Drawn the Road Again

Tag: Washington

  • Quarantesima from quarantine

    Quarantesima from quarantine

    Sorry about the non-English post title—I realize it may need a bit of explaining. Italian is my other language, and since we’ve all heard the word “quarantine” a zillion times lately, this title just popped into my head. “Quarantine” comes from the Italian word quarantena, which means a period of forty days. It comes from…

  • Points of light

    Points of light

    I wish I could remember where, but long ago I read some author’s opinion that lighthouses were mankind’s greatest invention, because they were entirely selfless in nature. That thought has stuck with me all these years, and it pops into my head every time I draw a lighthouse. The memory has occurred to me again…

  • Greetings from the Best Coast

    Greetings from the Best Coast

    Greetings from the [Quarantined] Coast! Hoping this finds you safe and well, and staying home to help “flatten the curve” of the virus that is suddenly everywhere at once. Here in Washington we’re sheltering in place—and as fate would have it, today I am celebrating (from home) the release date of my newest book! Greetings…

  • Today’s the day!

    Today’s the day!

    Today is the “book birthday” of The Best Coast: A Road Trip Atlas! After nearly three years of work and a solid decade of research, I can’t believe this day is here. I am so excited to share this labor of love with you, and I hope you’ll love it, too. With 99 hand-drawn maps,…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • 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…