Last sketches of 2014

Fireworks, dim sum, and Lily in the laundry. 

New Year's Eve in Hawaii is a whole different experience than in the Seattle area. The day started out ordinarily enough. We met for lunch at Jade Dynasty Seafood for Dim Sum. The majestic bronze horses at the entry doors wore festive wreaths with red bows. We tried some new dishes and enjoyed our favorite Char Siu Bao. Then we shopped a bit, since the restaurant is located at Ala Moana in Honolulu.

At home in Kailua, the after dinner firecracker and booming explosions start in earnest. Our ears are ringing. By the time dusk arrives, the air is foggy with smoke and it smells like gunpowder. We've put Lily the family pug in the bathroom to lessen the noise for her, but she still shakes and tries to hide in the laundry basket.

Then the neighborhood show begins. All around us there is a constant display of cascading, starlike clustering, bursting fireworks. It builds to a crashing, booming, blinding crescendo at midnight and finally peters out with only an occasional blast for the next few hours. Lily and I finally can go to sleep.

Update: On Jan 2, #klsketchnation featured this sketch as one of their sketch inspirations #mysketchinspiration on Instagram. They wrote these very nice comments:

"Get out, travel and make a journal out of it. You are your own story. So why not have your own storybook."

KLsketchnation is an online community of sketching enthusiasts out and about in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

But wait, there's more!

I know I was planning to go back to Vintage Violet today, but it was too hard to resist getting in on a challenge to join "Inktober". It's an online challenge to make an ink drawing a day for the month of October. The rules are simple:

1. Make an ink drawing each day of October.

2. Post it each day on Instagram, Facebook, Tumbler, your blog, etc. 

3. Hashtag it #Inktober.

1 down, 30 to go. 

Baggywrinkle

I got to sketch with ASk at Cap Sante Marina in Anacortes on Monday. I was attracted to the tall ships at the end of the dock.

My sketch of baggywrinkle

From a distance, all those shapes along the rigging make it seem as though there is a colossal rat problem on the Hawaiian Chieftain. As I got closer (zoom in to ship's rigging) I thought maybe they were sponges. After talking to two girls on the crew, I learned they are handmade from rope and called "baggywrinkle". Hehe, that name just makes me chuckle. (Plural is the same, as in deer", they said) Their purpose is to prevent chafing of the sails against the rigging.

The tall ships Lady Washington and Hawaiian Chieftain have set a visit for Cap Sante Marina in Anacortes July 9-27, which will include public tours and public sailings.

My Sketchbook Projects Then and Now

The Seattle Times wrote an article about The Sketchbook Project in 2011.  I was thrilled, since it was the first time the tour came to Seattle and the first time that I had entered.

With promises of drinks and nibbles afterwards, I dragged my husband, sister and brother-in-law with me all the way downtown to see my contribution. We waited outside in a line that went down the block and around the corner. I remember seeing a mother and her 8 year old daughter sitting outside on the stone windowsills of the building, smiling and reading each other's sketchbooks.

Accordion spread from 2011 Sketchbook.

Note: I rebind my sketchbook with 140lb. watercolor paper, because it better suits my way of working than the thinner paper that comes with it. I also use a few accordion folds to make it less bulky at the binding and to extend the pages out further when the subject calls for it. Good for my style, not so much for the way they digitize the pages. So not all my pages are visible online. I hope someday they will discover how the flaps might fit their format. Guess you'll just have to visit the Library or Mobile Tour to see the missing images!

A spread that stayed folded up in the 2014 digitized version.

Come to the Mobile Tour in Seattle July 10, 11 & 12 at the Seattle Public Library and check it out! More info.
You can see my projects digitized at Sketchbook Project here.

PS. I wasn't planning to, but I signed up for the 2015 Project, since it's coming back here to Seattle on Tour. It could contain a lot more street scenes if  I can include some of the sketches I am doing with the USk Seattle and ASk.