U-District Artwalk.

Well I did the Art walk last night. I'd "done" it before doing illustration demonstrations over at the Dreaming. But this was the first time I actually walked and looked at the various displays. The first was some of the photography of my friend J Kovach, of Feral Sky Studios, at Gargoyles. The second was at Upper Playground, a new high end t-shirt shop, that was showing the works of Alex Pardee. Most of his work consisted of very bizarre surrealist cartoons, very well done though.

It was the first time I had ever checked out Upper Playground since it had first opened up a couple of months ago. It was crowded and lively and I got myself stuck in an unmoving line to see the exhibit. Just as I was beginning to get very annoyed I realized I was standing in the autograph line.

The really depressing thing is that between this and J's opening is this is the closest thing I've gotten to going out for a night on the town.

Where Do You Take Out Of Town Guests?

Today's Strip

I'm sure all cities in the world have a similar phenomenon. But here in Seattle the only time we EVER do the Underground tour in Pioneer Square is when we have guests from out of town. It's nearly the same with going up the top of the Space Needle but at least there's a trendy restaurant up there.

Water Color of Discovery Park

I decided to throw in some of my occasional watercolors into mix. Watercolor, at the moment, is my primary non-virtual medium. I like it first because it is extremely portable and second because since it is such an forgiving medium where mistakes are VERY hard to correct, being good at it is something you can take smug satisfaction in.
For some reason though no matter how good my pieces are, and trust me I have some of them in my portfolio, I have a difficult time considering them anything more then sketches. Most of the reason behind this is a lot of them are... a good chunk of them are concept art for assorted story ideas and the rest of them are these...
In my frequent out door walks i like to bring my watercolor kit with me. Doing these pictures are good because the force me to hyperfocus on various objects and thus take in all of the details, as well as being a "running weights" kind of practice. Every now and then this produces something really good. However most of the time, like in this painting of the bluff in Discovery park, they can be charitably considered abstracts.

Here's the real thing for comparison (though I had a clearer day and Rainier was not hidden by the haze.)

Folklife: Day Four

Well this is the end. I think I was getting just a little burnt out in the end so I didn't crank out quite as many as the last few days but heres what we got... Peruvian Dancers from the AFrican ConXion Project 09, Hank Veensta and Friends playing old time fiddle music, some young jugglers out in the Fiddler Green, and finally the Rum Rebellion, punk folk from Portland and all of their fans.

Folklife: Day Three

Okay here's today's batch. First Papa String and Brien “Bobo” McMullen from Eugene based Conjugal Visitors. Then a girl playing guitar outside of Key arena. After this I have some dancers. First a trio of step dancers who were performing with the McKassons, a contemporary scottish fiddle band, and some women dancing to a cumbia piece performed by the Michael Carlos Band. Finally a few sketches from a capoeira demonstration. I confess there were a lot of liberties taken here. As there is so much movement going on here all of the figures are combinations of several different poses.

Folklife: Day Two

Okay, other then a braving the crowds and sun, it was a very good day. I created a lot less duds which either means I'm getting better or I took less chances. Anyway the line up today consists of Albira dze Muningia a west african percussion group. Liddy Voetberg a fiddler, who normally performs with her family group, The Galway Ramblers, a celtic group from Galway Ireland, and the Bobs a very funny a cappella group.
I also did some sketching of various tango dancers. The sketches of the dancers you see here are sort of a fusion of different people. They were just moving too fast. By the time I had worked out the pose the models were halfway across the dance floor.

Folklife: Day One

Okay got a good start with the first day of Northwest Folklife. Lots of good music lot's of good people watching and of course lots of good material to sketch. I think I'll consider today as warm up. There were a few duds in the mix which I think I'll keep to myself, but otherwise I think I did okay.
Today's line up include Christopher of the Wolves, a sort of Didgeridoo one man band, members of Unkle Nancy and the Family Jewels, musicians from Ockham's Razor a really kick ass celtic band, and some girls dancing to Ockham's Razor.

Extreme Sketching in the U-District

This weekend was the first of the Seattle street fairs. It was pretty good summer weather so it consisted as the first salvo in my on going seasonal battle with sun burn. Anyway one thing I like to do during these public events is something I like to call "Extreme Sketching" that is to say drawing moving targets. The trick here is to get the basic pose down as quickly as possible, work in the details as you go along, and pray that your memory fills in the gaps. These are hardly ever any good for obvious reasons. But it's a very good exercise (kind of like running with weights on) and often yields material for much better drawings. ANyway, I didn't get as many done as I would have liked, these events are getting much too crowded. But I think these three came out quite well. Unfortunately the only ones I got the info for this time was a duo called Raw Corn who I enjoyed very much (You've got to respect anyone who plays John Wayne and Pink Floyd back to back.)

Drinking Liberally Regulars

I'm a regular at the Seattle Drinking Liberally It's lots of fun banging heads with fellow policy wonks. For fellow Seattleites it's at the Montlake Ale House on 24th Ave E. Anyway back on the topic... A couple of weeks ago, when I had nothing to contribute to the conversation at hand, I started to sketching some of the regulars. Anyway I thought I'd share. The line up here consists of David Goldstein AKA Goldy of Horses Ass, Darryl Holman of Hominid Views, Joel Connelly of the Seattle Post Intelligencer, and Stephen Schwartz of Seattle Jew.

Bussing Drama

Well I had a bit of unexpected entertainment on the way home. I had done all of those errands that had to be done before Seven before all of those stores closed and I was in one of those what do I do next kind of modes. All of the food of the dinner persuasion I had at home were all frozen solid so I was seriously considering getting take out. However whether I got something in the U-District or Lake City was very much dependent on when the next bus came. So I walked to the nearest bus to see when the next 72, my usual bus back to Lake City, would come. I found that there would be one in a minute and another in a half hour. While it occurred to me that a half hour was the perfect ammonite of time to run over to my favorite teriyaki place but I was tired and wanted to get home. Anyway the first half of the ride went as normal as I tried to think which was better logistical choice teriyaki, fried chicken from QFC, or Wendy's which was when the bus stopped. THe bus driver said that there was another 72 stopped in front of them and she would see if she could help and then nothing. After what felt like ten minutes people started getting off the bus. I held out thinking if there was nothing the bus driver could do to help she would have to move on. Finally the bus driver announce that she might be stuck there all night and it would be best for us to move to the nearest stop. As I got out I saw that the other bus was stuck all right and blocking the entire street. In a bit of snarkiness it occurred to me that the bus driver could have mentioned this a bit earlier. I walked from the bus to my apartment, a walk that took about 45 minutes, i played the if game; if i had taken the bus that was a half hour later they would have been detoured around the other bus and would already have my supper. Two other 72s passed me on the way home. I'm ashamed to admit that I flipped one of them off. At that point I saw no need to wait for another bus. I was mad and it has always been my experience that after you loose your temper it is best to burn off as much residual adrenaline as possible if you want to get to sleep that night, a brisk 45 minute walk to get home is perfect for that. THough I did finally stop for teriyaki on the way.

The Problem With Dreaming of A White Christmas...

Is that you just might get one. I was out of coffee this morning, so I went over to the Lake City Starbucks for my morning cup and to restock on supplies. I was surprised and more than a little irritated to find that the various side streets between 35th and Lake City Way had not been plowed yet. Look I know this town is a little backwards when it comes to the white stuff and I know we only have about three plows but come on people, it's been here for six days!

Snowed In

Well it was an interesting weekend. I've been mostly cooped up for the last, but least we still have power, I had a friend who was worried about the fate of her pet snake before the storm hit. What time I had to spend outdoors have been interesting to say the least. One rule i've found very useful to follow... When you are in downtown Seattle and light snow is STICKING in the DAYTIME go HOME. Despite this simple rule I was forced to be downtown twice this weekend and it was interesting. At least my bus was running mostly on schedule. I was watching several Seahawk fans having a bit of trouble figuring out how to get back to the east side.

Now that I'm safely home in my office it's rather pretty. Strangely it's put me in the Christmas spirit a bit. Probably because with the snow the Christmas tree and sleigh decorations don't feel like a farce like they normally do.

"Cauffee"

Speaking as a transplanted Yankee living out in the northwest, one of the things that made me stick out like a sore thumb were the different pronunciations of everyone's favorite breakfast drink... Being asked by waiters all over Seattle what "cauffee" was got old after the first week.