Life and Travels

One of the highlights for me on our recent visit to Seattle was visiting the Olympic Sculpture Park. Being a big fan of architecture and design. It was high on my list to see. I had read about it in one of my back issues of Architectural Record magazines, so I really wanted to check it out. With some time to spare on our last day, John and I headed over to check it out. It is located on a former industrial site occupied by Unocal until the 1970s. The Seattle Art Museum took over the site and turned it into an outdoor sculpture museum with many iconic sculptures by such well known artists as Alexander Calder and Richard Serra. The park has commanding views over Pugent Sound, and it is close to the Edgewater Hotel made famous by the iconic image of the Beattles fishing from their hotel room window on their first world tour in 1964.

During our recent visit to Seattle, I was able to finally experience Two Bells which is John's favorite comfort food stopover in Belltown. The draw is their burger, and it is claimed to be the best in Seattle. Not sure about the best claim, but I have to agree that it was a darn good burger and hit the spot on a Sunday afternoon. If you are ever in Seattle, check it out.

Two Bells Bar and Grill

John and I went to Seattle a few weeks back to work on a charity project helping a veteran and his family. It was only my second visit to Seattle and the first time I was able to actually see some of the city and sights. When we first arrived, we were met with cloudy skies and rain, but fortunately on Sunday, the clouds parted and rays of sunshine broke through giving us one of those perfect Seattle days. Being such an architecture nut, we had to drive past the Seattle Needle and the Experience Music Project designed by Frank Gehry. Wanting to see one of the classic Seattle neighborhoods, we decided to drive around Queen Anne perched up on a hill overlooking the Pugent Sound and downtown. We stumbled upon a park which has provides the perfect skyline silhouette of Seattle...strangely enough I think I have seen it before...could it be "Fraser"?

As some of you may know from reading John's blog, we are taking a figure drawing class at Fort Mason thru City College. It is every Saturday morning 9am to noon for six consecutive weeks. Yesterday was week 3. Unfortunately, we missed week 2 due to our trip to Seattle, but we didn't seem to miss too much other than additional practice. The instructor did her best to catch us up, and we didn't seem to miss a beat getting back into the groove quite quickly. This week, our instructor covered anatomy of the hand and foot in a way that makes drawing those complicated body parts much easier. It was fascinating to hear that the human hand is really a square with a triangle for the thumb as base parts. Seeing the instructor draw this as a starting point and progressing from there made a lot of sense. Also, did you know that your hand is roughly the same length as the inside of your lower arm below the elbow if your upper arm and wrist are at right angles. Your foot should be roughly the same as the outside dimensions of your lower arm. We spent a lot of time drawing this week with many long 10-12 minute sessions. We started with 30 second gesture drawings. Then moved on to line and gesture drawings for about 5 minutes. Our new exercise this week was texture drawing with several 10-12 min sessions. To start, you need to get the rough form using gesture drawing and then layer on texture like you are modeling something in clay. The layers should progressively darken in gradient as you mold the subject on the paper. By doing this, the overall form of the subject should come into view. Both John and I agreed that this was our favorite drawing technique thus far. Below are a few of my sketches.


The following two sketches were done with compressed charcoal:




The following sketch was done with a Conti crayon which produced a lighter, more gradient effect:

As John and I took off on our trek to Seattle last week, I took the following shots of SF and the bay on a beautiful, fogless day. The city looked so different from far above. Everything looked flat and condensed. Obviously, it is not the case on the ground, but it does illustrate how small our fair city is compared to other large, sprawling US cities.

Even after the sun has long since faded into the distance, Il Campo of Siena continues as the beating heart of this ancient city. It stays alive with young people milling about with their friends, tourists savoring their after dinner gelato, families lingering over a late dinner. A short walk away is the Duomo looming quietly over the darkened city...it's beauty glowing in the warm, enveloping lights cast upon it. Down darkened streets, lonely street lights stand guardian casting warm glows against old stone.

To me, Venice is the most magical and romantic at night. After the throngs of tourists dissipate, the calles (lanes), campi (squares), and canali (canals) become quiet and uncrowded. The soft glow of streetlights cast long shadows against the ancient buildings, and one can hear the soft lapping of water in the canals that transverse the city.