Elliot Bay Silos

This trip out to Elliot Bay with the sketchers last month was a great place to observe the city's industrial roots and remind me that our waterways are a major portal to the outside world.

Being there I couldn't resist sketching the silos. Consider this an homage to the midwest and Corbusier.

Alley 24

 Alley 24 is that great adaptive reuse of the buildings between Pontius and Yale. Gail Wong (captured lower right) is equally fond of this space.

Hale's Ales

The row of sketchers back lit by the enormous windows into the brew-pub were enough to catch my attention yesterday at Hale's Brewery.

St Marks Chapel

 

This Chapel is the only completed portion of the original 1926 cathedral design. The church was envisioned with a tower more than twice as tall as the structure that stands there today. The 1929 stock market crash and depression put a halt to the construction and the bank foreclosed on the property. Glenn, the church sexton, was kind enough to show me the various planning stages the structure has undergone since that time. The red brick entry porch is an unfortunate mid-century modification to the original gothic design. The drawings in the basement - Glenn called it "The Crypt" - provide a window into Seattle design through the past century. The four massive collumns inside the church are clearly sized to support the original tower design. The translucent glass rose window, 1997, is the most recent modification to the structure. It is well proportioned and its designers were considerate of their austere surroundings.

PIKE PLACE

The weekend before Thanksgiving in Seattle, and it was snowing. The sidewalk outside of the Sanitary Market was downright frigid. Despite the cold, the market goers were out in droves, more so than what is depicted here. You can see the struggle to draw them in motion. If you trust my hand, the foreground figure is from another planet.

What started out as a stormy downpour ended in a sunny colorful day at the market. The contrast between quantity of people and amount of rain was striking. The number of people flooded the market in an inverse relationship to the quanitity of rain. And yes, that guy was wearing yellow socks and sandals amidst the buckets of rain.

Third Tuesdays in Pioneer Square a small studio offers three hours of figure drawing for $10. The model was creative and motionless. It was a blast.