Dead Reckoning

This ghoul resides on the back wall at Die Bierstube in Seattle's Roosevelt district, a sister establishment to Greenwood's Prost and a favorite of Sketch Pistols. The beer selection is a bit better than Prost, and it's much roomier than it's pint-sized cousin (no pun intended). A shout out to amazing bartenders Lisa and Mike, who took a keen interest in my scribbling, I think they've convinced me to re-visit Die Bierstube soon with a larger group, and maybe some moisturizer for mummy.

Will someone please get this guy a glass of water?

Go West Young Man

New! Video summary! This time on the Beverage Place Pub in West Seattle.

Beer # 1 From Dave, Beer #2 From Seb

Handle With Care

Thanks to Kyle, the barkeep at Duck Island Ale House, for setting the bare knuckle brawler on the bar for me, it's one of the more interesting tap handles they have hanging from the ceiling: a rare specialty brew from Anheuser-Busch! I guess even they can get creative once and awhile. On the right is a tap featuring the mascot of The Dray on 65th, which is named after the nests formed from bark and twigs that grey squirrels live in, and it's cozy wood walls kind of feel like a nest I guess but fortunately they specialize in great beer instead of acorns.

Parked at the Pub

Phinney's Park Pub is a local watering hole that caters to a nice mixed crowd of 20-somethings and a few older and less glamorous barflies, like myself. It's notable for the live music they cram in the tiny corner of the lounge area and the often above average beer selection, which accompanies a full bar. Pool tables on the other side of the place always seem packed with rowdy drunks given to emitting ear-splitting "WHOOOOO's". Since it's usually busy in the evenings I can rarely find an open table for the drawing & painting (with the exception being the watercolor below, right) so sometimes I've resorted to the bar itself where I ended up attracting too much attention while drawing the taps, with multiple portraiture requests from regulars. It's nice to be appreciated but when tipsy frat boys demand characatures of their dates, it's time to leave the parking place at Park Pub.

Left:The multiple taps at Park Pub. Right: A barfly chills with a brew

21st World Wide Sketch Crawl

Once and awhile I'm reminded that Paul Vosper and I are not the only sketchers in town, and this year I was excited to discover the 21st World Wide Sketch Crawl which is a global drawing marathon that people around the world are joined in to sketch around their towns and cities. There were an amazing 77 different locations around the world with artists meeting and drawing, including Seattle! Of course the Sketch Pistols represented, this time at the wonderful Jules Mae's Saloon in Georgetown, and my deepest thanks go out to Rick Hudson and Pau for joining me for great beer and great sketching. The big surprise was discovering that there's a local Sketch Crawl group that meets 4 times a year to do the same kind of stuff we do, but they did it during the day...and without us, so we're going to join them on their next journey and see what happens when we combine forces. Below are the results from our Georgetown adventure.

Here's one from Rick Hudson

One from Davy
Some nice ones from Paul!

Call Of The Wild

One thing I've discovered about hanging out at Prost is you've got about 3 hours after it opens until the real crowds start streaming in, which equates to prime drawing time. That's when I got this sketch of Rudolph here, who due to his tragic circumstances was a very patient model. I perched at one of the long tables which gave me plenty of elbow room to lay out my drawing paraphernalia, but once the drunks start to show up, groups of 3 or more always eye those tables. I usually just invite people to sit with me, but I always end up fielding lots of questions and get less done. Fortunately this time it all worked out since this is one of my recent favorites.

Click on image for larger version

Tale of Two Taps

Let's just call this a study in re-learning watercolor painting. At this point I've started to use real watercolor paper, the toothy, thirsty kind which means no more wrinkled sketches but boy oh boy does it drink the pigment! Which is kind of appropriate, considering the amount of drinking I've done from these taps at the Duck Island Ale House. The cool thing about this painting is that it's really a postcard, flip it over and there's the stamp guide and the address lines! This one goes out to Sebastian Hyde, of the original Sketch Pistols, who always deserves a few taps, or drinks, or sketches.