watercolor sketch

Billy Frank Jr Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge

pen and watercolor in hand.book w/c journal

The sun was shining, the bird watchers were birding, the hikers walking on the boardwalk above the river delta. And at the twin barns, both the parents and the swallows were feeding their young. Every time I’ve reached this point on the path where the picnic tables are shaded by grand old trees, there are groups of parents with preschoolers charging around the trees in utter abandonment as parents try to herd them back to the snack table. “Caitlyn, do you want strawberry or cherry? Goldfish or breakfast bar?” The response is to ignore the question no matter how many times it’s repeated.

The twin barns, historically speaking dairy barns, are colossal and I’ve tried sketching them at least one other time, but the scale of them defeated me. So this time I thought I’d focus instead on selected parts and give myself a break placing myself with the tree in front of the barn. And the benefit of this was to attract the strawberry treat-avoiders into the sketch!

Another lucky stroke was the appearance of a squirrel, literally at my feet, within seconds of my unwrapping a nut-studded energy bar treat of my own. He/she was a highly sophisticated beggar with a wide range of beguiling techniques to achieve his purpose, including standing on his back legs and lifting paws in supplication. Since I was too hungry to share, all he got for his tricks was an accidentally dropped nut, which he immediately dispatched. Later he was thrown an apple core by a more generous Ineke, and that led to a scuffle with his squirrel partner who wanted some of the bounty.

eyes locked on mine. “put it here” he said, pointing.

Poor guy. All his efforts got him was one small nut and a cameo spot in my sketchbook.

The little kids left with their parents and a group of second graders appeared with their teachers and guide. “A quick rest before we continue!” the adults declared, as the kids were trying to figure out how to climb the trees. No snacks for them though. Instead they given the warning “Remember, no climbing the trees!

Meanwhile my sketch buddies were busy Not avoiding the barns and doing a great job of it.

Tenino Depot Museum

Walk in the door of the Tenino Depot Museum and you’ll feel like you’re in a time capsule. Sure, there’s a share of railroad lore and the shiny red caboose out front, and in the authentic bathroom there’s a sign reading “Please DO NOT Flush toilet while train in in station”. Hmmm. But after a few minutes you realize that in typical small town Tenino style, you are made to feel at home and ask any question and get a historically researched answer. Like: what is the real story of how the town/depot was named Tenino? or Can you really use the wooden money they print to buy things in this town today? Answer: yes, dollar for dollar.

While some of our sketch group went outside to sketch the adorable caboose, the rest of us settled into the folding chairs immediately provided by the docent Jessica, finding scenes and artifacts like the above picture. While drawing I could almost feel the presence of my two grandmothers sitting just out of sight and whispering about how they used the wash board and stoked the oven with wood.

Meanwhile the rooms filled with the local master stone mason Keith and friends, and a mother with a group of small children whose tiny voices chirped with questions as they learned about the olden days, which seemed quite close to my own prehistoric memories! Walk in the door of the Tenino Depot Museum and you’ll feel like you’re in a time capsule. Sure, there’s a share of railroad lore and the shiny red caboose out front, and in the authentic bathroom there’s a sign reading “Please DO NOT Flush toilet while train in in station”. Hmmm. But after a few minutes you realize that in typical small town Tenino style, you are made to feel at home and ask any question and get a historically researched answer. Like: what is the real story of how the town/depot was named Tenino? or Can you really use the wooden money they print to buy things in this town today? Answer: yes, dollar for dollar.

We were given a tour of the inside of the caboose and the one room schoolhouse on the grounds which border a park and the sandstone quarry and pool. This was not my first time in Tenino. I keep coming back for that small town feeling and the way the inhabitants love to share the history and make visitors feel like special guests.

We all marveled at the tiny feet of the person whose shoes these were, and I felt compelled to include them in my book. They made modern day four inch heels look comfortable by comparison!

Thanks to the historians and carpenters and masons and other builders and installers and the city that funded the efforts and the docents who share the stories and everyone who helps to make this experience possible.

Great Blue

watercolor and gel pen in toned Nova sketchbook

A couple weeks ago Bob and I were on our favorite walk around Capitol Lake and his superior eyes caught sight of a strange bird in the marshes by the trail. It was perfectly camouflaged with the colors of the brown sticks and grasses. I took the best picture I could with my iPhone and have been trying ever since to ID it.

It didn’t entirely fit my picture of a great blue heron, which are frequently seen fishing on lakes in the area. On another day we spotted several herons in a nearby spot. Although they seemed browner than I remembered, they matched the usual features of the species, which are quite distinctive. We watched them fishing and flying off with that slender bodied, startling wingspan. So I added one to my nature journal.

However, the mystery bird has yet to be positively identified. Shall we call it a Great Blue Heron? perhaps a grandfather whose beak has faded to white and chest whiskers, I mean feathers, become stained with fish juice? You bird watchers out there. Please help!

Oly Harbor

fineliner pen and watercolor in hand.book travelogue

If you’re bundled up sufficiently, it’s always a treat to sit on the dock somewhere in Olympia and watch the sky and waters change hue and patterning every few minutes. This is especially true in the spring weather. I’m always excited to make another stab at painting the boats with their reflections. But honestly, since the scene changes dramatically and constantly, one needs to have a photographic memory, or. . . a photo to copy! In this case there was neither, haha! But I soldiered on. Truly the small city of Olympia with its heart of marine life and view of snow clad mountains, lake, forests and Capitol buildings with colorful gardens is a visual delight in all seasons.

A group of us sketchers enjoyed a morning in the area around Bayview Thriftway grocery and later lunched at their deli upstairs, where you get a crow’s nest view of the harbor. I hadn’t planned to sketch any more cherry blossoms but the scene on the other side of 4th Street beckoned later. The apartment building with its glass windows provides a moving picture of the cloud-filled sky drama. Its strategic location however has been controversial as it blocks the view of the lake and Capitol grounds from one direction and the harbor from the other. That day I was just happy to have a beautiful dark background for painting the blossoms!

Capitol Blooms

brown ink, black ink, watercolor in hand.book travelogue

It was a lovely day at the Capitol with the combined Tacoma and Olympia urban sketchers, the sun mostly shining in that indecisive way that makes for glorious mixed clouds. It was midday also so we were treated to processions of high school interns wearing maroon legislative blazers, clutching documents to their chests with deadly serious facial expressions. Also there were friendly people dressed in suits, who might have been politicians, the way they jovially interacted with us artists. And the security guard, also an artist, who joined our group as we shared our results, regaling us with his own art stories.

Meanwhile I was busy trying out every single idea I’d had about how to draw and paint blossoms. Can you tell, haha? I realized that I’d made a very difficult task for myself, not having a dark background to highlight the blossoms, which up close, reveal themselves to be almost white. In fact I was standing beneath the blossoms, where they were shaded darker than the light Capitol building. In the end artistic invention won out over “reality”.

Bob’s birthday was on Sunday, and I always make him a card, but I couldn’t find the right size envelope for what i was designing. I decided to make a stand up card instead, and then had the idea to insert the message in a pocket.

I think I might have borrowed the idea from Nina Khashchina’s blog. If you don’t already know her, you might enjoy following her wonderful art blog! Among other things, like following the war in Ukraine through her portraits sketched during contacts with her parents, who fled the war and are now living in Europe. I love the way she uses her sketchbook to organize and try out creative ideas. I think you’d enjoy it too.

In my garden so far. . .

watercolor in hand.book travelogue journal (using resist crayon)

On a recent rainy day, as seen out my studio window, the forsythia bloomed mightily in the furthermost portion of the garden with a dark spruce background. I found a clear wax crayon in one of my disorganized drawers and tried it out as a resist.

A rather ambiguous name for this tree, also in the view of my studio window. It has no plum or cherry fruit and the light pink blossoms give way to glossy dark red-purple leaves. Dark red splatters and white gouache droplets finished it off with the help of a brown fountain pen.

UW Cherry Blossoms

It’s always a treat to join the large group of Seattle Urban Sketchers for their meet ups. From my home in Olympia it’s about the same distance I used to drive from Sonoma Co. to San Francisco for that group’s meet ups.

Last Wednesday I was not prepared for the surge of humanity that was filling the streets and the parking lots of the University of Washington’s colossal campus. Wasn’t it just a regular Wednesday afternoon? Yet everyone seemed to be streaming in the same direction as us, to the quad. When we reached it, I had the same reaction I have without fail when I catch a glimpse of Mount Ranier. Plain and simple. Awe.

These trees are Somei-Yoshino and they are close to 90 years old. UW is so proud of them that there are two webcams that live stream the cherry blossoms. You can visit it now!

When I first arrived I immediately surrendered to the impossibility of capturing the experience in a sketch. My first effort was abominable.

The sun was playing hide and seek, constantly changing the color scene and values. Light blossoms against dark background, dark blossoms against light sky. Up close the blossoms were decidedly white. Yet the light and shadow was playing games of color tag.

fountain pen and watercolor in 9 X 12″ Canson Mixed Media sketchbook

There were visitors of all nationalities, ages, and diverse orientations. All, it seemed, were taking pictures and most were posing with the blossom backdrop, a kind of Hollywood set for the masses. Right by me a mother with two early elementary school children sat them down on a blanket, got out their art supplies and gave them a sort of lesson in Haiku writing. They colored for a few minutes, ate their snacks, and moved on.

A high school art teacher hovered near me, and then asked if she could take a picture of me for her class, to demonstrate the set up of an on-location artist.

A woman with a very pregnant belly and a voluminous and very bright, gauzy pink gown posed in front of a tree for a picture, the fruitfulness of the tree mirroring her fruitful body, or vice versa.

While I was being romanced by the blossoming trees I was unable to wrap my mind around adding the mass of humanity to my sketch. Only one couple stepped in afterward to give their version of spectator.

Will I try again next year? Perhaps. Or tomorrow at the Capitol building blossom display, if it stops raining for a bit! There is only this slice of a window, before the spring storms remove the blooms from the trees, creating a blanket fit for a fairy princess.

Back from Soggy Sunny California

My landing in Sonoma County airport. No longer the land of severe draught, the landscape resembled a shamrock-hued Ireland and dotted with countless “puddles” and lakes where there had been only dried up sunburnt grasses a few months ago. It was the familiar countryside I remembered from the wet winters over the many years I called it my home, and so welcome! During my few days staying with friends in Sebastopol and frequenting my old haunts, I got to walk in the biblical downpours, so unlike the gentle rains and drizzles of the Pacific Northwest, as well as the cool early spring sunshine.

On the day of the this sketch Bettina picked me up and we drove to Doran Beach for a walk with the birds and horses and surfers along the glistening waters. Ahhhh! Then lunch at our favorite Fishetarian deli on the wharf and back to sketch in tranquil Ragle Ranch Park in Sebastopol.

fountain pen, watercolor in hand.book journal 8 X 11″ spread

Note the mother and child carved into the side of the Chestnut tree and prayer flags. The perfect day ended with a reunion with her family at their home.

Next: A rendezvous with the Muse Group!

Legislature

While California has been floating in their, did I hear ninth atmospheric river, this winter (or getting buried under tons of snow!) here in Washington we have had our usual cold drizzles mixed with sunny days and not much blossoming going on yet. Each day is a constantly changing smorsgasbord of sky drama. If you turn around 360 degrees you will see every kind of sky, as in this picture taken on a sunny day!

The legislature was in session at the Capital building. After lunch in town Jane and I walked over to the Capital building to check out the action. She knows the scene well, having worked there in various capacities years ago, so I just tagged along.

fountain pen and watercolor in hand.book w/c journal 8X11″ spread

We were able to sit in the gallery above the grand room and look down on the proceedings which were just beginning. All the rules of the House were being followed. but it was a mock session with the student interns doing a very convincing job of discussing and passing laws!

Meanwhile I was struggling (in a fun way!) to capture bits and pieces of the action to tell a visual story. (The recent cataract operation helped a bit with my sight, but it will be another couple months before I can get my glasses updated!)

You’ll be able to check out Jane Wingfield’s sketches soon on her Instagram account.

crocuses under the trees at the Capital grounds

I’m headed to California tomorrow for a week visiting friends in Sonoma County and the Bay Area. They said to bring a raincoat and rubber boots!! And their temps are only a tad warmer than ours. Topsy turvy weather this year. Can’t wait to see those familiar landscapes and old friends. I’ll be back in a week with some stories!

Street View World Tour: Hawaii

You know Google Street View. It’s great for sketchers even if it breaks the cardinal rule of Urban Sketchers which is to sketch on location. Since Covid, travel sketching has sprouted an auxiliary wing with the discovery of Street View, where you can pick an exotic location, move your cursor around til you find the view/place where you would like to stand/sit to sketch, and then do so in the comfort of your home studio, and better yet, on Zoom with sketch friends!

On Thursday last week I joined my friends for a 90 minute Gage Arts Academy Zoom session led by Seattle based Eleanor Doughty and German based Jenny Adam. And the guest artist of the day was San Jose based Uma Kelkar. Fun people, lots of new ideas and things to try. Fast paced with engaging commentary. Highly recommend it. And it’s free!

Times: First Thursday of every month. 10am-11:30am PST.

To not miss out on the fun next month visit the link here.

Here’s the first 20 min street view, somewhere in Hawaii, along a river with lots of rocks in it.

somewhere else on the coast of an Hawaiian island

That was fun! and lot cheaper and easier on the body than an actual trip to Hawaii. I have a friend who’s just been on the big island for a week or so and every day was so windy/stormy that only one of the days could she even walk on the beach! So while I know there’s a big difference between sitting at your computer and feeling warm sand in your toes. . .the Street View and with fellow sketchers, goes a ways toward feeling good about staying home.