Seeing red and painting greens
My first urban sketching outing of the year!
I’m on two weeks of using the Brick to curb my phone addiction and it has been working wonderfully. However, I think I must have held in a lot of that pent up anger because I had a lapse on Friday noon when I just couldn’t hold back a rant about the proliferation of generative AI in the stationery and art community (calling out both event organizers and vendors alike.) Whilst I enjoy the peace and calm of my mental state when I stay away from toxic algorithm, I couldn’t help but admit that the feeling of solidarity of friends online who share the same values feels pretty good too.
Nevertheless, to work off my pent up frustration from this incident, I went out to join a neighborhood protest again in the afternoon. It had been unusually sunny and nice in Seattle in the past few days. However, rain is in the forecast and I’m determined to make the best out of the weather while it lasts.
I’m slowly finding ways to wean myself off my reliance and attachment to Instagram. My stationery-focused instagram account Penguinscreative (34.5K followers) had curated over 10+ years of stationery and art content alongside my journey in the United States. However, my frustration and jadedness in the stationery industry in the past two years as the county wreck havoc on civil rights and the economy had me take off my rose-tinted glasses. I ended up archiving all of my posts related to stationery because it was a part of my identity that felt tainted by capitalism and consumerism. I also selfishly want to gate-keep and hide these posts of joy from potential viewers who are MAGA or anyone enabling and supporting the horrendous things happening in the world. I do not want to create content for them, nor do they deserve to learn of my joy and the specialness of stationery from my perspective. Instead, I plan to publish a photo book from the archives I’ve exported from Meta throughout all these years. I’ve positioned myself so that I wouldn’t even be too mad if my account got banned or deleted tomorrow, since I continue to share social and political awareness stories through that account. Since I have that following, I might as well take advantage of my platform in any ways I can.
Anyway, what remains on my account are a gallery of all the artworks I’ve created throughout the last decade. When I was archiving my historical posts, it felt bittersweet and nostalgic to come across old doodles and drawings in sketchbooks from all of my travels. At this moment, my gallery of urban sketching and the spontaneity of capturing the scenes through art felt like the most authentic and genuine expressions. It’s free, it’s uniquely myself, and I’m not enabling anyone to purchase something or take a certain action from seeing those posts.
This resolve also brought me to attend my first urban sketching outing of the year. The Urban Sketchers Seattle chapter hosted a meetup around noon on Thursday at Volunteer Park. It also happens to be “First Free Thursday”, where museums and galleries across the city are free to the public. I took advantage of this opportunity to visit the Seattle Asian Art Museum (my first time!) and relax in the warm and bright ambience of the Volunteer Park Conservatory, a botanical garden and greenhouse.
Whilst it can feel like it is still too cold for sketchers to paint or draw outdoors in this time of the year, the sun was shining brightly on our group on this fine afternoon. I enjoyed watching over the shoulders of other sketchers and see them do their magic with different drawing tools and medium. What I love about urban sketching is the lack of judgement in terms of skills and style. No one’s painting or drawing looks alike, and there is a variety of expression when everyone throws down at the end of the meetup.
After admiring the beautiful exhibit at the Seattle Asian Art Museum: Anila Quayyum Agha: Geometry of Light, I stepped out in the bright daylight and walked around the park a bit before settling to paint. I had my cute little Kodak Charmera and I took some fun photos as I walked around the park. The vibe in the air was incredibly idyllic. People were lounging on picnic blankets on the grass. Groups of elderly people were shuttled to the museums or simply enjoying the nice day out. It’s hard to believe that in this moment in time, we are also undergoing a constitutional crisis and most billionaires and people in power are all pedophiles, rapists, and child abuse protectors.
Although the weather is nice, I couldn’t resist poking into the Conservatory, a victorian like greenhouse nestled on the far end of Volunteer Park, just a few blocks down from the Seattle Asian Art Museum. After taking the first step into the greenhouse, my glasses immediately fogged up from the warmth and humidity. I looked to the right, and the haziness from my glasses gave the view a dreamy scene. Against the clear glasses and yellow-tinted sunlight, beautiful rows of orchids dangle lovingly amongst lush greeneries. I was immediately reminded of my mom and my grandmother back home in Taiwan. My mother’s side of the family has always had the green fingers and orchids are their specialty. Unfortunately, that gene wasn’t passed on to me so I can only admire them in spaces like this Conservatory.
Initially, the space inside the greenhouse felt tight and the paths are narrow, but after a few steps it opens up to a wider space with tastefully placed lamp posts inside the building and bright teal tables for visitors to rest their bags. It was the perfect set up for an urban sketcher who needs a solid surface for their sketchbook. I snatched up a corner immediately, reveling in the warmth the greenhouse provides, and the rich scenery in front of me.
My comfort zone is watercolor and I always start with a rough draft with a mechanical pencil. However, those graphite line always lost its meaning and purpose as my brush improvised as soon as the paint touches paper.
The leaves were so vibrantly green, the flowers so pink and so red. I want to do it justic. The tip of my paintbrush danced around the white spaces of the paper, fearing any moment of muddying the colors. Whenever I paint, I overthink too much yet act impulsively, impatient about the drying time. Once I push through the discomfort of the “in-progress” phase, I started to like my painting more as I add final touches of shadow. It’s the darker hues that brings the vibrant objects to life. Wow, is this a sudden realization of a painting process’ parallel to life?
Standing while painting and having the sun shine on my side profile for over 40 minutes was starting to bring some redness to my cheek. Of course, today is the day I forgot to apply sunscreen. But my painting is completed, and I have cross the horrible threshold of the first painting of the year and I shall now be able to do more paintings for the next few weeks.
A random conversation with a fellow sketcher had me dig out an old painting I did when I last visited the Conservatory with the Urban Sketchers Seattle Chapter. It was February, 2019, and I had serendipitously captured the same room, equally fascinated by the lamp posts in the space. I chuckled because even after five years of practice and painting, my style still look pretty similar. My artistic growth and skillset had stalled, but that’s okay too. As long as I’m having fun, that’s all that matters.
By the way, another resolve of mine is to post an article every week as a challenge to give my brain a weekly exercise in writing (if it wasn’t already obvious, everything is written with my own brain and I never use generative AI to assist me in writing. Although English is my second language but creative writing has always been my passion when I was kid so I’m determined to finesse my skills. I apologize if there are grammatical errors but I decided that being too critical in this hobby will only hinder my desire to write.)
January had been amazing in gracing me with amazing scenes of aurora and orcas, but I can’t guarantee that my life will be too exciting every week. So, I hope you’ll bear with me even if I’m recounting some mundane stories of my routine or random thoughts. I do have a huge backlog of stationery events I’ve attended last year and I wonder if I’ll have the chance to write about them in the future.
I’ll end this adrenaline-filled week (me fighting un-winnable wars with online trolls and the system of capitalism and greed in the stationery community) with a heart warming photo of Cookie checking out a local resident: a Valentine’s Day inflatable dinosaur. So big and pink and suspicious to a little pup’s world.
I just want to send a note of encouragement. I fully align with your feelings of utter disbelief at the state of our country. I, too, am dismayed and shocked at the daily occurrences of atrocities committed by this government against its own people. I stand in solidarity with you.
April, I love your style! The fact that it has the recognisable features is what makes it you!!!
Looking forward to the cherry blossoms!!