I've been running around the country the last 2 weeks, first to a conference in Branson, then to a hiking trip in Arkansas, a wedding in Wichita, breakfast with my Dad in Kansas City, home to do a load of laundry, Seattle for an art class, Portland for a business meeting, and back home in time for a dentist appointment (oh boy). Needless to say, it gets a little confusing when you wake up in the middle of the night wondering which side of the bed to get out of in order to find the bathroom. I've eaten Mexican, Chinese, McDonalds, bagels, pizza, Indian, and country fried chicken smothered in gravy, I knew my brain was really getting scrambled on Sunday when I handed the waiter my drivers' license to pay for dinner rather than my credit card (though the margarita I had for dinner might have contributed a bit to that faux pas).
When I'm in Seattle, I usually stay at a Best Western in Pioneer Square, because it's right at a light rail stop from the airport and just a block away from the Amtrak station. But this time, I stayed at the Silver Cloud Inn in Lake Union, a little northeast of downtown, since my art class was up that way. When I checked in, they upgraded me to a room on an upper floor with a view of the lake. The University of Washington was just across the bridge from my hotel, so since it wasn't raining, I decided to walk over there for lunch.
When I was in college, I remember there being a pizza or hamburger place on every corner. In Seattle, there were ethnic restaurants every where. I stopped at a Japanese place and ordered the lunch special - tempura bento. At the time, I wasn't quite sure what I was ordering, but I learned later that
bento means the food is served in this pretty laquered wooden tray. The tempura was really good, especially the deep-fried sweet potato, but I also got sushi, rice, and a salad.
My drawing class was taught by Steve Reddy. I'd seen his work on the
Seattle Urban Sketchers' website and found out that he was teaching a class at the Gage Academy the weekend before I was having my meeting in Portland. Unfortunately, last week the Gage Academy re-scheduled the date, so Steve held an impromptu class in his home for me and another student.
This is one of the drawings I did during the class. It's an interesting technique. I sketched a bunch of objects laid out on the table with a black pen. Then I painted the shading with watered down black ink (watering down the ink makes the shadows come out in various shades of gray). Then I went over it with some watercolor paint to give it some color. And the last step was to add some cross-hatching lines with a black pen to give it a little more dimension. The trick is to leave some of the white paper showing to give it contrast. Most people (me included) want to color in the whole shape like we learned to do in our kindergarten color books. Interesting technique, but a lot of work. It took me a whole day to do 2 pictures.
I ended my Seattle weekend by taking Brian and Amber out to dinner, but like usual, I forgot to take any pictures. We had a lot of fun, though, and I got to catch up on the latest Microsoft news. They said they've been re-doing some of the rooms in their townhouse, including putting up new curtains in he guest room. Maybe the next time I'm in Seattle, I should break down and rent a car so I can stay with them. I might even remember to pull out my camera if I stayed in one place longer than 5 minutes.
