Drawn the Road Again

Category: The Best Coast

  • Fields of gold (or pink, or orange…)

    Fields of gold (or pink, or orange…)

    Obviously I have a thing for standing in a field carpeted with flowers and busting out the ol’ watercolors—because not only does it crop up (no pun intended) again and again on this blog… …but it’s also a recurring theme in my new book. The fun part, of course, was traveling to all these flowery…

  • Beachcomber’s sketchbook

    Beachcomber’s sketchbook

    Just over a year ago, the Tailor and I met a couple of good friends for a long weekend on the Oregon Coast. Our friends live in San Francisco, so Lincoln City was almost exactly the midpoint between us. And besides, we had an ulterior motive: we wanted to search the beaches for hidden treasure.…

  • You’re gonna need a bigger boat

    You’re gonna need a bigger boat

    Towards the end of the design process for my new book, the design team at Sasquatch Books and I were putting together all the odds and ends that make up the cover, both inside and out (you’ll find a behind-the-scenes look at the front cover on my studio blog). One of the last elements to…

  • The Best Coast

    The Best Coast

    While I’ve hinted at this several times on social media, and even shown some snippets of my process along the way, mostly I’ve been sitting on my hands lately, trying my best to keep mum while I wait for time to tick by. And now the waiting is almost over, and it’s time for the…

  • Rec-ommended

    Rec-ommended

    This post is part of an ongoing series called 66 Fridays, which explores the wonders of old Route 66. Click on the preceding “66 Fridays” link to view all posts in the series, or visit the initial overview post here. This beauty has stood proud over Sunset Boulevard since 1924, once advertising a bowling alley…

  • SODO stumper

    SODO stumper

    One of my favorite things about Seattle (at least, while they’re still around to love) are the old wooden wharf buildings that still define the SODO neighborhood, among other places. There’s something about all that wooden clapboard and all those clerestory windows that just speak to my soul. This building is particularly intriguing because it…

  • Portland palms

    Portland palms

    Now, unlike the Wagon Wheel Motel on Route 66, I haven’t stayed here, so can’t vouch for the place as a whole. But its spiffy new paint job and its place on my other favorite historic highway give it a permanent place in my heart, nonetheless.

  • Fox tales

    Fox tales

    Every time I visit San Juan Island, my collection of fox sketches grows. They’re inescapable there, as much a part of the landscape now as the treeless prairies they prowl at Cattle Point. They’re not native to the island, though. In the 1890s, settlers introduced rabbits here for game, and apparently failed to foresee the…

  • Seaside splendor

    Seaside splendor

    You already know that San Juan Island is perhaps my favorite place on earth, and the California poppies that grow wild at Cattle Point are just one of the many reasons why. I actually started this sketch on an earlier trip, and came back to this spot exactly one year later to finish it. And…

  • Just ducky

    Just ducky

    Speaking of nautical things that are here today, gone tomorrow, this big gal was just a brief visitor to my town, but she certainly brightened up an otherwise grey day. It seems that all of Tacoma shared my feelings on this—it was all anyone could talk about that weekend. It wasn’t just her sheer size…