The Secret Garden

We met at Pike Place Market. I had planned that we would sketch in the Secret Garden. It's very pleasant oasis of calm in the otherwise still crazy packed Market area! The garden had mostly been put to bed but there were still a couple blooming flowers. I learned that all the food grown there is given to the Market Food Bank. I'd like to return in late spring to see it in bloom.

There are 2 other pigs at the Market. The most seen and probably most popular is Rachel, right out in front. Billie sits in the new-ish Market Front Pavilion. But I've never seen this pig and I also couldn't find a name for her. I later learned that she is covered with chalkboard paint and found an image of text written all over her. From bits of flaked off paint, I could tell she was previously painted pink. I referred to her as the planter pig as there was no writing on her today. 

There are 2 other pigs at the Market. The most seen and probably most popular is Rachel, right out in front. Billie sits in the new-ish Market Front Pavilion. But I've never seen this pig and I also couldn't find a name for her. I later learned that she is covered with chalkboard paint and found an image of text written all over her. From bits of flaked off paint, I could tell she was previously painted pink. I referred to her as the planter pig as there was no writing on her today.

Once again seeking refuge from the crowds, I found an unoccupied picnic table below the Market Front Pavilion. It gave me a view back up but with a riot of still blooming flowers. The skyscrapers of Seattle rise behind the Market.

We had quite the large group of sketchers…almost 30. Plus one visitor from Urban Sketchers Pune (India). She is Shruti Utgikar, on the right.

 

Level Achieved at Pike Place Commons

 

9/23/22 Pike Place Commons

Almost a year since our last outing there, it was great to be back at the Pike Place Market with USk Seattle on Friday. Last year, still in my post-vax frenzy of wanting to sketch people again, I spent the whole outing sketching nothing but. This time I had a different goal: I wanted to make sure I had nailed the concepts I had learned from Gabi Campanario at Gas Works Park.

Post Alley

As a warm-up, I made a thumbnail of Post Alley, where the angles of awnings and rooftops came together in an interesting pattern (at left). Then I made my way north to Market Commons, the newest addition to the Pike Place Market. Looking out toward the waterfront, I was amazed by all the construction that was still going on where the Alaskan Way Viaduct used to be. I thought more progress would have been made since I last saw it a year ago. No problem, though – I found an excavator busily moving dirt from one pile to another (below).

Waterfront construction

It was time to get down to business. Pivoting 180 degrees from where I had made the excavator sketch, I looked up at the Market Commons building, which is full of eateries and shops. I could see its entire span from Old Stove Brewing’s tanks (on the right) to the edge of Steinbrueck Park (the umbrella at far left). Behind it were skyscrapers and apartment buildings. In the foreground were tables, foliage and fencing that kept pedestrians from falling down into the construction zone. It’s exactly the kind of compositional scope that I find compelling but that I would typically avoid. Using the scaling and measuring tips Gabi had given us, I quickly blocked in the extremes of everything I wanted to fit onto the page spread. Most of an hour-plus was spent drawing the complicated Commons building (I should have simplified it even more). Whew! I fit it all in (top of post)!

Although I still had a half-hour before the throwdown, I was too famished from the ambitious sketching workout to make another. I got a delicious snack from Honest Biscuit and stuffed my face with it as I walked to the throwdown at Steinbrueck Park. I had a terrific morning at the Market on a beautiful day!

Fellow light rail commuters

Pike Place Market People

10/17/21 Pike Place Market

Today was the international Urban Sketchers 24-hour event, USk Sketch Together, with sketchers around the globe taking part with live videos and images from their respective sketch outings. USk Seattle chose iconic Pike Place Market for our event. The forecast all week was for rain, but once again, the weather gods were with us: Not a drop!

Before the pandemic, I used to happily sketch people on buses and light rail trains whenever I had somewhere to go. Throughout the wet-weather months, I had taken for granted being able to draw people in coffee shops. The thing I missed most during the worst of the pandemic was sketching people in public. For Sunday’s outing, I decided it was time to get back on public transportation. As a personal celebration during the Sketch Together event, I dedicated the outing to sketching nothing but people. In fact, I used the “observational cartooning” technique I learned from Taylor Dow in his workshop a couple of weeks ago to help tell the story of people at the Market: drawings made from life combined with written commentary.

On the level below the Market Commons, I could look up at a corner of the pedestrian area with one of the best waterfront views (at right). It turned out to be a popular corner to take selfies and other photos. I started there but realized quickly that my view was limited.

Next I got up on the upper level myself so that I could see and sketch more people, especially their various photo stances – both taking and posing. Many were selfies, but others were couples and families who asked a passing stranger to snap a photo for them. When I wasn’t sketching, I timed a few: On average, I have about six seconds to capture a selfie. If someone else is taking the photo, I have a bit longer. The typical pose for couples is for one to put an arm around the other. When couples take a selfie together, they snap one, then usually one person is more interested than the other in the result and often needs a retake. I had as much fun people-observing as people-sketching.

It feels good to sketch people again!

To see what the rest of the world sketched that day, search the hashtag #usksketchtogether.

Many snoozers on the light rail train, a.m. and p.m.

I seem to be the only one awake
on this train.

USk Seattle knows how to Sketch Together!

Anna

Jane

Kim

Throwdown

pre-social distance

I keep flipping through my sketchbook of the last couple weeks, feeling nostalgia for my carefree, out&about pre-coronavirus lifestyle. it's going to be an important document for my future self, and my present self to record this moment. This sketch of the arch was the final time I went out, to Fort St George in the I.D, which had a nice view of Hing Hay Park and a miserable cold & rainy day with very little foot traffic.

a couple weeks ago, I was drawing at the Athenian's happy hour with friends to celebrate the purchase of T's new live-aboard sailboat. it was just the beginning of the gradual shut down and social distancing. I remember we went to a live punk music thing at another bar later that night and the band had cancelled because of the virus... "that's not very punk of them" we thought.

By the way, the gray ink in these sketches is Diamine Earl Gray, which does lovely things when water is applied over top of it – it softens & separates into pink & blue splotches at random.

An uneasy composition at the Square Knot in Georgetown, one of my favorite breakfast spots. Things were still fairly normal back then. A week and a half later, I drove past this place and it's totally shut down, like 90% of all the other restaurants in the city.

I feel certain that soon even leisurely walks are going to be restricted, so I'm trying my best to enjoy them while I can, especially when the weather is so nice. I met a fellow freelancer friend yesterday in the neighborhood between our home bases because we were both getting extremely restless working from home. We spent some time sketching in the grass 6 feet apart, naturally. 

The person who runs (?) and lives next to the Konko church came out with her tiny son and looked at our drawings. She was really touched that we "found the building interesting" and that interaction was one of the highlights of my day.

marching along

hello Urban Sketchers Seattle, it's been a while since I've posted! like you all probably are, I am really excited about the warmer, happier-sketching weather just around the corner (though I am definitely counting on at least a few last gasps of winter to come). here's some pages from my sketchbook from the last week.

Sitting outside Volunteer Park Café in a sunlit moment looking up the street, trying to ignore the parents playing "Baby Shark" for their toddlers out of their phones. 

 My oyster-obsessed studio friends and I went to Taylor Shellfish Farms for happy hour and sketching. Not the best space for drawing (it's a restaurant) but the grays of the shellfish were fun to capture in neutral watercolors and ink. 

 Sunny sunday sketchwalk in Central District, just up the very steep hill from my building. My friend and I sat on the sidewalk drawing the cute old houses & Beacon Hill across the valley while eating steamed BBQ pork buns. Happy to notice the tiny buds starting on trees. Since I moved here in October I've scarcely explored my neighborhood, which makes me feel bad...blame it on the weather? 

Another happy hour with drawing buddies — at Pike Place Grill, which has an excellent view of the famous sign & maybe the best deals on drinks I've seen anywhere in Seattle.

Palace of the Pacific

The Showbox turns 80 this year. It opened on July 24, 1939 as the Showbox Ballroom and it is legendary for it's history of performers who have graced it's halls and helped put Seattle on the music map. This past Saturday, I joined several Seattle Urban sketchers, including some I haven't seen in a while.

It started as a bright sunny day and I chose a shaded spot almost directly under the sign so it wouldn't be blocked by the spring foliage, lovely, but not my focus. After getting the basic lines on the page, I was shivering. So I retreated to a coffee shop to warm up.

After the throwdown and lunch I emerged into a much warmer afternoon. Thinking about my upcoming workshop, People in Places, I plopped down my stool on the entrance to Pike Place and thought I'd do a quick sketch, this time in the sunshine. Quick on an A-4 sized sketchbook soon becomes a longer sketch. I have to learn to break up the page. 

Bolstered by the afternoon sunshine I went back to the Showbox to finish my sketch. As I sat on the sidewalk next to the bus carrying that evening's entertainment, the Jesse James band and their entourage, a few people approached. One a photographer, Peter Arthur, who is documenting Seattle's streets and asked to take my photo.




We chatted about Seattle's streets and urban sketchers. Soon some roadies emerged from the truck and met up with their co-workers who told them Brandi Carlile and Dave Grohl had just been busking at the market. I missed the epic spontaneous performance by just a few minutes, but finished my sketch. Priorities.

Back Sketching from a Long Winter

It has been a long time since I posted anything on any blog.  Lately I have been too busy to do it.  

Here are my two sketches from last Saturday's Sketch Crawl  at the Show Box.

I didn't even realize that it was an historic theater or that it was slated to be torn down.  

It was nice we had a chance to memorialize this part of Seattle's history as our built environment is changing daily.  

The weather got a little chilly so a few of us decided to go some place warm to do another sketch.  The sketch below was taken from Storyville Coffee shop in the Corner Market on the second floor.  It was nice, cozy and warm there.

The Show Box

Storyville Coffee Shop

Showbox Theater and Pike Place

4/20/19 Showbox Theater, downtown Seattle

Last year, the historic Showbox Theater near the Pike Place Market was in the news when its owner announced that it was selling the property. The theater, opened in 1939, would be demolished and replaced by a (yet another, most likely boring and boxy) 44-story apartment building. (It’s the story of Seattle these days.) After that, nostalgic venue fans, historic preservationists and even high-profile musicians like Eddie Vedder stepped forward to try to save the Showbox. The debate rages and is still unresolved. Meanwhile, the venue continues to operate.

I wasn’t even aware of that last part until I arrived Saturday to sketch the theater and saw that the marquee was current. Although I’ve never seen a concert there, the marquee and Showbox sign are downtown icons, and I wanted to document them, since it’s likely that they’ll eventually come down. Others must have felt the same way, as we got a good turnout of Showbox sketchers.

4/20/19 buskers at Pike Place Market

It probably helped that the morning was dry and mostly sunny (though not warm). After the Showbox, I swam upstream through the throngs (what is this, July or something?) at the Pike Place Market to my favorite busker spot near Rachel the Pig. Performing were a ukulele player and a tuba player – a colorful duo that I’ve sketched before.

Swimming further upstream, I spotted the usual long line of people waiting their turn to buy coffee at the “original” Starbucks location on First and Pike. As I captured the storefront and P. K. Dwyer (another busker I have sketched many times) playing guitar and harmonica outside, I overheard a couple of young men (visiting from the UK, based on their accents). Taking photos of each other with upheld Starbucks cups, it was clear that this was an important stop on their tour. Reviewing the photos, one man was especially delighted to finally be photographed in front of his mecca. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that the actual first Starbucks on Western no longer exists (though natives like me remember it), and this second store on First somehow became the “original.”

Times change, old buildings get torn down, history gets rewritten. Meh. I may be a grumpy, overcrowded native, but at least I’m sketching it all.

4/20/19 One-man band P.K. Dwyer busks in front of the "original" Starbucks on First and Pike.

A good turnout at the Showbox!

David Hingtgen

Jane Wingfield

vendors of pike place market

If you see someone walking through downtown Seattle carrying a bouquet wrapped in white paper, they probably got it from one of the flower vendors at Pike Place Market.

Follow the aromatic scent to the central area of the market to find a hallway lined with mostly Asian-American ladies selling gorgeous, very reasonably priced bouquets, surrounded by white plastic buckets of stems of seasonal sprigs. As they craft the arrangements, they place them into black plastic vases/holders for passerby to purchase. You can request a bouquet made to order on the spot, or even ask for a particular single flower which caught your eye.

The flower ladies’ stands are all family affairs. The reason that the bouquets are so cheap - as low as $5 - is that they also own the farms, which sometimes also grow vegetables and other produce. Also there is a lot of competition! I love that the Pike Place Market bouquets don’t look like the kinds you see at the supermarket; they’re more of a seasonal variety, and way more interesting than the premade bunches at a chain store.

 I captured these hard-working ower vendors in mixed media: watercolor pencils, ink, waterbrush, graphite, and transparent and acrylic markers. Both drawings took about 20 minutes each. 

Nearly every time I come to Pike Place Market, I get myself a greasy brown paper bag of these freshly fried mini doughnuts. But as the market is usually so crowded, I just grab my snack and get out as soon as possible.

As I arrived at the Daily Dozen, everyone was packing up for the evening – I always forget everything closes surprisingly early here (around 5pm) – and the two people running the joint were selling off their remaining stock of mini donuts at a discount as they closed down for the night. Eventually, there was only powdered sugar left, and not for long!

As they closed up, I got to take in some very charming details of their stall I wouldn’t have noticed if I didn’t stay to sketch:

• Top left: a menagerie of figures above the doughnut case - including Captain America, Jesus Christ, and some Star Wars guy on an alien horse.

• Lower right: a row of plastic rats, which the owners acquired at rummage sales, gaze out at the customer. Someone had forgotten their dentures among the rodents!!

• Other fun details: social justice signage (right) and a demon mask tied to a pole (center)

After the Daily Dozen shut down for the evening, I was left in an empty market. I had never noticed many of these super interesting spaces, like these whimsical archways – the dense crowds prevent me from lingering in corridors like this one. Several groups of tourists came up to me and asked if the market was closed, and also where to find the Gum Wall. perhaps one reason that horrifying attraction is a Thing is because it doesn't close at 5pm like the rest of Pike Place Market.