MV Saskonia

This is the season for wedding shows, venue open houses, and tastings.

 This painting was done at a tasting on the MV Saskonia, a retired Washington State Ferry. The vessel once made daily crossings at the Tacoma Narrows, where Galloping Girdie fell, and between Tacoma and Vashon Island. She served from 1930 to 1967. She has now been converted to a charming event venue, and decorated with furniture from a 16^th century castle. Her berth on the north end of Lake Union affords a marvelous view of the lake and Seattle skyline. The Space Needle makes a cameo in the painting, seen through the closed overhead sectional door that opens to the deck.

I love old wooden boats, so I was thrilled by every feature of this grand dame. But one of my favorite favorites was the nearly black lacquered floor.

Equal to the richness of this setting are the offerings of the catering and baking companies, shared by the Saskonia’s sister venue, the Lake Union Café, which overlooks the lake just  a few hundred feet across the water. 

Caricatures at Forest Ridge School of the Sacred Heart, Bellevue, WA

Forest Ridge School of the Sacred Heart is a middle school for girls, and a high school for girls. The middle school girls, grades 5-8, had a soirée for dads an daughters on October 18, 2014. I was one of three caricature artists, along with Lou Medina and Vincent Yee. Nice working with you guys!
Here are a few of mine.

Jen and Jenny, Maroni Meadows, Snohomish, WA, September 21, 2014

Maroni Meadows is a is a five acre Eden in the woods-cum-suburbs of Snohomish County, Washington, northeast of Seattle. Among expansive lawns, there are several small, rustic structures, and a pond.  Many couples tie the knot on the little island in the pond, separated from their guests by a short footbridge. But Jen and Jenny actually already married earlier in the year, in a more private ceremony, which these festivities commemorated. After dinner under the large tent, two large flat screens showed scenes from the wedding, seen in the tiki hut on the left of the painting. Dancing followed on the deck in the center of the painting. In the foreground are the brides and their parents, and under a coronet of flowers, is daughter Lily. 

Follow-up: Style Unveiled coverage of the Duval-Thommes wedding

Style Unveiled, a national wedding blog, did this great spread about a wedding I painted in Santa Barbara this year.
See it here: Chanel & Kevin
Many thanks to Melissa Musgrove for great photography and great networking to get this wedding published! And, of course, thanks most of all to the great couple, for such a great wedding.

Wedding Proposal at Sam Day Studio, August 29, 2013

Sometimes the simplest jobs are the sweetest. This client brought his girlfriend in to the studio to have their caricatures done, and when they left, she was his fiancé. It was all prearranged, of course, and it happened just as planned. After drawing their faces, the last thing I drew was his body down on one knee, and then his hand presenting the ring, which he pulled out of his pocket just as her face showed that she suddenly understood what was happening. 

Stiebers-Edwards Wedding, Alderbrook Resort, Union, Washington, August 17, 2013

This was the fourth time I’ve painted at this great retreat, and I look forward to many more.

The two favorite ways for guests to arrive at Alderbrook Resort are by float plane, or by yacht. We vendors take the third, least expensive option.

We boarded a ferry in Seattle, then drove. The Kitsap Peninsula is shaped like the head of a cuttlefish, cradled on the east by the arms and fingers of Puget Sound, and on the west by the long, bent arm of Hood Canal. Some fifteen miles from Bremerton, we reached the muddy tip of the broad Canal (technically a fjord), and tooled fifteen miles more past the vacation homes that line its oyster caked beaches. It’s a woody, meandering road, smelling of fir, cedar, and saltwater. The hundred year old Alderbrook is suddenly there on the right.

You could say this wedding was a marriage of blondes and beards. I got to paint plenty of both. There were the two year old twin boys, dressed like the little Dutch boy on the paint can, with blue pacifiers, who walked down the path bearing a sign that read “Here Comes the Bride;” there were the blond, freckled flower girls, in sparkly silver-grayish taupe summer dresses that easily accommodated their spontaneous soccer playing, and their sparkly feathery pink flapper skull caps pinned at a tilt. There were feathers in the flower arrangements too— the bride’s family supplies hundreds of thousands of chicken eggs a day for the region’s breakfast tables. I guess with that many chickens, you get feathers everywhere.

The well-whiskered groom, who’s family is in the boat business, turned out to be an amiable conversationalist, as he stood for his portrait. His equally well whiskered best man/brother stated in his toast that the groom could “talk to anybody about anything— he could talk to you for half an hour about your belt buckle.”

It was an unhurried wedding, in an unhurried place. It feels like a vacation every time I paint here. You can bet I swam in the Canal before we left.

Scholten-Howard Wedding: August 11, 2013 The Pickering Barn, Issaquah, Washington

A barn is always a nice place for a wedding.

This particular barn is an important part of the history of Issaquah, a couple of lakes east of Seattle. It is now owned and maintained by the city, which restored it at generous expense.  

The couple were married outside on the lawn, where cocktails followed. The reception then took place in the renovated dairy barn.