Category Archives: Urban Sketchers

The Rainbow Bazaar

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This is a view of a courtyard in the Rainbow Bazaar in the Hilton Hawaiian Village Hotel in Waikiki, dominated by a huge banyan tree. The resort hotel was originally conceived of and built by Fritz Burns and industrialist Henry Kaiser in 1955 on the site of the old Niumalu Hotel and eight oceanfront acres of the Ena Estate at the Ewa end of Waikiki. Over time, the hotel complex grew to 22 acres and was purchased by Conrad Hilton.

Growing up in Hawaii, my exposure to the world beyond Oahu’s shores was illuminated through books, movies, and TV shows. And so when the Rainbow Bazaar was created as part of the hotel complex in 1970, I was fascinated by the faux Asian environment, which included replicas of a Thai temple and a Japanese pagoda, as well as an entire Japanese farmhouse shipped from Japan. While some may criticize the appropriation of Asian culture to sell ethnic and tourist goods, for me walking through the Rainbow Bazaar even today is an opportunity to imagine and re-imagine visiting foreign places.

Stimson-Green Mansion Revisited

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Back in February of 2012, the Seattle Urban Sketchers group met at the Stimson-Green Mansion for its monthly sketching session. Designed by Spokane architect Kirtland Cutter and completed in 1901 for Seattle industrialist C. D. Stimson and his wife Harriet Stimson, the mansion was subsequently purchased by Joshua Green in 1915—hence the name Stimson-Green. When Green died in 1975, the Historic Seattle Preservation and Development Authority purchased the property. After working on its restoration, Historic Seattle sold the property in December 1977 to Priscilla Collins, granddaughter of C. D. and Harriet Stimson, with an easement protecting the main house, carriage house, and grounds from demolition, alteration, or remodeling. In 2001 Collins donated the mansion to the Washington Trust for Historic Preservation, which provides continued stewardship.

This past Sunday, the Seattle Urban Sketchers were able to return to the Stimson-Green Mansion, thanks to Julianne of the Washington Trust for Historic Preservation. After walking through the various rooms on all three floors, I decided to redraw the same view I had done four years ago—looking out from under a Romanesque style arch at the central hall. The space ascends the main stairway to the upper two floors and extends back to a warm, sunny dining room on axis with the front entry foyer.

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In comparing the two drawings, one can see how the absorbency of the paper surface matters a lot when drawing with a fountain pen. In the earlier drawing, directly above, the ink lines tended to bleed and so I was discouraged from drawing too finely. In the second drawing, shown first, the paper coating allowed for finer lines and suggestions of details.

McGraw Square Revisited

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I returned to McGraw Square last week but instead of finishing my original sketch, I decided to annotate it and to redraw the square from a different perspective. I simply moved back about eight feet from my original position and in doing so, dramatically altered both the field of view and the drawing composition. This illustrates how the decision about where to position oneself is an important one when drawing on location and should not be taken lightly.

Sometimes It Just Doesn’t Work Out

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I took the bus downtown a couple of weeks ago to do this drawing of McGraw Square, where 5th Avenue meets Stewart Street and Olive Way. My intention was to document an intersection where various modes of transportation converged—the elevated Monorail that was built for the 1962 World’s Fair and still travels a mile from Westlake Center to Seattle Center; the South Lake Union Streetcar line that runs 1.3 miles from this terminus to the south end of Lake Union; and the multiple buses routes that run east-west along Stewart Street. In addition, of course, there are all of the cars and pedestrians making their way through the downtown corridor.

But sometimes, things don’t work out as planned. Even though it was a fairly pleasant day, I just didn’t have the proper state of mind to finish the drawing. That’s okay. I intend to go back and finish it the next time clear weather is in the forecast.

Rome’s Rooftops

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After a month of record rainfall and predictions of more rain to come, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to find areas sheltered enough from the weather to draw comfortably outdoors. So here I want to remind myself of the wonderful times I was privileged to spend in Rome where the fall weather was always sunny and warm.

These two views are from the Palazzo Pio in Rome, which overlooks the Campo dei Fiori. If we bothered to look up rather than at the many historic structures and monuments one runs into in the Centro Historico, we would see that the rooftops are often filled with terraces, potted plants, tiny apartments, and, of course, the forest of TV antennas that are gradually giving way to satellite dishes.

Green Lake Branch Library

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Eight Seattle libraries were part of the 2,509 public libraries that Andrew Carnegie had funded from 1880 to 1929, both in the U.S. and around the world. The Green Lake Branch Library is one of the original eight and also one of the six which are still functioning as libraries today.

Designed by W. Marbury Somervell and Joseph S. Coté and opening in 1910, the Green Lake branch shares a common floor plan with the University and West Seattle branches but the three have differently styled exteriors. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is also a landmark building listed by Seattle’s Landmarks Preservation Board.

Below are views of the Ballard and Fremont branches, two of the Seattle Carnegie libraries that I had drawn previously.

Stormy Weather

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On a blustery, rainy Friday morning, I rode in a warm, dry Sound Transit Light Rail train from the UW campus to Columbia City, a neighborhood southeast of downtown Seattle. A small but dedicated group of Urban Sketchers had braved the stormy weather to meet there for an ad hoc sketch outing. Because of the constant beating down of wind-blown rain drops, I chose to seat myself in the new PCC market to draw this view of the interior. I find it interesting how grocery stores and supermarkets have increased the area they devote to the serving of prepared foods in their deli sections, relative to the traditional shelf space for fresh produce, dairy products, and canned goods.

Scenes from Querétaro

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Here are two scenes I sketched our last day in Querétaro. The first is of the Plaza de Armas, also known as the Plaza de Independencia. Around its periphery are 18th-century mansions and outdoor cafes. To the right is Palacio de la Corregidora, former home of the city’s mayor Don Miguel Dominguez and his wife Josefa Ortiz de Dominguez, who is revered as a heroine of the Mexican War of Independence. Today, the palace serves as the seat of the executive branch of the state government.

The second view is where Calle Venustiano Carranza splits off of Calle 5 de Mayo, another bifurcated view similar to the ones I drew in Tacoma a few weeks ago.

Santiago de Querétaro

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Just returned from spending a few wonderful days in Santiago de Querétaro, a colonial town founded in 1561 by Franciscan priests in the high desert country north of Mexico City. There I led a group of students from the Tecnológico de Monterrey on a drawing tour of the Centro Historico, a UNESCO World Heritage site. Below the group photo taken in a courtyard of the Convento de la Santa Cruz are a few of the quick sketches I did to demonstrate how to compose the perspective structure of the scenes the students were drawing. Many thanks to Professor Paola Gamez Pouzou for her gracious and generous assistance during the two days of workshops.

Points of View

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Having selected a subject, we can view it from different vantage points. To illustrate, here are three views of The Red Door Ale House in Fremont. The first focuses on the intersection of Fremont Avenue North and North 34th Street but the circle indicates the location of the Red Door a block to the west. The second is a contextual view from across the street that shows how the original structure sits atop a concrete parking garage after being moved in 2001 to make way for a new development a block away. The third is much closer, from the bottom of the concrete stairs that lead up to the front entrance. So having selected a subject for a drawing, we still have options for framing and contextualizing a view.