Drawn the Road Again

Category: Built to Last

  • City colors

    City colors

    Sketching the striped tulip fields last week reminded me of one of my other favorite colorful places: the Plateau neighborhood of Montreal. The rows of colorful balconies and porches might not be quite as vivid as the rainbow houses of San Francisco… but any city that breaks up endless blocks of brick with pops of…

  • Black, white and drawn all over

    Black, white and drawn all over

    Other times, I do the opposite of what I showed you last time: I skip the color entirely, and focus purely on the line. I wish I could tell you that the reason for it this time was for some lofty, arty purpose…but, uh, no. I skipped the paint this time because I was hungry,…

  • Morning mist

    Morning mist

    On this morning, my city felt like a stage set of paper cut-outs. I just about killed this sketchbook dead by working and reworking the flimsy paper for this drawing—but even as the paper threatened to give out on me, I found myself wanting to add more and more layers. Capturing reality accurately proved elusive…

  • Happy Ewe Year

    Happy Ewe Year

    Tomorrow marks the beginning of the Year of the Sheep—whether you’re in Chinatown or your hometown, wishing you a happy lunar new year!

  • Study in blue-grey

    Study in blue-grey

    Today is the last day of CODEX, after which I’ll be hitting the road again for points south. This evening, though, I’m looking forward to a few hours of downtime in the city with friends. It’s easy to forget in a bustling place like San Francisco, but there are plenty of quiet pockets to sit…

  • Books and bay views

    Books and bay views

    The main event for my California trip is happening this week, as I exhibit my work at the biennial CODEX International Bookfair. If you happen to be in the Bay Area, CODEX is really worth the trip. For one thing, it’s in a venue that is absolutely out of this world, with stunning views of…

  • Bathing beauty

    Bathing beauty

    The Olympic Athletic Club diving girl isn’t vintage, but she sure looks like a throwback to me. Every time I find myself in Ballard—or even that general end of the city—I make sure my route takes me past her. I can definitely see her being a Seattle icon fifty years from now—our own Little Mermaid.

  • Lakeshore light

    Lakeshore light

    Of course, it’s possible to get that edge-of-the-earth feeling even smack in the middle of the continent. It’s all just a matter of where you stand.

  • The last homely house

    The last homely house

    Now this is a house in its own little world. This tidy little cottage was part of a pair of villages located at the northernmost tip of Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia—which for all intents and purposes made it almost the last little house on the whole continent. Somehow, though, it didn’t feel lonely.…

  • Horton hears a house

    Horton hears a house

    This might just be my favorite building in all of Victoria—and not just just because of the architecture. What I love best about the old custom house is how it sits apart from its neighbors, neither bounded completely by streets or by water. The building is in the absolute heart of the city, yet somehow…