No Right Angles

4/27/18 Top Pot Doughnuts, West Seattle

After a phenomenal week of sunshine and record-breaking heat yesterday, today dawned cloudy with a chance of rain, which normally would have been disappointing for our sketch outing in West Seattle. I was eager, however, to apply the concepts I learned last week in Andika’s workshop, so I didn’t mind staying indoors at Top Pot Doughnuts.

It was only after I sat down with coffee and an apple fritter and looked around the room that I began to realize something strange: Top Pot has no right angles! The walls, the almost-L-shaped bar, the funky, partially rounded ceiling trim – everything is slightly askew.

Fortified with fat, sugar and caffeine, I attacked the room, grumbling and occasionally muttering, What would Andika do? I had planned to put at least some of my doughnut into the sketch, but it took me a full two hours to do the sketch, so the doughnut didn’t have a chance.

Sketchers at Top Pot Donuts

I have to admit I was not tempted by the Elvis Presley special Maple-Bacon donuts available at Friday's USk meet. I went for a chocolate glazed old-fashioned. And for sketching I went for the row of sketchers silhouetted against the windows of Top Pot Donuts Alki shop. I had to leave early, so missed the sketchbook sharing at the end. :(

Happy Birthday, Elvis!

1/8/16 Ken sketching outside Top Pot.

If the Friday sketchers hadn’t met at Top Pot Doughnuts this morning, I probably would have gone through the day unaware that today is Elvis’s birthday. But thankfully we did meet at the shop’s West Seattle location on Alki Avenue, where the “hand-forged” doughnut company was recognizing what would have been the King’s 81^st birthday. I decided to pass on the King’s Rings (maple-frosted doughnuts encrusted with thick squares of bacon), but there was plenty else to sketch in the large yet cozy space.

During a typical 2.5 hour sketch outing, I tend to do two or three sketches. Today I felt like doing a series of small sketches. I even ventured outside the store for one sketch of the street, but that didn’t last long (my phone weather app said it was 37 F).

The last time I sketched Elvis was three years ago at Drawing Jam. Thinking that the King’s Rings might prompt an appearance, I was ready, but no Elvis was sighted. Maybe next year.

1/8/16 Top Pot's counter

1/8/16 Alki Avenue Southwest

The Toroid of Wedgwood: Top Pot Doughnuts

2/4/13 fountain pen, watercolor

to·roid

noun Geometry.
A surface generated by the revolution of any closed plane curve or contour about an axis lying in its plane. (Dictionary.com)

Or, as Debora posted on the Urban Sketchers Flickr weekly theme thread, “A toroid is a round shape with a round hole in the middle. Think bangles, bagels, rings and tires.”

I admit, I had never heard the name of the geometrical form toroid before, but as soon as I read the description, I knew what I wanted to sketch: the Wedgwood neighborhood’s Top Pot Doughnuts.

I’ve sketched the interior of this Top Pot a couple times before, but whenever I’ve driven past its funky palm trees and retro giant donut on the roof’s overhang, I’ve made a mental note to sketch the exterior someday. With a theme like toroid to respond to this week, today was the day.