Next Sketch Outing
Saturday, Sept. 13: Georgetown Steam Plant
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| 8/31/12 Phinney Farmer's Market (fountain pen, marker) |
Although I’ve been an abstract mixed media artist for years,
for most of my life I had both the fear of drawing as well as the desire to
learn to draw. In September 2011, partly because of that desire, and partly
because I was so inspired by Gabi’s Seattle
Sketcher column, I finally decided to overcome the fear. His drawings of
Seattle – my birthplace and lifelong home – were sights that I had seen
many times, yet had never truly seen.
I wanted to learn to see, and therefore experience, those locations (and any
new ones that I travel to) more thoroughly. Part 8 of the Urban Sketchers Manifesto,
to “show the world, one drawing at a time,” has a flip side: Sketching enables
me to see my world, one drawing at a
time.
I enjoy sketching a variety of subjects, but my favorite is
people in their environment. (My current sketching bugaboo: cars. I’m
working on it, though.) Last summer I went to as many neighborhood farmers
markets as I could. Buskers and other musicians became my favorite sketching
“victims” because they stay in the same spot for a while. The sketch above is of blues
singer and guitar/harmonica player P. K. Dwyer performing at the Phinney
Farmers Market in August. Some of his songs were about his experiences as a
busker while living in New York subway stations. As far as I could tell, all
the tunes he performed were original.
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| 10/26/12 Zoka Coffee (fountain pen) |
The second sketch is an example of how I spend all the many
cold, wet sketching months: in coffee shops. With tall ceilings and lots of
natural light coming through large windows, Zoka Coffee and Tea near Green Lake
is my favorite. This sketch is also an example of my current favorite sketching
medium/technique: water-soluble fountain pen ink washed with a waterbrush.
The photo of me was taken by my husband Greg as I sketched a
swimming pool from our 23rd floor room of the South Point Hotel and
Casino in Las Vegas last October. We aren’t really Vegas people, but we stopped
over on our way to Zion and Bryce canyons. (You can see the finished sketch on my blog.)
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| Photo by Greg Mullin |
When I attended my first sketchcrawl in May 2012 at Magnuson
Park, I had so much fun and found everyone to be so friendly that I was
encouraged to keep on attending. I’m thrilled to be a Seattle USK correspondent!
Please visit my blog, Fueled by Clouds and Coffee.
I got a new watercolor sketchbook that is a little larger format. 10 x 7 Canson Montval Water Color Field Sketchbook. Anxious to try it out, I did this sketch at Cafe Solstice in the U District. I was pretty happy with the paper. It isn't quite as smooth as the Moleskine watercolor notebook...I will have to get use to it.
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| Cafe Solstice- U District |
Beautiful weather, plenty of subjects and a gathering of old and new friends - it's a good day.....
After dropping Kiersten off at school I stopped at a local coffee house to get a sketch in. This guy really didn't look that sad or pathetic, sometimes the pen has a mind of it's own....
Provided transportation for a friend to the Group Health Hospital in Seattle, while waiting we made our way to an internet cafe called The Online Coffee Co.. Wi-fi was free with our purchase of a slice of quiche and coffees (both were very good and cheap). Like libraries, people don't move much and make good drawing subjects. Just have to find the ones with character....or in this guy's case, reading concerning news.....
Looking up at the shelf above the barista's head at Jet City Espresso. A rusty old tuba, odd collection of cups, etch-a-sketch, a Bob Marley & the Wailers album and a base drum, just like home (O.K. maybe not). Sat here on a Sunday morning sketching, drinking coffee and listening to A Prairie Home Companion...
What would sketchers do without coffee shop models? I found out: these women left shortly after I began sketching, so I had to make do with memory.
