Back in the grandeur of the Northwest and glorious Seattle. A town whose weather has never put me off.
Spent a glorious day by the Cedar River just 50 yards from an old train tressel that spans the river to the right. But a couple hours of drawing burnt the bejeezus outta my neck.
 
 
 
 
 
  Great time on the West coast, 2 cities, Portland & Seattle that I really like. Warts & All. And just so you know…that 4 hour delay was on UNITED.
Went to the Great state of Kal-A-Forn-Eye-Ayyyyyyyyy to do a mess load of demos. Stayed with my nephew Brett in Redondo Beach right ‘ere on de water. That’s him above serfin’ the ‘net and sportin’ a tee with Mr. Lee’s not-so-likeness on it. Brett is one of the truely good humans on this planet. My 2 brothers and I must’ve drained all the rascalness outta the gene pool and all that was left by the time Brett came along was kindness.
Below left is the sketch made whilst waitin’ for Brett at LAX. Next to that a street sketch I whipped out of a pub T rider coolin’ his heels in the shade. I did a demo right after that at Nick Gallo’s Blue Rooster Art Supply where I met my grand niece Ariel for the first time. We went to The Hard Rock Cafe afterwards and I drew this elephant head she sculpted while she knocked out the sketch, to the right of the elephant, of me.
 
 
 
 
Pitt Brush Pens featured almost exclusively on these pages with a liberal addition of white China Marker. I like to draw over top of grease pencil marks with the Pitt pens, especially on toned paper as it produces a contrasting luminous effect.
 
The second image above, of the dude lookin’ dazed and confused, is my boy out there in the Bay, the Deacon of Dog Patch, Michael Recchiuti. If chocolate is your thing, Michael is without doubt your Messiah.
Taking in an early mornig pastry and a cup of hot coco at Piccino, a sweet little cafe and restaurant owned by two of Michael’s Dog Patch chums, Wayne and Sher.
Damn. I love Chicago but couldn’t we have at least one of these things within easy driving range? Drawn from top of the water tower in Seattle’s Volunteer Park in a Rhodia sketchbook with Pitt Pens.
Jennifer flippin’ thru a book in the top floor reading room of Seattle’s spectacular Main Library designed by Rem Koolhaus. Gray day or sunny, the light’s fantastic in this structure. I needed to spend all day on 2-3 drawings to really capture the airy grandeur of this building.
S P E D Â Â D O W N Â T O Â P O R T L A N D
 
Shot down to Astoria where I demoed to a lively crowd at Dots and Doodles. Things got to moving rather hurriedly at that point. Quick glimpse of a tanker on the Columbia drawn from the backseat of Doug’s car as we raced to make an afternoon demo in Portland. The next day I got shaved smooth as a baby’s butt by surfer/blade smith Elijah Mack.
 
 
Pulled into Spokane after a 10 hour bus ride from Bozeman. I left at 3 AM which meant I got to see western Montana as the sun came up a bit before we neared Missoula. Awe inspiring countryside. The Tamarack or Western Larch trees were super dramatic as their needles had turned golden yellow shortly before they were to fall off. They only grow west of the Continental Divide which made for a glorious welcome to crossing the Great Divide.
Hit Spokane and found my way to a sweet little cafe, The Alpine Bistro and Bakery Company, where I recharged with a rustic soup and sandwich. They make huge sweet rolls and I tore into a mammoth cinnamon bun with cream cheese icing the following morning before giving a demo at Spokane Art Supply that afternoon.
Right next to my hotel was a Whole Foods-esque Co-op grocery store with a second story juice bar and dinning room that sported a jaw dropping view of the mountain range to the north of Bozeman.
Love the trees out west and set about to draw a few on the MSU campus when this gorgeous largish bird went flitting about. Black head and neck, white under belly, tail feathers longer than it’s body length, iridescent blue black back and wings with white scattered throughout it’s wings. Magnificent. And BOLD! Saw it hold it’s ground by the base of a pine tree while a dachsund trotted up to sniff around. I though folks would be equally excited when I described it to them but nope. “It’s one of them damn Magpies”. “They’re worse than pigeons and they kill cats”. What? They kill cats?? Next I thought I’d hear they carted off small children. However, several folks, including a couple birders spoke of their tenacity. Part of the Corvid family, which includes Jays, Crows, and Ravens, Magpies are described in Wikipedia as one of the smartest animals. One of the very few who have shown self-recognition in mirror tests. Big vocal range and good mimics. I became an immediate fan.
 
 
The above drawing was whipped out in the early morn before heading off to a number of demos and the veg was actually a turnip not a beet. I used some ballpoint on these pages but mostly turned to the Pitt Brush Pens, And with the exception of the tan page with the turnip drawing, these drawings were done in a sweet little leatherette covered Rhodia sketchbook.