Tag Archives: Washington

Four-legged harbormaster

When I sat on the pier to do this sketch, I only meant to draw the boats—I’m a sucker for bunches of masts and linear elements like tielines. To make sure I could fit the whole mast in the picture plane, I started at the top and worked my way down. It wasn’t until I got to the mass of windows and decks that I noticed the corgi sitting quietly and staring back at me!

This is the perfect example of why I prefer to sketch my surroundings, rather than photograph them. If all I had done was snap a photo of the scene, I never would have noticed that pup in a million years. Instead, I got to have a private little thrill of discovery, like I had just found out a small secret.

Seattle schlock

These days, Seattle is a city that’s far too cool for school. It’s a place where rents are skyrocketing, LEED-platinum buildings are popping up like daisies, restaurants are whipping up the latest prix-fixe sustainable fusion menu du jour, and if you aren’t bearded and coiffed (or at least sporting a pair of hornrims and a couple of ironic tattoos), you’re probably in violation of some city ordinance.

Which is precisely why I love Ye Olde Curiosity Shop: it is the polar opposite of all of that. It is as old-school, down-home, un-PC and tacky-touristy as you can possibly get. It’s the kind of place that is so uncool that to the average hipster, it blows right past “ironic” and lodges itself firmly in the fanny-pack-and-socks-with-sandals camp.

I love it because it’s the Northwest’s answer to Wall Drug—on a much smaller scale, of course. (If we really wanted to compete with Wall Drug, we’d need a few giant fiberglass orcas outside, to begin with—not to mention about 300 billboards.)

I also love it because it has a real history. The shop began in 1899 as a sort of dime museum and cabinet of curiosities, designed to draw boom-town dollars during the Klondike Gold Rush. It has always been a mix of cheap souvenirs, film-flam curiosities, specimens of questionable origin, and real, valuable goods (including Northwest Native art; Princess Angeline, Chief Seattle’s daughter, was a regular shop supplier).

This mix of genuine and fraudulent permeates both the shop itself and its place in Seattle’s history. Ye Olde Curiosity Shop has had a large hand in how outsiders view the city—the best example being the tendency to associate Seattle with totem poles, even though there are no totem tribes in Washington. I find this sort of thing completely fascinating. From my point of view as a sketch artist, that’s where the real story is. I’m most interested in capturing where truth and legend intersect—where museum curator meets carney barker, where worthless meets priceless, where kitsch meets art. And I can’t think of a place in Seattle where those lines are more wonderfully blurred.

Spring on the homefront

It’s easy to get wrapped up in my sketchbooks of more exotic places, but walking around my own neighborhood reminds me that there’s plenty to see and sketch, right here at home.

Color theory

Well, I got my wish. Friday morning ended up being the perfect time to visit the tulip fields. I spent the whole morning in the valley, and over an hour in just this spot.

And to make the moment last just a little longer, I bought a little bit of the Skagit Valley to bring home with me.

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Tulip town

By the time you’re reading this, I’ll be headed up north for this year’s Tulip Festival. The last time I was there, the day I made this sketch, the weather was iffy at best. At this time of year, forecasts aren’t worth all that much, so I’m just crossing my fingers and hoping for decent sketching weather. I guess we’ll see what Monday’s post will hold…hopefully something flowery and colorful.

Hope we all have a sunny weekend!

A fine kettle of fish

One of my favorite walking routes in Seattle takes me across the Ballard Locks. There’s a lot to see there, particularly if you’re interested in watching all the fishing boats head in and out of the locks. But the best part, for me, is the fish ladder at the far end of the complex, which allows spawning salmon to make the transition (both in elevation and salinity) from saltwater to freshwater. There’s an underwater viewing platform down there, and if you go at the right time of year you’ll see a veritable boatload of salmon behind the glass.

I like to go in August or September, when you can find a mix of salmon species (coho, chinook, sockeye, etc.), but I’m told that now is the time of year to see steelhead trout making the same trek. So if you’re local, grab your sketchbook (and your umbrella!) and see what you might find.

The wind through the trees

After Monday’s post, and all the noise and disruption present in that sketch, I felt like something a little…quieter today. I did this drawing almost a year ago, on a gorgeous Sunday that should have had the park packed with picnickers. For whatever reason, though, the Tailor and I had the place entirely to ourselves. All we could hear was… well, you read the title of this post.

It was a small, silent slice of heaven.

The final tally

If you happen to follow along on Instagram or Facebook, you’ll know I’ve just returned from a 4000+ mile road trip across the south and west of the county. One of the things I like to do at the end of a trip (and the end of my sketchbook) is a map and recap of the journey. Of course, there are lots and lots of sketches of the details along the way (I expect you’ll see lots of those in the coming weeks), but sometimes it’s nice to step back and look at the big picture.

Palouse palette

Every once in a while, I don’t even bother starting with a line drawing, and just go straight to watercolor instead. On this day, the dust being kicked up by tractors had obliterated much of the definition of objects in the scene. The result was a landscape distilled down to blocks of pure color, like a patchwork quilt.

Morning mist

On this morning, my city felt like a stage set of paper cut-outs. I just about killed this sketchbook dead by working and reworking the flimsy paper for this drawing—but even as the paper threatened to give out on me, I found myself wanting to add more and more layers. Capturing reality accurately proved elusive that day, but when I look at this page now, I remember the moment with perfect clarity.

Which, I suppose, is the reason I do this stuff in the first place…