While waiting for my haircut appointment

Not unexpectedly, it was raining in Seattle today when I arrived for my haircut appointment. I was a few minutes early and decided to spend the extra time sketching in the car before going into the salon. I'd brought my little pencil sketch kit with me today, it's very easy to carry in my purse and works well in wet weather.

"Outside Brown Hair" - graphite in a ruled journal

Graphite sketch kit

The picture above shows what I've got in my graphite sketching kit (from left to right): Lyra 9B
water-soluble graphite crayon, General's sketching pencil, 6" ruler, white eraser, 2 Prismacolor colored pencils - steel & black, 2 Design Ebony pencils, 2 2B graphite pencils, stump, Pentalic woodless pencil (I think it's a 2B), and a sharpener. It's all fits very well into a Nomadic PE-06 Side Zipper Pencil Case.

Finishing Up My Moleskin

Yesterday, I finished up the last page in my current Moleskin sketchbook. Here's lucky sketch that got the last page slot.
 

I saw this cute, red Vespa in the South Lake Union area of Seattle. South Lake Union is a very fun up and coming neighborhood. I used to work in that area a few years ago (way before it was cool!) Back then it was still a pretty downtrodden place. Not so today. It’s now come up quite far in the world! With its hip restaurants, pea patches, trendy apartments, and even a new museum adorning its streets SLU is really a fun place to visit.

Red Vespa (ink, colored pencils, Tombow markers in a Moleskin)

Sketching

Just a quick note and a sketch from yesterday. While waiting to pick up my dear friend, Tracy, after her seminar in Seattle on Sunday, I started sketching a plant in the hotel lobby. Sure enough, my friend appeared before I had finished drawing two leaves. I took a snapshot of the plant to finish later at home. Here's the result, a simple pen sketch with a watercolor pencil background. I decided to give the color to the background and not the plant. To me, the background color still gives the impression of green leaves.

At The Seattle Public Library Book Sale

I scored big time!!! I have to take a moment to brag. Last Sunday I found a very out-of-print edition of Andrew Loomis’ “Creative Illustration” on sale for only $7.50 at the library book sale!!! (It was on 1/2 price day too!!) This 1947 book is a classic for professional illustrators and I am totally thrilled to have it in my library. (Plus, the only ones currently available for sale on Amazon START at $96.00 and go up to $350.00!!)

I just can’t stop grinning about it! Ha-ha! :-D

Here are some pix from the book. Can’t you just tell that it’ll be a wonderful read? Yeah!! I can't wait to start reading it. :-)

Seattle University & the St. Ignatius Chapel

Back in my “Privateer Princess” days, I had to draw a Ciodali chapel and needed some photo reference for the location. After a web search I decided to use the ultra-modern St. Ignatius chapel at Seattle University as my model.

Privateer Princess page 71, Ciodali Chapel

St Ignatius is a beautiful place, very airy with wonderfully flowing lines. Last weekend Matt and I decided to go there and take a look in person. (A few years late, but it's never too late I say!) We found the chapel to be quite lovely and architecturally stunning.

Seattle University's St. Ignatius Chapel

While wandering around the Seattle University campus we were also enchanted by the beautiful landscaping. (Apparently Ciscoe Morris, of “Gardening with Ciscoe,” designed the gardens.) As we strolled around I took a lot a photos so that I could do some sketching from the pictures later on.

"Seattle University Garden"
Mixed media in a Stillman & Birn Delta sketchbook.

Here’s the sketch I did today. I am slowly realizing that I quite enjoy showing the wildness of growth in gardens. How the plants vie for your attention as their growth spreads out, almost stacking on top of one another visually. It’s orderly chaos and I love it!

I’m going to be in pictures!

Or at least one of my sketches will be. I was approached by a fellow who’s making a movie about Seattle’s Fremont Troll (which had its 20^th anniversary in 2010) who wants to use one of my sketches in his movie. Hurrah! I’ve seen the trailer and it looks like it’ll be a fun and interesting film. The film, called “Hall of the Giant,” debuts in the Fall of 2012. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see it as part of SIFF 2013 either. Wouldn’t that be something? :-D

This is my sketch that will be used in the movie.

More news of “Hall of the Giant” as it comes up!

This is not the first time that I’ve bumbled into an extraordinary art installation. The first time was in the 1990’s in Tucson when the a major photographic group (The Society for Creative Intentions) included two of my photographic prints in their permanent collection - “Big Vision.” At the gala event they projected all the included photos against the wall of a downtown building! It was quite literally, massive! Both photographs remain in the Big Vision Permanent Collection in Tucson to this day.

It’s so much fun having wild and wacky events like this show up in your life. I am very grateful.

Sketching in Seattle Thursday

I love the fact that Seattle has so many lovely old Art Deco theaters. The Guild 45^th II is conveniently located right outside a convenient Tully’s Coffee – which was very beneficial yesterday as it was raining and I could see the theater right through the window. The original Guild 45^th Theater was built in 1919 and is two doors down from this facade which is technically the “Guild 45th II.” Although the Guild II was built in 1983 it was designed to look similar to the original building.

The original façade is painted pink/salmon and the new one is painted teal. Although both theaters look a little worn, both still have great neon.

If you know this street, you will notice that I have omitted certain details including the power lines and the tree that is growing right in front of the facade. On a nice day perhaps I'll paint the companion theater, "The Guild 45th" to complete the set. :-)

Welcome Spring

Platinum Carbon Black ink and Daniel Smith watercolors in a Stillman and Birn Delta sketchbook.

It’s been a late Spring here in the Pacific Northwest. Our days of sunshine have been rare indeed and I’d heard reports of local hail until just a few days ago. Thursday was one of those rare and beautiful days in Seattle and I spent a few precious hours at Green Lake having lunch and doing some sketching.

This stand of daffodils was just beautiful and I couldn’t resist drawing them. I was planning on adding color on site too, but it turned out I had the wrong mini-palette with me (all Winter colors and no Spring) so I added color at home. I have been doing so much work in black and white lately that it was a real treat to pick up my watercolor brushes again. Hopefully, the weather will hold and I'll be able to do some more outdoor sketching again really soon!

Sketching in Seattle today

At least I started by sketching in Seattle today and then it rained and rained and rained! So I had to bring my urban sketch home and finish it there. This is the Fremont Troll. We used to live in this neighborhood of Seattle and I have always meant to draw it. So on the day I finally got around to it the heavens open up and drown me out. *phsst* Ah well, it IS Seattle after all.