San Fernando's on Rainier

 

RIP to this restaurant building in my neighborhood. It stood on the corner of Charles St. and Rainier & was demolished early this week. The last bits of rubble were carted away on Thursday. 

I couldn't find much about the history of the building, but I did learn that before this there was a Vietnamese restaurant here. Vanishing Seattle has an amazing historic photo of 900 Rainier in the olden days, looks like it was a gas station.

So, in honor of all that, I wanted to sketch San Fernando's Roasted Peruvian Chicken before it was demo'ed. The building kinda had the energy of an animal waiting to be put down, which made me feel sad and aware of my own mortality :(

I'll very much miss the fried yuca and pollo smells as I walk past, and the creamy green salsa they included with your order. Family minivans would fill up the small parking lot on weekends.

this part of Rainier Ave is changing incredibly fast! There are now all these plywood cubes covered in Tyvec, chain link fencing and closed sidewalks... not my fave, but I have to remind myself that more housing is very needed here. This block will be home to a new 8 story residential/retail building.

And btw, San Fernando's is moving down to SeaTac and they'll reopen in a few months!

powell barnett park

 

Exploring Central District, I sat on a steep ridge on the edge of the park and sketched this view until a big dog came into the yard behind me and scared me away. Really excited to start drawing deciduous trees with leaves soon.

charles st. in blue

Obligatory snowstorm sketch! I wish I drew more that day, but I didn't think the snow would melt so quickly. This is the view from the 3rd floor common kitchen in my building (none of the units have their own kitchens, but there's one on each floor) which has a view of a hill I've always kind of wanted to draw but didn't have a good reason to. 

I was in something of a rush that evening, so I didn't pencil sketch at all before inking, so it's kind of chaotic. My favorite part of this was doing the stylized blobby trees and the big lumps of snow covering the car.

three old houses

 Inspired by Suhita's endeavor to sketch hyper-local, I found this view in my neighborhood I had never noticed before. In our recent flush of sunny days, I did a few sketch sessions at this corner and drew these old houses, exaggerating the steepness of the hill to give more space to the skyline and Puget Sound.

Recently, I've taken to carrying a bag of peanuts around with me on walks to feed to crows. This sketching spot happened to be right in the territory of a pair of western scrub-jays, who would dart out as soon as I tossed a peanut to grab it off the sidewalk and go bury it in the neighbor's yard. Bird feeding and sketchwalking go hand in hand, though it definitely makes me a lot slower at drawing.

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.

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.