The serene Lake Union

When I first visited Seattle, I was not impressed by the city. It did not have the subtle delicate beauty of Boston. There are skyscrapers everywhere which do not create a sense of aesthetics. I was slighted underwhelmed. But I feel as if the soul of Seattle took it as a challenge and did everything to prove me wrong, and slowly made me fall in love with it. My journey in Seattle has been positive and enriching in many many ways for which I can never be thankful enough. As I was looking for a subject to write my next blog post on, I noticed that I have done many sketches around Lake Union, one of the many water bodies of the Washington state. So I am going to take you in a tour to Lake Union in Seattle!

Here is the Google map of the Lake Union. Seattle seems to have developed around the lake. Every time I look at the map of the lake, I can not dismiss the thought that it kind of looks like a female reproductive system. :-| But, the lake is beautiful from all directions and invites you into a different aspect of the city. I have highlighted the point of views from which I did each sketch over time. Let's get, set, and go!

Lake Union, Seattle

1. Lake Union from Westlake on a summer afternoon.

 

In summer, everybody is outside trying to get the best out of the pleasant and short-lived sunny weather. The lake is filled with sail boats through out the day. It was a very pleasant watch from my Westlake apartment. One could sit and watch the boats floating around, racing all day. There are parks (South Lake Union Park, and Gas Works Park) to sit close to the waters and enjoy the view as well.

2. Downtown from GasWorks Park

 

 

Soon, I joined UrbanSketchers Seattle, the first Urbansketchers group. Urbansketchers started as a small idea of Gabriel(Gabi) Campanario in Seattle, and slowly had become a worldwide phenomenon. People all over the world were flocking in groups in different city corners and sketching away. 2017 was the 10th year since the phenomenon started.  In order to commemorate the 10th anniversary, 10x10 workshops were organized in Seattle and in other locations. I went to Gas Works Work to attend one of the many workshops about perspectives organized by Gail Wong. She was an amazing teacher and I learned a great deal about doing perspective sketches. You can have a clear view of the downtown seattle from the Gas Works Work. I bet it looks great at night, although I am yet to go there during night.

3. Aurora Bridge

 

In one of the meetups in Fremont I met an urbansketcher who was sitting next to me and sketching the same subject as I.  It was nice to see different approaches to sketch the same thing. After the meetup, I went to a grocery store nearby, and met her again. We ended up hanging out, and she took me to one of the Seattle's famous place, the Theo Chocolate Factory. A few weeks later, she was leaving Seattle, and wanted to hang out with me before she left. We had nice breakfast in one cool breakfast restaurant in Fremont, and we decided to go to Gas Works Park. Both of us wanted to find a spot close to water. I started hunting for a spot close to water. I was sure there must be some spot where you can reach the water, even though I had not seen it. Luckily, we did find a spot close to water. It was a small abandoned corner next to a very popular viewing point, and I was surprised that not many people were on it. It was a sunny summer morning, water was at the right temperature to dangle the feet inside. So we sat there and I sketched this view of Aurora Bridge and the lake. The feeling while I was sketching was surreal. The excitement of being next to the lake dangling my feet in it, watching the ripples, ducks gently floating along the waves, people kayaking and driving boats, sound of birds flying around, the sweet breeze, the sense of comfort around a stranger, a sense of surprise and puzzle to be considered important by someone I met only once, is all too vivid to me. By the time I was done sketching and started painting, clouds had covered the sky completely. So although I started with the blue, I had to tone it down to reflect the gray sky. I had heard from other artists fussing about how the lighting changes and they have to be really careful. I appreciated it on that day.

4. The Ballard Locks

One day, my colleague who had recently moved to Seattle told me about the Ballard Locks and how the engineering behind it was interesting to him. I was surprised that I did not know about the place yet, and I decided to go to see it sometime. Coincidentally, the Urbansketchers meetup happened in the same place the very next weekend! It was really interesting to watch the engineering. The locks were built in 1917 as part of the project to connect Lake Union with Puget Sound to the east and Lake Washington to the west. The purpose of the lock was to make up for the water level difference between the lakes and puget sound, and also to not affect the salinity of the lakes. Learn more about it here. 

This sketch is not of the locks though. It is of a bridge that lifts up to let the boats pass by underneath it, and when it is lying flat, it acts as a rail-road.

5. Lake Union from Amazon Dawson

 

Oh, I can't tell you how proud I am of this sketch! I had to go to one of Amazon's buildings named Dawson to attend a training for a few weeks. I would admire the view from my training room. From that point, the whole lake was visible! "I need to sketch this", I said. And I kept saying it until the very last session. But I had to sketch it after the last session was over. I stayed back after the session, and sketched the view. One can never do enough justice to the breathtaking view. It spanned, Queen Anne and WestlKe to the west, Fremont and Gas Works Park. I also felt very lucky to have access to the view and sketch the awesome view.

6. South Lake Union Park

for the first 5 months of Seattle, I always walked past the west side of the lake to my  office. I would think of sketching this view, but, well, there was always something way more important. Fast forward to two years later, I started joining a writers' meetup in SLU. After one of the meetups on a sunny Saturday, I decided to visit the SLU park to, you know, say hi, and ask, "It has been long time, how are you doing?" I sat down on a bench and sketched the sunny view of the lake union from the corner. It was very windy though, my papers kept flying everywhere.

Thats' it! if you visit Seattle, you know where to go if you want to enjoy the view of Lake Union!

Jule Fest and the story of ravens

On 18th Nov 2018, I went to the newly opened Nordic Museum in Seattle along with Seattle urbansketchers after a long time. I was excited to meet the fellow urbansketchers after a long hiatus, but ... only until the previous night. The morning of the meetup though, was a different drama. I did not want to get out of bed. I just wanted to curl up inside my blanket, watch some random YouTube videos to numb down my mind, and snooze away. I was doing everything to sabotage my previous night's plan. Here is how my internal stubborn and procrastinating monologue went on.

 8AM, hmm... it s a good time to getup, let's get ready and take the D line to the musuem.

 Cool! It is so close by! 

Aah,...let me sleep a little while.

9AM, you need to get up, eat breakfast, and go!

Naaah... I don't want to go, how about I skip it today?

No, but then you won't be able to go hang out for until another month! 

OK, I guess I should go. It will be nice once I reach there, I guess...

Nooo, I want to sleeeep.

9.40AM, get up! go brush your teeth, pack your bag, eat something, take a cab!

And I jumped out, brushed my teeth, packed my bag, ate breakfast, got ready, and got a cab at 10AM.

As soon as I was out of my house, it felt different. Much more lighter and brighter. It was a sunny day. I had a cool Uber driver from South Africa who knew 10 different languages. Thank you dear driver, for giving me some nice moments and dropping me safely at my destination. I was obviously late, but was glad I got out of bed. It was crowded outside, people were lining up to buy ticket and go inside to enjoy the JuleFest or YuleFest.

Once I went inside,  the mood was festive. People from all ages were strolling around the museum, and more people were coming in. Many were dressed in traditional costumes too. I met a few artists, busy finding spots for themselves amidst the crowd. I dodged around shops, exhibitions and people to find the boats at the end of the corridor on the ground floor.

The boats presented an interesting challenge of perspective. Having placed along a narrow corridor, it was difficult to catch them from an angular point of view. I was luckty to find a fancy wooden bench to sit comfortably while leaning against the wall. I did hesitate though for a moment wondering if it is on display and if I am not supposed to sit on it. As I settled down, I noticed some other artists already engaged in sketching the boats. Once I figured out the perspective, it was an easy work. A few visitors stopped by appreciating my sketch. I remembered, the time of 2011, the year I resumed sketching actively. I would find all these beautiful spots to sketch, but I would feel so shy and conscious of people watching me. Now moving forward to 2018, I am not only indifferent to crowd around me, I am also enjoying my interaction with them.  It is a much simpler process now. Step1: I want to sketch this spot Step2: I sketch it. Nothing in between. I think it is a good amount of progress.

Once I finished sketching the boats, I noticed I still had significant amount of time, to create one more sketch. I moved towards the entrance hunting for another spot. The beautiful statues of birds hanging from the ceiling caught my attention. I stood leaning against a wall, and started sketching the birds. The morning sunlight was reflecting through the translucent bodies and was enhancing the beauty of the sculptures. They evoked a nice visual of boats floating away in the windy sea, and sea birds soaring on the cloudy sky. The birds were a bigger challenge in terms of perspective though. Top view, angular layout, and spanning wings kind of confused me. It appeared as if they would fit into portrait mode, but they did not. I had to erase the sketches twice before finally figuring out the right perspective. 

While I was immersed in the birds, I heard a voice calling me out. I looked up and it was an old man looking at my sketch. I had a good 10 to 15 minutes of conversation with him (let's call him Uncle), and his wife (let's call her Aunty) who soon joined us.  It was so beautiful, I regret not writing down about the conversation on the same day.  Now, when I have sat down to write about it after so many days, I am afraid, I may not remember everything about the conversation. However, I will try my best to do justice to it.

So, here it goes.

I look up and say hello to him. He appreciates my sketch and says, "Do you know, they are ravens?" I did not know. I imagined that they might be some sea-birds. He said, "No, they are ravens. Look at their pointy tails. That's how you know they are ravens. They do look very similar to crows. But they are not. They are large in size, and their tails are pointy. On the other hand, crows are smaller and have round tails." Point noted.

Ravens have been an important part of Nordic folklore. To be honest, I know very little of Nordic culture. I ask to tell more. Uncle says,  they are perceived to be intelligent and wise creatures connecting the people with the spirits. Vikings used ravens a lot during navigation to discover islands. They would train ravens, and carry them in the boats while exploring. When they wanted to know if there is an island nearby, they would release a raven. If the raven returns, it implies there is no island nearby. But if it does not, then it found an island.  Noah had sent a raven to find an island when trying to escape the great flood. When it did not return, he sent a dove, which returned to him.

Then Aunty joined us. She said that ravens are very intelligent creatures and also very emotionally intelligent. The parent ravens spend a lot of time training their babies. In their backyard, a raven couple had created a nest. The baby raven fell down from the tree one day, and was trapped in a pit below the tree. Uncle decided to help it. He was worried if cats will eat it. So he shoved a broomstick into the pit, hoping that the crow would climb. Aunty was not so sure if it would help the raven. But the raven knew what to do with the stick. It climbed up with the help of the stick. Both of them rejoiced at the raven's rescue, and they continue to protect the birds whenever they nest.

I was fascinated by the importance of crows and ravens in Nordic folklore and wondered how important they are in Indian culture. I told them that although crows are not as revered in Hindu culture, in Odisha, it is believed that if a crow cries sitting on your rooftop or backyard for a long time, it is an omen that guests are going to visit your home today. They were excited to learn about it.

It was interesting for me to talk to them and learn about the stories. I was trying to retrieve all the information I had about crows and ravens in my memory while I was taking in all the new information I got. Crows being a very common place creatures in tropical India, I had taken for granted that they are bird of tropics. After I came to USA, I saw that crows were a common-place bird species too. But they prefer quiet unlike the crows in India who have adapted to urban life. I have also noticed that crows are depicted in Native American art pieces and in totem poles, although I have not researched into it. In the "A Song of Ice and Fire" series written by George RR Martin, which introduced me to medieval and ancient Europe, Sam is assigned the task to nurture and train the ravens. Ravens are heavily used to send letters across, similar to how pigeons were used in India. They were also able to say simple words (although I am not sure if it is fantasy or truth.)

On the other hand, in India, crows are associated with Shani (Saturn) as his vehicle. Saturn is considered a powerful god, who can ill-favor you. So, if you want to appease him, you should feed crows regularly. But otherwise, they are in general not given a lot of value, often looked down upon for their scavenging habits, and harsh voice. 

Uncle was nice enough to click me while I was sketching. Here is me perched in a corner while sketching the sculptures. 

As I said bye to the couple, I was excited to have finished a nice sketch as well as to have encountered such lovely people.

National Animals Series : A-1

I went to Portland recently, and met an amazing artist after a gap of two years. She told me that one of her paintings is being showcased in an exhibition in an art gallery. We went there after a full satisfying lunch. It  was a very fullfilling experience in the gallery. There were nice paintings showing the theme of conserving trees. It was interesting that each artist had a very unique style of painting the same subject. There were also large oil paintings on wooden panels for an ongoing project to preserve America's coast line, again reflecting uniqueness of each artist. But the most appealing things to both of us were the sketchbooks. There were a few tables where sketchbooks of different artists were being showcased. Each sketchbook was hooked onto an anchor securely so that visiters can browse through its pages conveniently without displacing the sketchbooks. One of the sketchbooks I saw caught my eyes. It was a tall book with top two-third portion in plain white for drawing, and bottom one-third with rules for writing. The artist had done beautiful, light botanical sketches, and wrote notes about them. I loved the idea. On my way back I kept thinking that I want to do something like that. And the idea of sketching national animals of each country stuck me. I think it was the impact of watching too many BBC Earth Netflix documentaries :D 

The next day, I had to catch up with my chores and office work. But the idea kept popping in my head. I searched, and found there are 193 countries in the world, and if I start the project I have to do 193 sketches of the animals in order finish the project. I was itching to start the project, but was constantly stopping myself from doing it because I had other stuff to do. In the end, I could not resist. Finally at 12AM on the Sunday night I opened a new notebook, and started sketching on it. Well, that's me, waking up in the middle of the night to do something completely unimportant just because it has been bugging me.

The plan is as follows:

1. I will sketch national animal of each country, by moving alphabetically from A to Z.
2. I will stick to orange pencil and black ink to keep it simple, and keep my expectations low.
3. I will restrict the orientation in portrait mode for ease of browsing.
4. I will write a few notes about the animals next to the sketch.

So far, I am liking the effect. It has been very satisfying. On top of that, I feel like I am shooting 3 birds with one arrow. I can see how well I am sharpening my drawing and anatomy skills (Drawing). I am learning about different countries (Geography). I am also learning a lot about the animals I am sketching (Biology). A little bit of research goes on every time I sketch an animal, keeping the journey interesting.

My only fear is if I will be able to complete it. Knowing my nature, I am filled with many apprehensions. What if I get bored or distracted half-way through? What if I start putting too much pressure and procrastinate? What if I don't finish? If I do one sketch a day regularly, it will take me until mid-august 2019 to finish all the sketches. Honestly, that timeline is a little bit daunting and overwhelming.  Well, that is the challenge I am going to face with this project. And fingers crossed for finishing it successfully.

A few days before I sketched the snow leopard, I watched an episode of "Tales by Light" of Netflix, where the photographer flies to Ladakh, India to catch a glimpse of Snow Leopards, and repeatedly said that the animal is "elusive". So, it was interesting to sketch the snow leopard. I instantly went into resonance, when I started sketching it. Developing the shape, outlining and shading using pencil, and defining edges and shadows using brush pen was very interesting. I felt very much in control. The feeling has sustained all over the 6 sketches I have done so far, thankfully. I loved the gaze of the Snow Leopard, focused, aggressive, and sharp. The black outline on its eyes reminded me of the black surma used by Afghan people.

As I sketched the anatomical framework, it was interesting to note how features of the animal have evolved to support it to adapt to its habitat. The paws have an extra padding to help walk in snow, the coat is white to help camouflage, the body is stocky, and lot of belly fat to protect against the cold. It was a good learning experience. I felt excited to learn more about the animals as I sketch them.

One thing I noticed that I was being anxious to finish the project right away. I was able to rationalize it soon though, and laughed at myself. Even if I stay up for 24 hours without doing anything else, I won't be able to complete this project. And here, I was somehow wanting to complete it right away. It is not a good approach towards work and projects. I have been noticing it since a few years. It also marks a shift from homework, exam, or competition based work demanding efforts in intense bursts to large projects demanding steady effort over time. I would like to expand more on the thought in another project. While, I am struggling with containing the urge to just finish everything, I think this project is also going to help me overcome this attitude.

Moving on to my next sketch, it was surprising to find that a bird is also categorized as an animal. It was the most time-consuming of the 6 sketches, but not tiring at all. I loved every bit of doing it. Bird shapes are different and more unfamiliar to me in comparison to animal shapes. I find it more comfortable to sketch animals since they have similarities to humans in anatomy. Birds on the other hand have different anatomy, and have very delicate contours. I loved the eyes though. I liked that I was able to capture the shininess. They have this intense, emotional, focused, angry eyes, I feel like if I encounter a golden eagle any time, I will just stare at its eyes. And yes, they are the second fastest bird in the world Perigree Falcon being the fastest. Now that I have done this much of research, I ask, "What is the difference between a falcon, and an eagle? And what about hawks and kites?" It turns out they are all different species. While eagles, hawks, and kites share same genealogy, falcons share the  genealogy of parrots. Each of the species have their shapes and size defined in order to enable them to adapt the best to their environment. To learn more, check out this Quora post.

 

By the time I sketched the first two sketches, I developed the impression that, "All countries must be having powerful, aggressive, and predatory animals and birds as their national anmials, isn't it?" And my next sketch (and a few more sketches thereafter) proved me wrong. When I was browsing for photographs of Fennec Fox of Desert Fox, I thought it will be an animal of the size of a street dog. Turns out, it is really tiny! It is the smallest fox with size up to 8 inches. That was a  quick breaking of my assumption! It was interesting how their ears helped them in both listening to preys, and also to help radiate heat. I am so enjoying this project!

I did not know where "Andorra" was. I went to search for "national animal of andorra" directly. And it shows cattle! Wait, does it mean cows, or anything else? Where is this country? I never thought cows will be national animal of any country. Turns out Andorra is a tiny buffer country between to large countries Spain and France, each with their own majestic history. Cattle are so useful and important part of their life, that they are declared as national animal of the country.  Meanwhile, in India, we have reduced such an intelligent, gregarious, and economically beneficial animal into a topic of politics, standup comedies, and a stereotype defined by western tourists. Time to reconsider our priorities.

I loved the shiny brownish black coat of the Sable Antelope. This beautiful animal is an endangered species with only 100 numbers remaining as per 2015 census. Their large horns were very interesting to sketch. Although I had learned that antelopes and deer are different, I was not very sure how. But now ... I know. Read more here. Both male and female antelopes have horns. Only male deer have antlers. Antelopes' horns are permanent, whereas deer shed and grow them every year. Antelopes have a straight horns, whereas deer have branched horns, as we will see in out next sketch.

Do you see the branched out antlers? Yes, and that's how you tell that it is a deer. I guess fallow deer are not different from harina(ହରିଣ)s or hiran(हीरन)s. Originally from Euarasia,they were carried around to other parts of the world with colonialism, and migration. Introduced to the Americas in 1700s, they are now the national animal of Antigua and Barbuda, a tiny archipelago nation in West Indies.  

I did feel a sense of pressure and tension by the time I sketched the Fallow Deer. So I decided, I should blog about them first, before moving on to the next half of countries that start with A.

Happy sketching! You can finish it!.