Drawn the Road Again

Tag: WA

  • Summer haze

    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…

  • Secrets, seastars and spring tide

    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…

  • Super moonrise

    Super moonrise

    I had other plans for today’s post, but I had a surprise on Saturday evening that changed all of that. I spent the day on the Oregon coast, and arrived on the home stretch just as the last light was fading. As I neared the Nisqually Delta, I looked east out of habit, where I…

  • Pink pachyderm

    Pink pachyderm

    If the Yoken’s whale is the queen of the east coast’s Route 1, then the Elephant Carwash sign surely must rule Highway 99 in the west. The restaurant inside the Space Needle can eat its heart out—this jumbo gal is my favorite spinning landmark in the Emerald City.

  • Okey-dokey, artichokey

    Okey-dokey, artichokey

    Now, I know these might not exactly be roses by another name, but I didn’t have to travel far or wide to see them: these artichokes are my favorite thing in my next-door neighbor’s garden. Turns out she grows them as ornamentals, as she’s not a big fan of eating them. So thanks to her,…

  • Catch of the day

    Catch of the day

    A June day at Alki doesn’t tend to provide the summer warmth you might find at a beach outside of the Northwest—but even in the chilly overcast air, there’s nothing better or more summery than a basket of fried clams and hot chips.

  • Blue, and gray, and green

    Blue, and gray, and green

    It always amazes me how different the ocean can be, depending on what the sky is doing. I did the California sketch in the winter, and the Washington one at midsummer, and it seems like the seasons are reversed.

  • Big tow

    Big tow

    Seattle is one of the most tow-happy cities I’ve ever encountered. If you’ve ever tried to decipher the convoluted weekday parking rules downtown here (where signs say things like, oh, I dunno, “2-hour parking except third Wednesdays in months with an “R” in them, between 3 and 6 pm, and then only if driver is…

  • Perfect panorama

    Perfect panorama

    For the many days of the year, these mountains are invisible. If you showed up in western Washington in November, you might not even know we had mountains here. Our rainy Northwest climate makes these peaks disappear into the clouds on most days—even, sometimes, when you’re right there, standing amongst them. Not in the summertime,…

  • Perennial pagoda

    Perennial pagoda

    This Sunday my town is celebrating the 100th anniversary of the pagoda at Point Defiance Park. Originally a streetcar station, the building features an Arts & Crafts design, Japanese-style roof and Welsh ceramic roof tiles. A teenage arsonist nearly destroyed the structure in 2011, but the subsequent restoration brought back several of the original features…