Sketched May 21, 2012

Sarah Haije saw me holding my sketchbook and asked if I was an artist. We were both waiting for the 358 bus at Aurora Avenue and North 130th Street, right across the pedestrian bridge where I sketched neighborhood activist Richard Dyksterhuis a few years ago.

Haije said she was an artist too and we quickly started talking about the type of art we like and showing each other drawings from our sketchbooks. Her pencil drawings of fantastic images drawn from imagination very really good.

Haije, who was kind to let me do this sketch of her, said she takes the 358 every day to get to Ingraham High School, like many other kids who showed up as a pack to get on the bus a few minutes later.

I have only taken the 358 to get to some sketching locations in this area a few times, so I don't know well who the usual riders are, but it seemed to me that many may not be taking the bus by choice, like me, but because they don't have a car or a driving license.

Haije said she's seen "drug fights" break out between passengers. "It's a pretty dangerous bus."

Sketched May 8 and 9, 2012

Dale Chihuly's bright and colorful glass artwork, usually displayed in temporary exhibits around the world, has found a permanent home at Seattle Center, where the "Chihuly Garden and Glass" exhibition opens Monday.

I've been aware of Chihuly's glass art since moving to the area six years ago, but I didn't really know what to make of it. Like with any tangible creation, nothing compares to seeing it in real life to begin understanding what the artist is trying to do.

I was recently allowed to roam the exhibition while glass spires were still being unboxed and cleaners were mopping the floor.

As I wandered around, I remembered the Fun Forest rides that I sketched here just two years ago. Everything looks so different now -- and also quieter.

The giant outdoor sculptures in the garden, even if only partially visible to people outside the enclosed space, add an exhuberant touch of color to a city that can often feel so gray.

One of them is a radiant sun that towers over a mound of black mondo grass. It brought to mind flashes of Joan Miró's surrealist shapes and colors. The Catalan painter and sculptor wasn't a favorite for me growing up in Barcelona but I later came to appreciate his work. Perhaps Chihuly will also grow on me over time?

The sun sculpture, which is 16-feet in diameter, was definitely my favorite among everything I saw. There is something magnetic about it that pulls you in. People outside the tree fence surrounding the garden were raising their cameras to photograph it. I even heard someone shout: "How do you get in there?"

In case you have the same question, here's the answer: Tickets are $19 for adults, $12 for ages 4 to 12, $17 for seniors and $15 for adult King County residents.

Here are more drawings from my visit to give you an idea of what to expect:

The exhibition centerpiece is the glass house that connects the pavilion galleries with the outdoor gardens. What looks to me like thousands of red and yellow glass parasols hang from the ceiling and filter multicolored light into the room. As I knelt down to draw, some of my watercolors ended up making a mess on the floor. How timely, I thought, since I was sketching the cleaning crew in action.

Of all the wildly-shaped glass art that peppers the garden, I found the spheres particularly eye-catching. They mirror the looming Space Needle behind you, creating an image everyone will want to photograph -- or even sketch.

A special treat from my early look at the galleries was watching how the glass sculptures are assembled. Chihuly's staffers had to tie each piece individually to a metal frame, carefully positioning them to avoid gaps that would reveal the underlying structure. This chandelier previously hung over the canals of Venice, the city regarded as the European cradle of glassmaking.

Chihuly's exhibit offers a walk-through of his entire career. Not being that familiar with his work, I appreciated the gallery that displays early works inspired by hand-woven Northwest Indian baskets.

This giant "Sea Life" sculpture stands out against the dark gallery walls, painted in what an exhibition representative described as "Chihuly Gray." The Tacoma native, I was also told, has found inspiration from seaforms since combing the beaches of the Puget Sound as a kid.

Chihuly's affinity with water themes is also present in this display, a wooden boat loaded with glass sculptures that reminded me of algae growing under the sea.

Chihuly's love for glass is unquestionable, but who knew that he collected all sorts of stuff? Accordions, old cameras, ceramic dogs, bottlecap openers and other vintage items are on display at the exhibition's restaurant, the Collections Café.

I spotted a familiar Spanish brand among the couple of hundred bottlecap openers on display in a vitrine at the entrance of the cafe. If my memory doesn't fail me, the first beer I ever had was a Cruzcampo. I wonder if Chihuly actually used the opener to try one. They are good.

The vintage television sets at the exhibition store also seemed out of place until I was told they belong to Chihuly's personal collection. The staff told me they will play videos about the artist.

What has drawn your attention around Seattle lately? Send me your suggestions of interesting places and people to sketch via e-mail, Facebook or Twitter. Have a great weekend!

Sketched May 7, 2012

I rarely make trees the focus of my drawings, but the centenarian Japanese maple in front of Seattle City Hall is not your average specimen. Think of it as a fine piece of public art.

The unusual tree, bigger and older than any other red-lace leaf maple you'd see around here, was brought to Seattle in the late 1990s by local landscape contractor David Ohashi. He found it in Portland and used a semitrailer escorted by pilot cars to get the oversized load up Interstate 5.

The tree drew oohs and aahs at a garden show and eventually caught the eye of then-mayor Paul Schell, who bought it for $35,000 and later raised private contributions to pay back the city.

Since it was installed at the new City Hall in 2003, Schell's maple puts on a colorful show throughout the seasons, attracting downtown workers -- and even this sketcher who doesn't really like to draw trees.

What has drawn your attention around Seattle lately? Send me your suggestions of interesting places and people to sketch via e-mail, Facebook or Twitter. Have a great weekend!

Sketched April 24, 2012

Bubble ... what?

The 1962 World's Fair Bubbleator was an ultramodern, transparent, spheric lift that took 100 people at a time to the "World of Tomorrow," an exhibit of futuristic images inside what is now KeyArena.

It left a lasting impression on visitors, and remained a city attraction through the 1970s, when it was part of the Center House, then known as the Food Circus.

But in the '80s, the Bubbleator's magic popped. Des Moines resident Gene Achziger found it in a heap inside a north Lake Union warehouse where it had been put in storage. It was owned by Seattle Children's hospital, but "they didn't know what to do with it," said Achziger, who paid $1,000 for the pieces to build a greenhouse for his home.

We can still travel on the Monorail and take in the views from the Space Needle. Wouldn't it be cool to ride the Bubbleator again?

Achziger, 58, said some parts are missing but it would still be great if somebody was willing to bring the space elevator back to life. He actually never got to ride it as a boy because of the long lines at the fair.

What has drawn your attention around Seattle lately? Send me your suggestions of interesting places and people to sketch via e-mail, Facebook or Twitter. Have a great weekend!

Sketcher looks back at the Fair: They keep the old Monorail running

More World's Fair Anniversary coverage: seattletimes.com/worldsfair

Remember my sketch of the big "W" sign at the UW? ("Quiet retreat on UW campus," April 20, 2012)

A reader commented that "to install it, they tore down a beautiful 1920s gothic stone gate."

I found that hard to believe. I know there are two gothic-style columns on each side of the entrance, but was a 1920s gate really torn down to make room for this big capital letter?

Not at all.

Kristine Kenney, director of campus design and planning, said the "W" replaced a small slab of concrete inscribed with the words "University of Washington."

That sign was out-of-scale for the Memorial Way entrance and often obscured by plants, said Kenney, who has another location in mind for it: the campus entrance at Northeast 43th Street and 15th Avenue.

The metal "W" that I sketched was installed in the fall of 2010 when the university started rolling out its new brand.

Michael Courtney, the local designer who came up with the idea of the giant letter, sent me the sketch of his original concept after seeing my own sketch. He drew it during a meeting with UW representatives and said the actual sketch helped them sell the idea and eventually find donors to build the sign.

Courtney also said UW President Mark Emmert wanted a sign where people would stop to have their photos taken, something emblematic.

I saw some people take photos of it while I was drawing it, so I think the sign is accomplishing its intended purpose.

It also makes a good sketch subject. Have you ever thought of drawing it?

If you do, send me your sketch and I'll share it on my Facebook page.

"W" sketch courtesy of Michael Courtney Design.

Sketched April 17, 2012

When spring-cleaning season comes around, I'm always faced with the same question: Has the day of reckoning arrived for my 12-year-old iMac?

I'm such a geek that I may never get rid of the bulky computer, but if I do, I think I'll take it to a place like Interconnection.

At the nonprofit computer refurbisher in Fremont, reuse is the goal. Volunteers like Andrew Phetsomphou pry open donated computers and install new parts that give the machines a longer life. The refurbished desktops and laptops then are sold cheap at Interconnection's retail store or shipped internationally to communities with fewer resources. I sketched a pallet of Dells marked for Ghana next to another slated for Mali.

Phetsomphou, a 21-year-old networking student at Highland Community College, is glad to donate time for this cause and calls the hands-on experience "a good résumé builder."

For more information, visit interconnection.org.

Web Extra

Charles Brennick started Interconnection out of his house in 1999 to help other nonprofits with their computer technology needs. At first, that meant creating websites, but since 2005, his main focus has been the responsible disposal and reuse of computer equipment.

Brennick, a 42-year-old father of two who grew up in Lake Stevens, said there's a lot of fashion in technology. We may think our 5-year-old computer is useless compared to the latest models, but with some upgrades it can still be useful to many people who don't need the latest gizmos, he explained. Or, in other words, "you don't need a Ferrari when you are just driving to school."

Brennick gave me a tour of the 10,000-square-foot warehouse on Stone Way North where Interconnection moved a year ago.

Donated computers fill carts near a loading dock where people drive up to drop off their equipment. Volunteer Daniel Simandjuntak was scanning desktop towers and lining them on a "data-wiping" shelf, where the hard drives are erased.

Next, the machines are moved to a triage area where volunteers clean them up and assess what parts can be reused or need to be recycled. In the sketch you can see a volunteer checking the quality and specs of different types of monitors.

From triage, reusable desktops and laptops go to workshops, where more nitty-gritty steps are taken to fix them up, such as installing new processors, adding RAM memory or replacing the hard drives. Here's where I sketched volunteer coordinator Hannah Mandala working on a refurbished laptop. Mandala said volunteers love coming to Interconnection because they can get their hands on so many different types of computers.

And the process comes full circle when people show up at the retail store to purchase a refurbished computer. Chris Adams, a customer buying a used ThinkPad, said he came here not only for the cheaper prices but because he wants to support Interconnection's mission.

What has drawn your attention around Seattle lately? Send me your suggestions of interesting places and people to sketch via e-mail, Facebook or Twitter.

Meet me at the Seattle Central Library: I'm presenting my book, The Art of Urban Sketching, at The Seattle Central Library tomorrow Sunday, April 29, at 1 p.m. Before the talk, I'll also be joining the Seattle Urban Sketchers for some sketching. You are all invited to join us and come to the book talk.

Sketched April 10, 2012

Oh, spring at the U-Dub!

The best thing about it is that you don't have to pay tuition to enjoy it. Anyone can wander through campus, and there's much more to see than the striking, but fleeting cherry blossoms in the Quad.

This year, with the UW celebrating its 150th Anniversary ("HuskyFest" event wraps up Saturday), it was fitting that I discovered the Sylvan Grove Theater, home to some of the oldest-standing pieces of Seattle architecture: four, 24-foot Ionic columns that belonged to the original university building downtown.

The lush garden space, tucked between the Rainier Vista corridor and the Paul G. Allen Center for Computer Science & Engineering, is so secluded even some students miss it. Emilia Ptak, a recent graduate relaxing on a bench with a friend, didn't find it until her third or fourth year.

Unlike the Quad, she said, it's a quiet spot to concentrate and study.

Web Extra

Other sketches from my stroll through campus:

Block letters are so collegiate. A plaque by this giant "W" says the sign was donated by the class of 1960.

Denny Hall is the first university building to open on the current campus, back in 1895. As I started to sketch, I could hear a tour guide address his group. "This is where we come from," he said, pointing to the castle-like building. "And this is where we are going," pointing to the state-of-the-art architecture of Paccar Hall to the east. Paccar Hall is home to the Michael G. Foster School of Business.

I think Emilia Ptak had a point when she told me that the Quad is better for people watching than studying. On the sunny day I visited, the sensory overload was such that I can't imagine anyone being able to concentrate there.

I sat on the steps of the Suzzallo Library building to sketch this view. Students crisscrossed the square in all directions on their way to class. Others stood under blue-covered tents, holding balloons and handing out fliers. When I finished my sketch, I walked over to the other side of the square to order a pulled-pork sandwich from a food truck, then sat on the benches at the center of the square to eat and remember my own college days at another beautiful campus, the University of Navarra in Pamplona, Spain.

What has drawn your attention around Seattle lately? Send me your suggestions of interesting places and people to sketch via e-mail, Facebook or Twitter. Have a great weekend!

A common question I'm often asked about my work method is whether I use pencil or draw directly in ink.

For the most part, I stay away from pencil --unless I'm doing a pencil sketch-- for several reasons. Inking previously drawn pencil outlines can diminish the feeling of freshness and spontaneity that makes sketches interesting. The added step of penciling before inking also makes the process longer. What I normally sketch in 20 or 25 minutes would take me 45 minutes to an hour, including coloring, if I penciled first.

But in some cases I use pencil to block out the main elements of a composition. Pencil comes in handy to mark the horizon line and vanishing points when you are drawing wide open spaces and want to get the perspective right. That was the case with the drawing of Gregory Harrop's poem bench, or with my lead sketch of the streetcar on this other story. In such cases, if the perspective isn't fairly accurate, the drawings start to fall apart.

I like to keep the lines light and not overdoing them, using a 2B pencil. Some sketchers erase them before inking --a kneaded eraser won't damage the paper--, but I mostly let the pencil marks be part of the final drawing. You may call that a "transparent" approach to sketching, where no tricks are hidden to the viewer's eye!

Sketching results by artists who use pencil before inking vary greatly. That's a good thing about sketching. Whatever method you use, your unique style will still come through. For example, just compare the work of Thomas Thorspecken with the work of Gérard Michel. Both start their sketches with some pencil outlines, yet their final results are completely different.