The Mountain Delivers

 

5/10/24 Macrina Bakery, Maple Leaf neighborhood

Several years ago when I had promoted an Urban Sketchers outing to Maple Leaf Park, I oversold it a bit: “The biggest and best highlight is a completely unobstructed view of Mt. Rainier – possibly the best within the city limits!” (I used to make my living in marketing; so shoot me.) On that August day, Her Majesty laughed her head off as she stayed hidden behind clouds.

Caffeine and sustenance before the park outing. 

Seeing that the weather forecast was clear and warm toward the end of last week, I recalled that 2017 outing. As I sent out an ad hoc outing announcement on short notice, I said to myself, “Come on, Your Majesty – don’t make a liar out of me again!”

For early birds, I started the outing at Macrina Bakery across the street from the park entrance. I enjoyed meeting a couple sketchers who were new to USk, and we all had fun chatting and sketching our pastries and coffee (above).

Walking across the street to the park, I looked up at the clear sky and breathed a sigh of relief. This time, I delivered on my promise of a fantastic view of Mt. Rainier. While Her Majesty was the main attraction, the Maple Leaf water tower and the Confluent Boulders sculpture were also popular subjects (good backup material in case The Mountain was under cover).

5/10/24 Maple Leaf Park

It was the first outing of the year that felt like summer – and it’s only May! I know that doesn’t bode well for the climate or the snowpack, but right now, I couldn’t be happier.

"Confluent Boulders" by Patrick Marold

Jim and Paula make homage to Her Majesty.

Thornton Place

 

5/8/24 Thornton Place, Northgate

After an appointment in Northgate, I remembered that it had been ages since I last sketched at Thornton Place. Although it has lots of nice umbrella’d tables, it’s not sheltered, so it requires at least a little warmth and dry weather to be comfortable. A bit breezier than I like, it was still a comfortable 63 degrees and with clear skies to spare.

This page isn’t much of a comic in terms of a “story,” but it’s one of my favorite page compositions so far. According to Scott McCloud’s criteria for modern comics, maybe my “story” is simply wanting to capture the feeling of spring (at long last) when café umbrellas open and people want to be outdoors.

Third Place Commons

 

5/7/24 Third Place Commons, Lake Forest Park

Third Place Commons is an ideal spot when Roy and I want to talk about and make comics. It’s a huge space, so we can choose close-up, middle-ground and distant compositions, and it’s full of people meeting and talking and who tend to stay around for a while.

Recently I had been thinking about some exercises I had done in Taylor Dow’s Observational Cartooning workshop three years ago. I remember clearly the exercise that I had enjoyed most: Going out to Volunteer Park to draw from life while speculating about what people or things were saying or doing. Even though the “characters” were real people and not imaginary, I could use words to add an imaginary layer. I especially had fun making up dialog between inanimate objects – it was comic-making that felt easier than anything else I had tried.

Hearing all the chatter around us as we sketched, I warmed up with the blue Uglybook (above) to capture some of the yackers (and a young woman who was quietly studying). The page was a way to get back into that fun frame of mind from the workshop.

Then I immediately started a second comic spread in a larger, lavender-colored Uglybook (below) to capture the different types of communication going on with more speculation. Fun! I think I’ll do this more often when I sketch in places with lots of people.

The scanner cut off the right edge, so I'm also showing the photo image below.

The "bible" of autobiographical comics.

While at Third Place Commons, I stopped in at Third Place Books to pick up the book I had ordered: Lynda Barry’s Making Comics. I had read a library copy three years ago. Back then, my focus was on learning to draw from imagination more than on making comics, so I didn't get far with Barry's remarkable teaching methods. But if Scott McCloud’s books are seen as the “bibles” of all comics-making, certainly Barry’s books are the “bibles” of autobiographical comics. Making Comics is rich in creative exercises and techniques to help people mine their personal stories and get them out in comics form. It was time to own a copy.

Comics campadres are at it again!

UW Quad Protest

 

5/9/24 UW Quad

The day before USk Seattle’s outing to the University of Washington Biology Greenhouse, student protests of the university’s involvement with support to Israel started heating up. News reports said the pro-Palestinian protest encampment was still relatively peaceful, though, so I wasn’t concerned. I was, however, a naughty USk admin: After leading the group into the greenhouse, I went out to the Quad, where the encampment had been set up. I saw a good opportunity for sketch reportage!

OK, that’s what I told myself, but if truth be known, I just wanted to sketch in the sun. Two winters ago, USk met at the greenhouse when it was chilly out, so the greenhouse’s warmth was welcome. On Thursday, though, the hot, humid greenhouse was less appealing; I preferred 70-degree sunshine!

Even if my primary motivation wasn’t journalistic, I did find it an interesting challenge to tell the story of the encampment on a comics-like page (above). How different the Quad looked, covered end-to-end with tents, compared to the last time USk Seattle met there to sketch the fairyland of cherry blossoms.

After finishing that montage, I found myself suddenly hungry, so I wandered over to the HUB for a snack. I’ve been inside the HUB maybe three times since I graduated in 1985, and every time I’ve been shocked by how much everything has changed since I was a student. I open the same doors I opened nearly daily for six years, but inside, nothing looks the same.

Still, I enjoy the vibrant energy of the UW campus, especially between classes when students stream by in all directions. As I caught snippets of conversations, I realized not everything changes; students still talk about the same kinds of things.

I may be a naughty USk admin, but I always show up for the group photo!

Pink Dogwood (and Comics Lesson)

 

5/5/24 Maple Leaf neighborhood

Chilly and wet on a recent drizzly walk, I wasn’t excited about getting even colder by pausing to sketch. However, a pink dogwood I had admired on previous walks was at peak, and I knew that the coming storm would likely take down a lot of petals. It was now or never.

Process note: As I put in the dark green background behind the tree to make the blossoms stand out, I chuckled to myself about the irony: Learning to put in solid, dark backgrounds in the comics pages I have been making has taught me “not to be afraid of the dark” (quoting Roy). That’s what creativity is: Learning one thing teaches me another.

Ellie’s Show

 

5/5/24 Caffe Ladro, lower Queen Anne

Lively landscape by Eleanor Doughty

When we heard that Eleanor Doughty currently has a show at Caffe Ladro in lower Queen Anne, Ching and I decided to check it out. First we had lunch at nearby McMenamins (the same one I visited about a month ago). Then we walked over to Caffe Ladro to see Ellie’s vibrant, color-filled Pacific Northwest landscapes.

Like a Double Espresso

5/4/24 1-minute poses

On the first Saturday of the month, Gage Academy offers a three-hour life-drawing session of one-minute, two-minute and five-minute poses. It’s like a double shot of espresso: If you weren’t awake when you got there, you surely will be after a round or two of poses going by so fast that they hardly count as “poses.” Our fantastic model gave us a huge variety of strong, dynamic poses that kept every minute fun and challenging.

With 5-minute p0ses, I have time to use water-soluble graphite with water.

Although I prefer shorter poses to long ones anyway, the usual short-pose sessions I have attended are no shorter than five minutes (and ramp up to 20 by the end of the session). I had been wanting to try a super-short session for a long time but always seemed to have a conflict on the first Saturday. Now that I’ve had a taste, you can bet I’ll be back for more. These sessions are especially great practice for urban sketching.

For 2-minute poses, I used the same brush pen as I did for 1-minutes, but I had time for a little shading with a waterbrush.

Shown here are just a few of the 80 or so sketches I made. I always like to compare my first one of the session to all the rest after I’ve warmed up. Below are the stick men that were the first sketches of the day!

My first two sketches of the session... a bit stiff and out of proportion, but at the rate we were going, I warmed up quickly!