Continuing the Catch-Up

     I hope you all had a very happy 25th of December!  We kept it casual at the house this year with just our sister staying over and watching some football while snacking after the ritual giving of gifts in the late morning.  I bucked tradition and made carne asada and delicata squash tacos this year which I daresay turned out pretty tasty although the carne was a bit overcooked.  C'est la vie!  Since I'm home again this morning and have some more time on my hands, I thought I would play a bit more catch-up on posts and continue the pictorial tale of my very sketchy year.   

For the Inktober series (see last post), I used primarily graphite and charcoal for all the images.  For my lunchtime urban sketches, I'd also started out using primarily graphite pencils (the Blackwings are the best!) but lately I've been finishing more of them in ink.  I've always enjoyed ink pen line drawing for landscape and structure work as it produces much cleaner lines.  The drawback are that it's much harder to achieve good tonal gradation and they just take more time to complete.  During my first lunchtime sketch sessions I just wanted to do something quickly and be (mostly) done in the limited time that I had so scribbling something out with a pencil that I wouldn't even bother to re-sharpen was working fine and is still good practice.  However, as I discovered some particular places that provided a better overall scene or composition, the rough and quick nature of a pencil sketch just doesn't seem to do them justice.  For those, I've been doing a quick framework pencil sketch and then taking a picture to help me finish them out in ink at a later date.  I've thought about integrating some watercolor at some point but I'm not quite ready for that yet.  

Anyway, I hope you enjoy these pen & ink pieces and that you all have a much happier, less insane 2026.

This was a made-up scene to just practice a bit of perspective drawing. 

 

Vancouver Substation.  A friend of ours found the history
on this place and it's pretty cool.  You can see an image of it
being moved into place here (link)

From the new Vancouver waterfront.  A barge is docked at the LaFarge
 terminal with the Union Pacific RR bridge in the background.

The image on the right is the downtown Vancouver Post Office
built around 1917 in a Neo-Classical style.  The image on the
left is not in ink and was just a quick doodle of some Australian
magpies.  I was too lazy to crop this.

Water towers at Vancouver's Water Works Park.

Portland's Steel Bridge as seen from
the Rose Quarter Transfer Center

Electric substation from 6th & Halsey in NE Portland

Holiday Three-fer

 One of the reasons it took so long to post anything was that this summer, like most, seemed extremely busy.  And parts of it really were.  We were gone to Ozzie-land for a week and half, visiting the beach and lake for some longer weekends, and I started a major house project to replace the backyard fence and gate and build a new deck.  Let's just say that most days were very industrious if not completely absorbed in R&R.  That all came to an abrupt halt on Oct. 1, 2025.  The longest federal government shutdown in history began that day and despite never having been furloughed during a shutdown in my 20+ years in federal service, this was the year they decided my position was unnecessary during such a shutdown.  I was optimistic that it would just be a week before congress capitulated or compromised but as the rhetoric became more clearly a stonewall, the reality sank in that this was going to be a long-haul ordeal.  Fortunately, at the same time our local Drink-n-Draw group had just posted an "Inktober" challenge to draw one image for each day of the month with a list of mythical and mystical creatures assigned to each day. 

At first, I didn't think I would have time as I would be back to work "any day now" but as the opposite became clearer, I decided to go ahead and take up the challenge.  Below are some of my favorite sketches from Inktober.  Some days topics were just not very motivating and there were several times I found myself behind on the assignment meaning I rushed to do two or more in one day but at the end of October, I found that I had actually sketched one image for every day (plus one bonus day) and it was a great experience.  Most daily topics were figural which I hadn't done in quite a while and are not my usual go-to for drawing subjects.  My favorite part of the exercise as that there were several subjects that lent themselves to charcoal so I happily made a mess of the dining room table with charcoal dust and eraser nibbins!  It was great practice and if we have another shut-down by the end of next month, I might try a similar challenge.

Day 1: Leviathan

Day 3: Harpy

Day 6: Wraith

Day 9: Demon

Day 12: Sea Serpent

Day 15: Mermaid

Day 21: Skin-walker

Day 22: Banshee

Day 28: Brownie

Day 30: Phantom

Day 31: Jack-O-Lantern

Finding a Silver/Graphite/Ink Lining

 Lucky you!  More posts in one day, it's like it's a Christmas Miracle!  Or, more likely, it's just my sense of guilt catching up to me for taking so long to do this and a day where I have spare time on my hands (not literally, that would just be weird like a Salvador Dali painting.  Imagine the cleanup).  Either way, you win.  As I mentioned in my last post, a return-to-office order was imminent for me and I found out in early June that I would not be reporting back to the local federal building in Vancouver but instead, I was required to commute in to one of the buildings in Portland.  This is not good for many reasons.  

My first lunch-time sketch.  From the top of a parking garage looking down at the Motel 6 on Holladay

    For me personally, my commute is now two hours round-trip door-to-door where previously it would have been thirty minutes walking round-trip to go to the Vancouver office.  Oregon State now takes it's cut of state taxes of over $10K annually and to help mitigate all of that, I'm now working ten hour days which was something I could easily do twenty years ago but feels a lot more tolling nowadays.  For non-personal reasons it also means one more commuter on the road (albeit I take mass transit but that is also a cost to everyone as it's subsidized), occupancy of space that could have been used for something else including the utilities that go with it, and a much less motivated employee.  Of course on that last point, that was certainly an objective of Project 2025 and damn, they are doing a good job of it.  

My second and maybe my favorite for the subject.  This was the fountain of stacked coins in front of the West side of the Lloyd Center which was being actively demolished that summer.  All pray to God Money.

In spite of all this, I've tried to find some silver linings and the chance to explore some new space has certainly been one.  I can't tell you how many times I'll go on a road trip and on they way make mental notes of some visually stunning scenes that I swear I will go back and revisit to either photograph, sketch, or paint.  I can count on one hand how many times I've actually followed through on that.  This new predicament I find myself in has at least afforded me the opportunity to slow down and discover places that I can actually spend some time to enjoy for their visual interest.  Since I returned to the office in June, I had several months of good weather to go out and explore during my lunch breaks and capture some interesting images and I'm posting a few here.  If I was told that I could report back to the Vancouver office or, better yet, home tomorrow, I wouldn't hesitate to say "yes" but there are still a number of places in Portland that I'd like to revisit to try and capture stylistically.

Making Waves at the Fontaine.

I mis-titled this as Tri-Met HQ but this building actually houses Tri-Met's Mobility Center

15th and Halsey.  Sometimes, I just sketch whatever offers a decent place to sit.

Broadway Apartments.  With a bonus shadow image of my phone.

Crosswalk at 6th & Multnomah

Fire Alarm Telegraph Building.  This place fascinates me.  How did fire alarm telegraphs work?  Why does it need such a large antenna tower?  How has it not been torn down after all these years?

Catching Up With the Art Scene

I titled this one "The Severed Hand" because it looks like one.  Don't worry!  It's not really a severed hand, just some driftwood washed up near the south jetty of Florence, OR

 As usual, it's been a minute since my last post but that's not due to a lack of interesting things to share.  At the time of my last post in March 2025, I knew at some point that I would be forced to go back into a physical office for my day-job or risk losing it.  Along with that looming change, there was talk (and action) about firing personnel and heavy-handed offers for early retirement or voluntary separation.  Needless to say, these potential events were causing anxiety and turmoil.  Taking up the pencil and pen on a more regular basis was a pressure relief valve of sorts.  I had already rejoined a couple of sessions with our local Drink-n-Draw/Sip-n-Sketch group and was getting back into a more steady routine of sketching just to keep the basic skills up to par.  I used some of those sessions to put on paper some images from recent adventures or imagined hellscapes.  

More driftwood from Florence beach

While I'm still not naturally an extravert, connecting with fellow artists, doodlers, and sketchers is therapeutic.  Not only does it help provide some inspiration for new ideas but it also gives one a chance to see others techniques and tools and talk about how they market or share their work if they're so inclined.   While I haven't been a complete regular at these sessions, I do try to at least make every first Thursday since it's in the evening and I tend to be less busy than on a Saturday mid-morning.  I'm posting a few of the sketches that I worked on or completed in the DnD/SnS sessions here.

@vancouverdrinkanddraw

From a dream I had the night before a DnD session.  I'm sure it's harmless...

Post-apocalyptic is still my jam.  I'm pretty sure I was thinking of Blaine the Train from Stephen King's Dark Tower when I came up with this one.