Author Archives: Chandler O'Leary

Portland pig-out

Portland is absolutely chock-a-block with edible kitsch. This is the city that’s home to the neon pink doughnut shop filled with naughty puns, coffin-shaped party boxes and velvet Kenny Rogers paintings. The artisanal salumeria that made a tongue-in-cheek cameo on Portlandia. The coronary-inducing but oh-so-delicious pork-sandwich lunch counter, appropriately (or prophetically) named Lardo. The trouble is, there are so many places like this that even with our frequent trips and efforts to try a new restaurant on each visit (which is incredibly hard to do, since every place is so good)—well, there simply aren’t enough pages in my sketchbook.

Bear crossing

Okay, no more bear jokes. Especially since we didn’t exactly feel like laughing after the Tailor and I almost hit the real thing. (Thank goodness for reflexes and broad daylight.) Obviously I didn’t do this sketch while the moment was happening—but it was easy enough to cobble the scene together from memory.

Because, you know, the image of this guy darting out in front of us, and the Tailor’s death grip on the steering wheel, is pretty much permanently etched onto my retinas.

Exit, pursued by a bear

Speaking of bears, the great state of Montana must have a lot of them…

…since they get their own highway exit and all.

Beargrass, bare grass

When I was on Mount Adams, the ravenous bugs prevented me from sketching the most spectacular part of the scenery: the endless meadows of cream-colored beargrass. So when I spotted it again at a native plant garden this spring, I jumped at the chance.

As an aside…I have no idea how beargrass got its name, but I would dearly love to see an actual bear standing in a field of this stuff. It would be sketchbook gold.

Notes from the front

Don’t let these pictures fool you—it might look like I was sketching in an idyllic environment, but I couldn’t spend much time marveling at the scenery or relaxing with my paints. That’s because I had to take a break approximately every 4.5 seconds to swat at biting insects, or to take cover from the dive-bombing hummingbirds.

This wasn’t a backcountry trail—it was nature’s war zone. And I’ll tell you one thing: a blank sketchbook page makes for a pretty serviceable white flag of surrender in a pinch.

Island in the sky

I’ve talked before about being on Island Time—and in a weird way, this is kind of the same thing. You see, islands don’t just exist in water; you can find them in the middle of the desert, too.

The Chisos Mountains, in the heart of Big Bend National Park, rise 4,000 feet above the parched desert floor below. The elevation gain gives them a dramatically different climate than their surroundings. The name they call these types of mountains just melts my heart: sky islands.

I don’t know about you, but that reminds me of the sort of things I used to dream up when I was a kid. Of Shangri-la and castles in the air. Of quests and secrets. Of dirigibles and airships.

Who says park rangers aren’t romantics?

T-time

Twice in my life (about 15 years apart) I’ve lived within an hour of Boston; and a couple of years ago I got to show the Tailor around my old stomping grounds. The city’s undergone a lot of transformations in recent years (Big Dig, I’m looking at you), but I love that the trip in on the T has hardly changed at all.

As we approached the city, I glanced at the system map to decide where to go first. As I read, the name of each stop triggered a flood of memories and images, all arranged by the cardinal directions, rather than by the years. This is probably why I love maps so much. Not only do they describe and organize a particular place—they also catalogue my entire relationship to that place. For unfamiliar cities, I love watching my mental map grow from a blank slate to a rough sketch and beyond. For places like Boston, the grid in my head is chock-a-block with minute, accurate (though sometimes obsolete) details, annotated pictures and pinned moments in time.

How about you? Do you have a place where your memories unfold like a treasure map? Or somewhere you know so well that every subway stop tells a personal story?

Raise a glass

Whenever I feel like I’m going stir-crazy in my solitary studio, I go and have a pint of cider with my friends Barry & Renée, who own a gorgeous taproom called Pint Defiance. Next week is the first anniversary of their opening day, so I thought I’d help them celebrate by posting a couple of sketches I did there recently.

I’ve been lucky enough to have a front row seat for Pint Defiance’s beginnings—I even got to design their logo for them (and therefore add some roadside kitsch to my “serious” portfolio!). So come Tuesday, you can bet I’ll be raising a glass to toast Barry & Renée—for the past year, and for every one to come.

Cropping up

I spent one of my teenage years living on a rural military base in North Dakota. An interesting side effect of having to bus half an hour into town every day for school is that I learned to recognize every type of crop in the fields along the way. But when I moved to Washington, where they grow all kinds of things that won’t survive the short season of the northern plains, I had no idea what I was looking at half the time.

Enter the kind folks of Grant County—who clearly understand the incurably curious people of the world. As you pass the farms along any state or federal highway in the Quincy Valley (many of which are certified organic—bonus!), you’re greeted with helpful crop labels in front of every field.

It’s like they knew I was coming, and was going to want to label my sketches!

Dark skies

One of my very favorite things about the Red River Valley (of the north) is that the land is so perfectly, endlessly flat that you can see entire weather systems grow and unfold before your very eyes.

Then again, it’s not so fun when that weather catches up with you. I did this painting in the passenger seat while the Tailor drove, and not ten minutes later those roiling clouds went from pretty picture fodder to terrifying death trap. It rained so hard we couldn’t see past the end of our windshield, and I had to put my paintbrush down in order to cross my fingers and hope the storm didn’t come equipped with car-crushing hailstones.

Then it was over, just as quickly as it had come—driving home the point that no matter how quick on the, er, draw I think I might be, nature will beat me every time.