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Curtain call
I’m sad to report that one of my favorite holiday traditions came to an end this weekend. For the past thirty-plus years, the Pacific Northwest Ballet has staged a unique version of The Nutcracker—complete with unusual choreography, nontraditional storytelling, and incredible kinetic theatre sets by one of my illustration heroes, Maurice Sendak. I’ve seen the…
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Lumberjacks for a day
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Decking the halls
When we head to the mountains on Sunday to get our tree, the holiday decorating will officially begin. At our old house, most of our decorating focused on the mantel—since we don’t tend to go overboard with that sort of thing anyway, sometimes it was the only place that hinted at anything festive. At our…
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Tea and cakes
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Cozy companions
For the first time in many years, we’re not hosting Thanksgiving this time. But we are continuing our tradition of spending the holiday with friends. So when the turkey’s been eaten and all the plates cleared, I’m sure the scene won’t be so different than this one—just in a different location. To me, that sounds…
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Killing time
If I’m traveling by car, you can put me in any landscape—even the most barren, treeless, flat places that most sane people would label “dull”—and I’ll be fascinated. No matter how long the trip and unvarying the scenery, there’s always something for me to sketch, some vista to marvel over. Put me in an airplane…
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Still life with skyline
Last week I was invited to come and sketch the view from one of Seattle’s famous houseboats (best perk of what I do: being invited to sketch interesting, hidden things!). Unlike the biannual houseboat tour, where there’s barely time to jot down a few chicken scratches on the spot before it’s time to move on…
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Serves four (hundred)
Well, I can’t feature the Winlock Egg without giving you something to cook it in, can I? Just over the coast range from Winlock is the town of Long Beach, home of the perfect roadside companion to the World’s Largest Egg. Since it’s not exactly as flamboyant as, say, a giant orange, people often blow…
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And the winner is…
I don’t normally post on Thursdays, but I had to break in here to tell you that the Giant Twine Ball in Darwin, MN is the clear people’s choice! No disrespect to its lovely (and technically larger) sisal-sister in Kansas, but the voters have spoken, and by an overwhelming margin, Minnesota’s masterpiece is the clear…
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Orange you glad
Apparently these giant orange stands (which are actually ducks) used to be so common along the old Pacific Highway that by the time you got thirsty on your journey, you’d have arrived at the next one. There are just a handful remaining today, and I was extra lucky to discover that this one was actually…