A walk along the lake shore with sketchbooks

After packing up and cleaning our rooms, we had breakfast, met in the classroom for a few tips and then took a nature walk along the lake shore to find a spot for skeetching.

Stopping to admire all the greens there are around us.

The excursion boat leaves ripples in the lake

The dappled shade from the surrounding forest was welcome on an unusually sunny and warm day.

While we're studying trees, an otter is discovered. Bronze sculptures are to be found throughout the grounds of the North Cascade Institute.

A salamander is caught basking on a warm rock. -photo credit Marvin Yamaguchi

My watercolor lesson on trees; single and in a group

Everyone settles in for sketching in their nature journals

Post Workshop Studio

This morning in the studio I face the aftermath of a weekend in the mountains teaching a nature journaling workshop. We had a great time together making our own journals from the cover to the watercolor sketches and personal notes inside. See my new scarf hanging over the back of my chair? It's printed with a hand painted map of the North Cascades National Park. What a perfect souvenir!

Stay tuned for lots of photos here on my blog and in our Watercolor Workshop Flickr album as well as through the North Cascades Institute and Learning Center social media. Okay, so now back to unpacking!

Check back often as I have more of my sketches to add and will be adding photos that come in from students. I trust they will be sending finished pages from their journals and action shots they took along the way. I hope those who saw the bear captured it on their camera. Workshop students should ask for the private journal link for more than what the public sees in this Flickr Album.

Pi Day Leftovers

Anyone for pie? Yes, I know that National Pi/Pie Day was four days ago, but it's taken me this long to digest the whole series of events that took place that day.

WIP-sketching at the kitchen counter

We weren't actually aware that it was Pi Day on Tuesday, but the overwhelming number of others who were observing the occasion possibly created a subliminal influence and we had pizza pie for dinner that night. After dinner our granddaughter texted from Haagen's, a local grocery store, to let us know that ALL their pies were half off! Well! We do like their chicken pot pies for a cozy dinner on a stormy night.

My husband grabbed the car keys and he was off! Some time later, he returned with most of what you see here! Four days later and I am overwhelmed with pie. I couldn't think of what to do other than put them all out on the counter and sketch them. I was planning on leftover pizza for a late lunch, but as usual, when I'm sketching food I forget all about eating it until after I finish sketching. I could smell it, though!

In an uncanny circumstance, I finished sketching at exactly 3:14pm. Huh!

Read my journal sketch page to see how I accidentally got even MORE pie from McDonald's!

Bumpers, Buoys and a Boat Named Larry

One of the most beautiful and subject-laden locations for a sketcher in Seattle is the Center for Wooden Boats on south Lake Union.

After a long cold snap, with freezing temperatures in the 20's and low 30's, our weather turned a bit more merciful. I wanted an opportunity to see the new building at the Center for Wooden Boats, as well as do a few sketches in the sunny winter air. Well, 47 degrees F isn't quite as toasty as you might think, especially out on the docks at Lake Union Park.

The good thing about visiting the center, even when closed on a Tuesday in January, is that there aren't as many people there as on a sunny summer afternoon. Parking was easy, close by and gave me a warm car for refuge from the cold. No matter when you go, however, there are just so many subjects for the photographer or the painter/sketcher.

When I first arrived, the familiar pavilion stood out, with its Native American carvings both inside and out. Looking down from the ramp, I saw the perfect image of a Haida canoe, reflected in the rippling waters of Lake Union.

It was a day of unusual names: I met a bearded fellow whose name is Jessica. He helps with the carving in the Pavilion. The Native American carver and artist in residence is named Saaduuts Peele and there's a boat named "Larry". The type of sky we had is referred to as a "mackerel sky" because the clouds are shaped like fish scales.

I've saved some room for information about the bird carving. I will fill it in later.

I do know some of the more common names for things like life rings, bumpers and buoys. I had fun drawing the shapes and shadows of these buoyant objects as the afternoon sun lit them up.

I am hoping for an answer to my email to Saaduuts regarding the bird carving. My guess is that it is an eagle or an owl with a salmon in its talons, but there is much I would like to learn about the meaning of various elements on it. What is the significance of the drawing on its wing? Will there be another like it on the other wing? Is it meant to be the top of a story pole? Does it have a name? Once I have the answers, I will record more information in the empty space on my sketch.

Note: The Center for Wooden Boats is the 10th and final location for the upcoming new series of USk Seattle Workshops. Come to Daniel Smith, Inc. on Saturday, January 28 from 11-1:30 for a presentation of the the workshops and meet the instructors.

My two page sketch journal spread from yesterday with ASk

Tri Dee Art Supply is on a corner in downtown Mt. Vernon, across the street from the Co-op Grocery and Deli. Just looking at the two story square brick building from outside, you know it's going to be fun shopping in there.

Thank you, Tri Dee, for my Palomino Blackwing 620 pencil!

I had such a great time, inside the store and out. First, I saw this fabulously colorful umbrella, hanging upside down from the ceiling as a lamp shade. While I sketched it, a woman came in from her walk in the sunny spring weather. She liked it, too. As well as the stack of retro toys and games behind her.

The store owners gave each of us sketchers a Palomino Blackwing 620 pencil, favored by John Steinbeck and others. See the story of the pencil, here. At one time, they were going for $40 a pencil on Ebay.

Outside, on the front sidewalk, was the sandwich board advertising more fun stuff to do here. A tree was all cozied up with a yarn bomb made by an expert. All sorts of colors and patterns decorated it and it was custom fit to the bifurcated tree as it branched out above head height.

The wall mural in the alley is a huge chalkboard, where you can finish the sentence: Before I die I want to:___________________. One person wrote: ......Take over the world with GOATS.
What would you write?

At Carolyn's in Anacortes with ASk

We were invited to come and sketch at the home of Anacortes Sketcher, Carolyn, today. Through the beautiful wrought iron gates and into a warm and hospitable atmosphere we came.

More photos and sketches on the Anacortes Sketchers' Blog.

Homemade baked goods and pots of piping hot coffee or tea were offered. The butter cream frosting was like a pillow of creamy sweet goodness! Just the right thing on top of Carolyn's rich, moist (gluten free) chocolate cupcakes! Perfect balance!
Everyone chose a spot at the large family sized table in the Victorian dining room or in the cozy parlor. Then we spent the afternoon sketching, visiting and admiring works in progress.

That makes 6 more for NaNoDrawMo 2014, unless I get desperate and then I'm counting each one of those truffles!
Total: 48/50

The Flowers at UW Medicinal Garden

The first part of my sketch outing with USk Seattle yesterday was in the floral part of the garden. Bees were pollinating the globe shaped flowers as several of us moved from plant to plant as well.

Journal part of the spread is now finished.

I sketched all the flowers and wrote some of the journal page on location. I knew, however, that there was more to learn and I wanted time to reflect on my own personal connection to the experience. Now that it's done, I wish my father could have been there. His minor in college was botany. He would have loved investigating every plant and tree.