Category: Sketching
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Time to hit the road!
My second book, The Best Coast: A Road Trip Atlas, is out in the world and available at last! This illustrated travel guide is a celebration of the West Coast’s historic highways—perfect for both the avid traveler and the armchair explorer. Chock-full of unusual facts, hidden history, and Americana, The Best Coast is an offbeat road trip…
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Sketchbook building blocks
When I was putting together my book proposal for The Best Coast (and later when I started the process of building the book itself), I imagined its illustrations to be an extension of my sketchbook drawings. After all, I’ve spent so many years documenting my travels in my sketchbooks that they’ve become an integral part…
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Finders keepers
One of the things I wanted to include in my book is Finders Keepers, a community art event and public treasure hunt in Lincoln City, Oregon. Every year for the last two decades, local artists have created hundreds of hand-blown glass floats and hidden them for beachcombers to find and take home—the name says it…
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A book by its cover
Since today is #WorldBookDay, I thought I’d share a behind-the-scenes look at the process behind the cover design of my new book. And just like any part of bringing a book to life, creating the cover is a careful, detailed, and often lengthy process. Designing a book cover is more of a science than an…
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The Best Coast
While I’ve hinted at this several times on social media, and even shown some snippets of my process along the way, mostly I’ve been sitting on my hands lately, trying my best to keep mum while I wait for time to tick by. And now the waiting is almost over, and it’s time for the…
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Let’s go sketching together
If you’re looking to bring a little sketching into your life, or you attended last month’s sketch outing and want a little training, you can learn the basics with me in July! I’ll be teaching my one-day urban sketching workshop again at Seattle’s School of Visual Concepts on July 16—I only teach this workshop at…
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Jaunt + Jot
Photo by Shawn H. Nichols, taken at Artist Trust on Tour: Tacoma If you happen to be in or passing through Tacoma soon, I’ve got a new show of sketchbook drawings up right now, at the brand new Feast Arts Center on Hilltop. Like the way I do it on my travel blog, the images…
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Seven for seven
I can hardly believe it, but I’ve now lived in the Pacific Northwest for seven years. In that time I’ve done my very best to see as much of the region as possible, and document it all in my sketchbook. So in honor of seven years, here are seven sketchbook drawings— —presented in no particular…
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On the green
There’s a very big sporting event coming to my town next week—and even though I’m not a ticketholder (or even all that interested in the sport itself), the spectacle is already proving to be a big source of inspiration. So here’s another piece of what Jessica and I are working on—look for more next week!
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Souvenirs of 35 years
I have my tiny souvenir bottle of Mount Saint Helens ash sitting on my desk right now, as a reminder that it was thirty-five years ago today that the mountain erupted. The event happened a year before I was born, so it’s not like I have personal memories of it—but Mt. St. Helens still crops…