the street was a bit charred, most of the burning must have been on the backside of the house. Dozens of firefighter trainees had various roles, many climbing to the roof and working their way to the back.

I appreciated the unique opportunity to see an interesting training process. It was the most human activity I had sketched since the pandemic began!

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.

Sun + Shadows at Hale's Brewery

The interior of Hale's Brewery had a lot to tempt a sketcher, with giant steel brewing tanks and a cozy pub (OK, gave in to the pub later in the day). But when I stepped outside and saw the dramatic shadows on Hale's outdoor patio area, I knew I had found my sketch. It was still pretty chilly out, but Seattle has not seen the sun in soooo long, and I love big shadows.

Sun and Brews in Ballard

3/19/17 Northwest 43rd and Leary Way in Ballard

Based on what I saw driving past Green Lake on my way home from Ballard this afternoon, I’d say 90 percent of the Seattle population was outdoors today (and the other 10 percent was wishing it was). Never mind that the temps got up to only around the high 40s – this rain-soggy region had been craving sunshine!

3/19/17 Inside Hale's Brewery

When I arrived at Hale’s Brewery for the Urban Sketchers Seattle meet-up before 11 a.m., the temperature wasn’t yet 40, but that sun was irresistible. I zipped up my down parka and sketched the scene outside Hale’s, where there were so many utility lines criss-crossing the street that I could hardly keep track of them all. As I sketched, I kept thinking that I probably wouldn’t have attempted a composition spanning this much distance before taking Gabi’s Pocket Urban Sketching workshop last month. Although the concepts he taught about scaling weren’t new to me, I think it was the first time the proverbial light bulb had turned on over my head.

3/19/17 Lunch and brews at the pub

Thirty minutes later, my hands were cold, despite that delightful sun at my back, so I ducked inside the brewery to sketch the British telephone booth next to some barrels.

By then I was hungry, so I joined other sketchers for lunch inside the pub. Michele and Sue each had a tasting flight of five brews that I had started to sketch. I didn’t get far on color or details, though, because then my Nightroll Stout (named for the Fremont Troll) and burger arrived (and you know me – I’ve never been one to let my food get cold for a sketch).

Ahhh – a day like this could sustain me for the rest of winter! 

Bergen Place

9/23/16 Bergen Place Park

Named for the Norwegian city, Bergen Place is a small but colorful park in the center of Ballard. On Sundays, the park is lively with farmers market shoppers, but on this gusty, drizzly Friday morning, it was quiet except for the regular, startling outcries of a man in flip-flops making erratic hand gestures. (I think the park is his home; I’ve seen him on farmers market days, rummaging through trash cans, shouting at persons unseen by the rest of us.) Despite the questionable weather, four hardy sketchers showed up.

Attracted to the juxtaposition of real trees and art trees, I stood across the street to sketch the park until the drizzle turned to full-on rain. Then I retreated to Starbucks, where a front window gave me a slightly different view of the park, this time with some of the Scandinavian flags visible.

9/23/16 Bergen Place Park

We decided to meet at the Ballard public library for our sketchbook throwdown. While I waited a few minutes for the others to show up, I stood near the library’s entrance to catch the sidewalk scene.

I hate to say it, but it feels like fall, and outdoor sketching season is probably over.

9/23/16 near Ballard library

Kathleen, Kate, Tina and Suzanne: hardy sketchers!

Seeing Things at Fishermen's Terminal on USK 7th Anniversary

Sunday was a day of abundance for USK Seattle at the Ballard Fishermen's Terminal! We had sunshine, blue skies, subject material at every turn and scads of sketchers from all points north, south, east and west! At one point there were approximately 38 sketchers who shared their sketchbooks, celebrating the 7th anniversary of urban sketchers. Scroll down to see the day's previous blogposts by my fellow correspondents.

There's a cement deer on top of those blue sheds! My sketch of the yellow Beach Gang shed under the bridge..

The bluest skies in Seattle

With such an exciting profusion of subject material available, it's almost like trying to read a 30 page menu-what should I paint? and where do I even start?

It helps to have been there before. This will be the third time that I have visited Fishermen's Terminal in Ballard with the Seattle Urban Sketchers. My first decision today was to eliminate repeating any subjects I've sketched before, such as the Fishermen's Monument and the Qingdao Eagle. See previous sketches here and here. 

When you're out there sketching, you start really noticing things, including a bright yellow Corvette, seaplanes flying overhead, ladders everywhere and a cement deer. Although I asked one of the men standing under the Ballard bridge nearby, I couldn't get the story on it. Even though it was apparent that the fellow was also seeing it for the first time, he acted like a cement deer on top of a shed wasn't that much out of the ordinary. I only discovered it myself as I was sketching the "Beach Gang" shed nearby.  This time it truly was "seeing my world one drawing at a time."

Ballard Locks Drawbridge

So glad I made this sketch crawl. I try to find views that offer a distinct fore- mid- and background. I found the perfect spot in the shade that had all three. Although I didn't have time to apply any color (I rarely do, as I take way more than two hours to finish) on site, I managed to get pretty far. I also remembered how quickly my ink washes dry in this heat and kept them in my satchel in the shade under the picnic bench until I needed them.

By the way, I launched my Kickstarter campaign for my second book today! I hope you'll take a gander at the short video at the link below and share it with your friends. Thanks!

kickstarter.com/projects/492806857/this-is-then-that-was-now-an-illustrated-memoir 

Vera's Diner, Ballard, Seattle

Donna and I had breakfast at Vera's in Ballard and lingered long enough to each do a sketch. Here's mine:

Trying not to get caught sketching these folks at Elliott Bay Bookstore.

Old Carnegie Free Public Library, Seattle

Although there is brick everywhere in Ballard, I think this old library (1904) is probably the true color for local brick.  I love the idea of communities and Carnegie creating these wonderful libraries. We even saw one of the originals in Sterling, Scotland.

Mobile Sketching: Shoreline and Ballard

1/6/15 Haller Lake Baptist Church, Shoreline

I’ve been sketching a lot in my “mobile studio” lately. I don’t always get the best view or composition in a parked car, but during these worst months of winter, it’s better than nothing.

Yesterday I spotted the Haller Lake Baptist Church in Shoreline. I’m sure you know that architecture is not my favorite sketching subject, especially modern architecture. Yet something about this particular church caught my attention. When I think of classic Christian church details – tall, pointy steeple, cross above, stained-glass windows – they’re all here, yet with a very contemporary interpretation. And I also couldn’t help seeing the power pole next to it, paralleling the cross. It was a composition I couldn’t resist.

1/7/15 Bardahl Oil in Ballard

Then today I was in Ballard a little early for an appointment, so I drove around and found the backside of the old Bardahl Oil sign, “which has been lighting up the Ballard skies since 1953,” according to the Ballard News-Tribune. A couple of trees, a bunch of parked cars, some bushes and a variety of other stuff was partially obstructing my view of the bright yellow barn-like building, so I had to fake it, but at least I had a clear view of the sign. I made a note to come back when the weather warms up so that I can stand on the street and get a proper view.

House in Ballard

Commission for the owner of this house, arranged as a gift from his tenant, a sweet yoga instructor who saw my work hanging in the Ballard Starbucks.

One Sunny Sunday

Market and 22nd, Ballard, Seattle. Local characters came to chat, each with colorful stories: One was a retired Hollywood make-up artist, another was an old Alaskan fisherman with glaucoma, one couple wanted to sell hand-made roses, and another tried to scam me with a story of a stolen car.

Line to Color Workshop

Sketch geek heaven! That's how I'd describe last weekend's Line to Color Workshop with Gail Wong and Frank Ching. It started in Ballard amidst the throngs gathered to celebrate Norway Day. The streets that were cleared for the parade served as a perfect spot for Frank to give some basic instruction and a demo... until we got pushed to the side. Undaunted we carried on. Her's a few of my sketches from the different locations. 

Ballard Livery and Transfer

Freemont Statue of Lenin

Gasworks Park

Pike Place Market

a few more on my personal blog