Monday, March 18, 2024

The Trading Musician

3/16/24 The Trading Musician store, University District

Since I don’t play an instrument or have anything to do with the music industry, my only interest in The Trading Musician is its sign of a grumpy guitar head. Whenever I drive to the U-District, I pass that sign, which has been an icon for more than three decades. The Stranger reported in January that the guitar and drum sales and repair store was closing, a “devastating loss” to the musical community. Later it was reported that the owner is retiring, and the property has been sold. My guess is that the iconic sign’s days are numbered.

It’s been on my “must sketch” list since then, so I picked Saturday’s 72-degree sunshine to walk to the U-District and sketch the sign before it disappears. Despite seeing it regularly for its entire existence, I did not know until I sketched it that the sign slowly rotates! When I’m driving by, I’m paying attention to the busy traffic at Roosevelt and Ravenna, so I don’t stare at it long enough to watch it turn. But if there’s any time when one will notice a rotating sign, it’s when one is trying to sketch it!

Sunday, March 17, 2024

Cloud City (and Purple Fail)

3/14/24 Cloud City Coffee, Maple Leaf neighborhood
 

After I finished my 100 people, I kept going, but at a more leisurely pace. My first stop was Cloud City Coffee on Thursday morning, where I immediately struggled with the purple Uglybook I had started the day before. As the last of my partially used books, my plan was to fill it, then finally begin a fresh book that I would use completely before switching to a new color (a plan I committed to last December). I love the purple book so much that I thought I could muscle through it, despite the challenges. But the problem wasn’t just paper color:

The purple is so dark that I can’t use it in my usual tonal way (with white and black as the light and shadow against the colored paper as a midtone; two more examples of the difficulties shown at end of post). Black hardly shows on it. I thought I could simply disregard tonal drawings and use various colored Posca paint markers (still the best opaque medium on colored papers), which I did with this comic-format sketch at Cloud City. I didn’t really care for the look, but I could have finished off the book that way – until I discovered the deal breaker.

3/14/24 Here, I tried to use the purple as the shadow and white
for the sunlit areas... until I realized I would have had to use the white
Pilot Juice pen on the entire background. And by the way, the Juice
is exactly the same as Posca -- in all the bad ways. 
In my optometrist’s waiting room that afternoon, I pulled out the book and the gold Posca (which looks so cool on purple!) to do a quick sketch. When I started to draw, I realized that the Posca needed priming, even though I had just used it that morning. With the agitator making a loud rattly sound as I shook the pen vigorously, I attracted waiting room attention. By the time I got the pen running, my name was called, and the sketchwaiting opportunity was lost! Any art material that keeps me from making a sketch is a solid deal breaker! Curse you again, Posca markers!

It’s not wasted; I’ll certainly find other uses for the dark purple (it has interesting potential for a near-nocturne or an underpainting color). But that book is no longer a daily-carry. Stay tuned for the new exciting color!


3/14/24 Another attempt here: The gold pen was the light while the paper was the shade,
but I should have colored most of the page with gold.

Saturday, March 16, 2024

Another Hundred-Plus in the Books

 

3/11/24 Bellevue Square

On March 10, 2020 – only days before Gov. Inslee shut the state down for the potentially deadly “novel coronavirus” – Urban Sketchers Seattle met at Bellevue Square. Planned weeks earlier when most of us were still uncertain and confused about COVID-19, the outing suddenly seemed more ominous, now that it was upon us. The day before the outing, the other admins and I discussed at length whether we should go forward with it or cancel. Although we did go ahead with the outing, it was not without trepidation on my part. In retrospect, I’m happy that we did because we would not see each other in person again for a year and a half.






All of that was still a vivid memory almost exactly four years later when USk Seattle met at Bellevue Square again. Like last time, the objective was to sketch people for the One Week 100 People online drawing challenge – except this time we all did so without anxiety; in fact, we all had a great time. Meeting there again for 100 People felt like an important circle to close.


As always with this challenge, my goal was to capture quick gestures: not much more than stick figures, really, except that I wanted them to be unique, individual stick figures – not generic.


I thought I got 50 that first day of the challenge, but after I posted my sketches on social media, someone pointed out to me that I had counted wrong – I actually got 54!





The second day I caught a few at Green Lake before my walk, then managed a bunch from my car in the Metro Market parking lot. Remembering that tactic from a previous year, I found the grocery store lot to be especially fruitful. I parked in back facing the entrance. I could see the regular stream of people going in and out of the store. Especially fun and challenging was trying to sketch them as they loaded their hatchbacks with groceries. I polished off 55 – 81 on Day 2.

3/12/24 Green Lake

Metro Market parking lot




On Day 3, I met Roy at Project 9 Brewery for lunch. Unfortunately, I may have oversold it: I told him it would be a great place to sketch people because my prior visits had been fairly busy. On this day, however, the lunch hour seemed slow, and I had to attack several victims more than once (including Roy) to hit the golden number: 82 – 100 people (and one dog) on Day 3!

3/13/24 Project 9 Brewery

I was hoping to get all 100 in the green Uglybook, but I didn't make it, so I started this dark purple one, which is the last of my partially used books that I want to fill before starting a fresh one. This color is going to be tough to finish, though... the gold Posca works as the lightest tone, but purple is too dark to be a mid-tone, so I might need a second Posca.








After my sprint was over, I kept going for the rest of the week (I’ll show those sketches soon), but I could stroll instead.

As it is every year, the 100 People challenge was great practice and a lot of fun! How did you do?

Friday, March 15, 2024

BeanFish

3/8/24 Uwajimaya food court

The first time I had a BeanFish taiyaki was during the 2019 Lunar New Year celebration when USk Seattle met in Chinatown/International District. At BeanFish’s mobile truck, I recall only a few varieties other than traditional sweet bean. At their permanent stand in the Uwajimaya food court, however, they offer dozens of sweet and savory fillings in addition to the classic.

Here's my taiyaki before I bit off its lower jaw. In this traditional variety,
the warm, soft waffle is stuffed with a slightly sweet bean paste.
In Japanese, tai is a sea bream; yaki is to cook by grilling or frying.

Shopping at Uwajimaya for the first time in quite a while, I felt like a snack before heading home, so I stopped at the food court. Mind boggled by all the choices that I wasn’t expecting, I opted for classic sweet bean again. Next time I’ll be prepared to choose something different.

Thursday, March 14, 2024

Double Portrait

 

3/8/24 graphite and ArtGraf water-soluble graphite on Canson XL mixed media paper

I lost my only sister in 2011. She was 65 years old, the same age I am now. I have been thinking about Linda more than usual this year.

Our homework last week in Gal Cohen’s class was to make more overlapping-portrait drawings like the ones we worked on during class. Although she had provided us with more reference photos we could work with, I dug through my own digital photo folders instead. I found one of Linda that had been taken a few months before she died. Then I looked through some photos of myself that Greg had taken at my request when I was working on self-portraits.

Although people often used to tell us that we both resembled our dad or at least had some of his features, it wasn’t until I started drawing her that I realized how similar our noses and eyebrows are. Drawing never fails to show me something I had previously overlooked.

Wednesday, March 13, 2024

Macrina Cinnamon Roll

 

3/7/24 Macrina Bakery

After dropping off my car for servicing before breakfast, I walked the few blocks to Macrina Bakery. (It was 29 degrees that morning, and I had no intention of sketching outdoors!) It was early enough that I got a good table facing the large side windows where patrons were nicely backlit.

Without necessarily planning the contents of each panel in my comic-like spread, I briefly thought about how I wanted the pages to look before I dove in with the cinnamon roll at lower left. (I always start with the food, regardless of its placement on the page, so that I can quickly get on with the business of eating, which was especially critical on that morning because I hadn’t had coffee or food yet.) As a lefty, I tend to start on the right and move leftward. The young woman, the man who looks like the comic character Dilbert and the vased flower fit nicely into those spaces.

I was then left with a narrow horizontal space at lower right, which was awkward to fill: Most elements in my view seemed vertical or squarish. Remembering tips from Drewscape in his YouTube video that inspired the comic approach I’ve been using, I zoomed in on the arm of the woman I had already sketched at upper right. I’m not sure what it adds to the “narrative” of my Macrina story except that her continual texting gave me plenty of time to sketch her twice. I really like that this compositional approach “forces” me to look for subject matter or views that I might not otherwise consider sketching.

Skeptical yet ever-hopeful: the Pilot Juice Paint Marker

Material notes: After it went dry shortly after I had started using it, I finally got around to refilling my Pentel pocket brush pen. It’s good to have it back in my hand.

In other news, I’m trying yet another white pen: a Pilot Juice Paint Marker. From its description and appearance, it’s likely to be the same as the Posca I finally gave up on after cursing it regularly. But my white pen hope springs eternal.

By the way, remember Murphy’s Laws of Urban Sketching No. 4: Ten minutes into your sketch, a large delivery truck will park in front of you for the next 30 minutes? It happens in cafes, too.

View blocked.

Tuesday, March 12, 2024

Overlapping with a Blown Mind

 

3/6/24 colored pencil

3/6/24 technical pen and graphite

Last week’s class with Gal Cohen certainly was an eye-opener for me! The topic was using overlapping images to create a more dynamic drawing and composition. Before giving us each exercise, Gal showed us numerous examples of artists’ works using this technique, all of which focused on the human portrait. Then she gave us reference photos of faces to create our own drawings by overlapping.

The concept is not new, and many examples were fairly simple in execution – yet remarkably complex and sophisticated in result. What struck me was that all of the examples were firmly planted in realism, and some were highly descriptive – not at all what I would call “loose” and certainly not abstract. It should have been a “duh” moment, but it felt more like a light bulb moment: I don’t have to seek out a deliberately loose or outside-the-lines style to be more expressive; I can use my own natural style (which tends toward being more descriptive).

3/6/24 graphite. This exercise ended up a bit muddled. The scribbly stuff at lower right was the top of a man's head, and his face was looking down into a mirror. The reflected image was squeezed in upside-down just above. I like the juxatoposition of all the images, but using the same style in all of them mushed them together more than I wanted. 

Mind blown, I moved on to each exercise feeling both liberated and inspired. Shown above are my results. Shown below are some of the inspiring examples from other artists that Gal showed us.

I think this class was exactly what I was looking for!


Artist's name not given (This was a favorite example... a highly rendered
drawing overlapped with a whisper of a loose sketch of the same subject.)

Dryden Goodwin

Artist's name not given

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