Tag Archives: houses

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 (I have to finish those sketches after the fact), this time I had all the time in the world to spread out, choose my vantage point, and luxuriate in finishing the drawing then and there.

Since the houseboat was the kind of place that made me want to just plop down and stay forever, the gift of time was even more wonderful than being presented with that stellar view.

Boat sweet boat

Some cities have inner pockets that feel like worlds unto themselves—little enclaves that are either well-hidden, little-known, or inaccessible to the general public. The perfect example is Seattle’s numerous houseboat communities. I’d been dying to sketch the houseboats ever since I moved here, and on Sunday, I finally got my chance. Every two years the Floating Homes Association organizes a public tour of a handful of properties—but doesn’t exactly broadcast the event. After years of missing it, I finally scored tickets—which, to Mary-Alice and I, felt something like passports to Narnia.

Not only did we get to see the sights and meet friendly folks—

—but we also got what felt like a slice of a parallel universe.

Reflecting pool

I really should have a bumper sticker that says something like “I brake for tiny fishing villages.” I know I’m not the only one, either. I figured Blue Rocks would be another Peggys Cove in terms of number of fellow tourists—but I was so happy to be mistaken. That morning, at least, it was just me, my sketchbook, and the mirror-like calm of the cove.

Quiet on set

I loved Mork & Mindy as a kid—not simply because it was funny, but because it’s the first show I watched that had a strong sense of place. Silly comedies aside, it’s amazing how much that quality has affected me now—has affected the person I have become. And I realized that so much of Robin Williams’s work has had that inherent sense of place—The Birdcage, Mrs. Doubtfire, Insomnia, Jakob the Liar, Dead Poets Society, etc.—that I love so much, that I look for everywhere.

So thank you, Robin, for giving me so much more than a good laugh. May you be at peace.

Red, white and bunting

You know, I’m not really the 4th-of-July-house-decorating type. But I sure love the old-fashioned way they do it in New England.

Stones and subdivisions

The very same day the Tailor and I breezed by a sign painter’s version of a petroglyph, we also got to see the real thing, up close.

Of course, they were beautiful and fascinating—but what really got me was the fact that the remnants of an ancient pueblo civilization were perched above a modern suburban neighborhood…

…and that the suburban neighborhood was designed to resemble an ancient pueblo civilization.

Home sweet homes

You know how much I love drawing houses—and Prince Edward Island seemed to be the pretty-farmhouse capital of the world. There were so many, in fact, that it was hard not to spend my entire vacation sketching houses. So this was the only way I could think of to save room in my sketchbook for drawings of other things…

Rainbow road

Judging by the news lately, and all the dire terms like “polar vortex” being bandied about, I think it’s safe to say that most of the U.S. is still in the absolute dead of winter (including my neck of the woods). But I just can’t bear to post another sketch of icicles or snow. So instead I’m thinking back to one colorful California afternoon, with a rainbow of houses on my right, the Pacific on my left, and all kinds of evidence that spring lay just ahead.

Banke of Colonials

Where I live in the Pacific Northwest, there’s pretty much zero architecture that predates 1850; but I grew up in New England, where early American buildings are abundant. And as you can probably guess, I absolutely adore colonial houses—so I go a little nuts when I get the chance to sketch a whole neighborhood chock full of ’em.