Tag Archives: Pacific Northwest

Landshark

Normally this would be the part where I tell you all about the souvenir shop with the giant shark’s head I found on the Washington coast—but I think I’ll just let the pictures do their job. Instead, I wanted to let you know that Sharky here has joined 29 more of his roadside brethren on some good old-fashioned gallery walls—in my new solo exhibit that has just opened! If you’re local, here are the details:

Drawn the Road Again: Roadside Attractions sketched by Chandler O’Leary
On display through October 25, 2014
Handforth Gallery, Tacoma Public Library
1102 Tacoma Ave. South, Tacoma, WA
Reception: Thursday, October 16, 4 to 5:30 pm

Since I know many of you are not local, and won’t see the show in person, I thought I’d turn this blog over to the theme of roadside attractions, from now until the end of the exhibit. You’ll see a lot of what’s in the exhibit—plus a few extra goodies that are only online. I’ve been saving some of my favorite sketches for the occasion—I hope you’ll like them, too.

So grab some popcorn, and get ready for some serious concrete n’ fiberglass. Tacoma folks, hope to see you in the flesh—just look out for sharks!

Disappearing act

All cities grow, shrink or evolve over time—but as Seattle is in the midst of yet another building boom, the place is changing so rapidly that I can’t keep up. Landmarks and local mom-and-pops disappear in a puff of smoke—while presto-change-o, mammoth condos and office blocks pop up, seemingly overnight. Painted plywood fences mask building sites the way a magician’s red velvet cloth covers the lady sawn in half. Whole arterial exchanges get picked up and moved elsewhere, my shortcuts and well-worn paths shuffled like a deck of cards. Not only can I not begin to record all the changes in my sketchbooks—sometimes I have to erase huge swaths of my mental map and completely redraw them.

The sweeping changes are disorienting, but small tweaks are everywhere, too. The big plans misdirect our attention while the little things shift by sleight of hand, well beneath our notice. This prestidigitation happens so often that I wonder sometimes if I’m the only one still peering closely, trying to discover the magician’s trick. If I’m the only one whose heartstrings are tugged with every posting of a land use permit.

So revisiting the Hostess Cake Factory, which I sketched last year, seemed like the perfect symbol of how I feel about all this. The structure is an empty, faceless shell now, awaiting a makeover, or a tear-down, or something else entirely. The only remaining identifying features are the building’s rounded corners and its location on the map.

Saddest of all, the red hearts the building wore on its sleeve are gone—which feels suspiciously like a metaphor for the whole neighborhood. Maybe the magician will surprise us and make those hearts reappear at the history museum down the street. Until that day, I’ll keep their memory safe in my sketchbook.

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.

Pining for the fjords

Every time I’ve been on Orcas Island, I’ve felt a twinge of envy for the folks who live there. Because I tell you what: this is a view I could get used to.

The Turning

There’s been a crispness in the air here all week—the first sign that my favorite season is well on its way. Autumn in the Northwest isn’t quite the spectacular show of reds and golds that you might find in New England or, say, Wisconsin, but I love it for its own qualities. Instead of huge swaths of gold, you get foggy watercolor washes of indigo conifers (they really should call them everblues around here…)—which are the perfect compliment to the pops of orange that appear in pockets along the hillsides.

Before I moved to Washington, my travel watercolor set had fifteen colors in it. I’d already been doing the travel sketching thing for years by that point, so I figured I had my system down. (And besides, fifteen seemed like an incredible luxury, when I could potentially have made do with five or six.) Well, within two weeks of moving here, indigo became my sixteenth color—and I’m pretty sure I’ve used it in every single landscape sketch I’ve made here.

It’s a good reminder that no matter how much I think I know from experience, and art school, and all of that, I need to keep observing what’s actually in front of me—because nature knows a heckuva lot more about color theory than I ever will.

Faux farm

You know I have a real thing for farms—as evidenced by all the sketches that have cropped up here (no pun intended) so far. But I also have a fascination with fake farms—you know, the odd sort of agricultural replica that you sometimes see at museums, tourist traps, or—as in the case above—private property.

I love them because just like any roadside attraction, they range from the hokey to the poetic, with every variation in between. Just like the sort of thing you might find at Wall Drug, you get a scrubbed, glorified, romantic version of farm life—without having to muck out any stalls, fight brush fires or take out crop insurance. Yet both the places themselves and their visitors (including little ol’ me) are remarkably earnest in their enthusiasm.

This replica barn, with its replica mural and (probably) eBay-acquired vintage feed plaques, is much more than lawn decor—it’s a careful homage to the agricultural history of the entire island. While most of Vashon is still rural and dotted with farmland, you’re more likely to find beach homes than egg cooperatives these days. So while I’d still rather have the real thing, I’m glad, at least, that somebody wants us to remember how things used to be.

Island haven

I did this sketch on a Friday afternoon last year, having escaped after an insane week of deadlines and project-juggling. Here I am on a similar Friday, and the thought of spending the afternoon in the sun, on an island, staring out over pristine blue water with just the breeze and the sparrows for company—well, it sounds pretty darn perfect to me.

Now where’s that ferry schedule…

Fragrant fields

I love summer in the Northwest, and I love drawing stripes—so you can imagine how happy I am when the two come together perfectly. If you’re ever in this part of the world in late July or early August, head up to the Olympic Peninsula and bask in the lavender fields. Between the buzzing pollinators, the fragrant blossoms, the sunny rain-shadow climate and the mountain scenery, you’ll find yourself experiencing the best summer day anyone could ask for.

Summer haze

Right around the Fourth of July, it’s like someone flips a switch around here, and the dry season begins. Then the stereotypical Northwest rain goes away, and nearly every day is clear, dry and balmy. You can bet that this is when I do the most sketching around my town—and you can probably guess what I’ll be doing this weekend!

Secrets, seastars and spring tide

There was one other time that my sketching had the benefit of a supermoon. Last summer I spent a morning with some fellow sketchers under the ferry landing in Edmonds, WA. This is one of a few spots along Puget Sound where the tide goes out far enough to expose more than just a strip of beach. You can actually walk under the ferry dock at low tide—but you have to be quick, because it’s a very short time before the pilings are submerged again.

Well, the supermoon took care of that for us, pulling the tide out so far that the clay beds were exposed for several hours.

It also attracted hordes of beachcombers, who added an extra fun element to my drawings. But the real reason we were there was the same for all of us: discovering that the rocks and pilings were just teeming with marine life.

So thanks to the supermoon, I had plenty of time to sketch as much as I pleased—as well as the chance to discover that if you stand there long enough, sooner or later a burrowing clam will squirt your feet with arcs of seawater.

(Note to self: bring galoshes next time.)