Grey Morning at Fishermen's Wharf

The morning started out a bit cold and nippy with overcast skies for the Friday Ad Hoc meeting of Seattle Urban Sketchers today.

I started out with the stone Qingdao Eagle monument on the west end of the dock. This sculpture commemorates the relationship of the Port of Seattle with its sister port of Qingdao, China. I used my Pentalic Aqua Journal, Micron pen and my DYI Altoids watercolor kit.

By now, my nose, ears and fingertips were becoming a bit cold for comfort, so I walked around to the south side of the nearby building.

Options for sketching indoors resulted in my choice of Wild Salmon Seafood Market. The sandwich board outside advertised the fresh selection of the day: Trout, Halibut, Black Cod, Tuna, Swordfish and Petrale Sole.

Lavender light from an overhead sign beckoned me over to the scales atop the counter. Overflowing a tray on the scales was a beautiful fresh King Salmon weighing 14.45 pounds. Workers behind the counter told me that it was fresh from our Pacific NW coast. They were kind enough to leave it there long enough for me to sketch it. I may have gotten carried away with the lavender lighting, though.

Now that I was warmed up a bit, I moved back outside to continue my counterclockwise circuit. I had enough time for one more sketch. It was a grey day, so I looked for one more subject with a subdued color palette. The crab traps piled high on the nearest boat fit the criteria. By the time my sketch was finished, the sky had cleared up, the sun was out and it was time to share our sketches.

A lively discussion while sharing our sketches in the sun.

Note: I had to correct the date on my sketchbook. June is the 6th month, duh!

Sunday Painters - Art History

Mark Tobey sketches. One-man shows at both the Cornish School and the newly-built Seattle Art Museum helped introduce local residents to the "modernism" that was rapidly gaining Tobey national acclaim.
Photo Credit: Seattle Times.

(See previous post for info on current exhibit and recent USk sketching workshop at the market.)

Follow the tradition of one of your heroes in art, or visit your local museum to choose an artist for this experiment. Study their work, then visit the locations where they were inspired, and see if you can emulate the way they saw the world.

Gail Wong, one of our instructors, gave us brown paper, charcoal, white chalk and conte' sticks. She challenged us to find market textures and multiple images as Mark Tobey did. Here's my take on it.