Cherry Blossoms

The cherry blossoms were reported to be at their height on the campus of the University of Washington.  I very much hoped yesterday's nice weather would hold over to our sketch outing there today.  It was not to be.  I've never seen the UW cherry trees in bloom and it was unlikely I'd get back to see them under better conditions before they were gone.  I was determined to sketch them, despite the drenching rain.

While nearly everyone else sheltered and sketched in the magnificently Gothic Suzzallo Library, I found some good cover in a stair case adjoining the quad.   It took the watercolor a long time to dry in such chilly, wet weather!



Once the sketch was done, I hurried back to the Suzzallo Library to get warm.  I found a simple staircase view to sketch in the remaining 20 minutes.  I've always like the squirrel in stained glass over the door.





As usual, we gathered to share sketches and take a group photo.





All the photos are here.

Serial Vision

The converging lines and foreshortened shapes of a perspective drawing give it a dynamic quality. Yet, it remains a static view—a moment in time—as seen from a single point in space. To better convey movement through space, we can use a series of changing perspective views, as English architect and urban designer Gordon Cullen did when he coined the phrase Serial Vision to describe what one might see and experience as one walks through a sequence of spaces.

This is what I intended to depict when the Seattle Urban Sketchers met yesterday at Suzzallo Library on the UW campus. These drawings chronicle how one approaches the library from across Red Square, enters one of its portals, moves through the lobby and up the main staircase, and arrives in the main reading room.

Above are four of the nine sketches I did in two hours and twenty-five minutes.