While testing a new fountain pen nib, I was looking for a subject to sketch that had lots of lines and opportunities for some watercolor washes to test not only the pen nib, but the waterproof qualities of the ink.  Ukraine’s wooden churches proved to be a suitable project given the interest in Ukraine and the hope that the destruction would soon end.
 
While looking for the churches in this sketch, I learned that there are nearly 1,900 wooden churches identified in Ukraine.  These churches are a unique form of vernacular culture with many architectural styles that vary from simple to very complicated.  Many of them date from the earliest days of Christianity and required a high-level carpentry skill and artistry.  The wooden churches are mostly in remote rural areas while the larger urban churches are built of masonry in urban locations.  Locating, identifying, and preserving these marvelous structures appears to be a passion for many individuals in Ukraine.  Several of the churches are listed with the UNESCO World Heritage Sites.  Besides the threat of fire and water infiltration, these buildings are at risk of deliberate demolishing because of inter-denominational controversies and poor preservation techniques.
 
My introduction to these buildings has been entirely online through the following pages:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wooden_churches_in_Ukraine
https://ukrainetrek.com/blog/category/architecture/
https://churches.authenticukraine.com.ua/en/
 
There are many other websites devoted to Ukraine’s Wooden Churches, but most of them are not in English. A quick search on Amazon for publications on this topic shows a few Ukrainian books and pamphlets, but none seem to be available.  In the meantime, there are many online images to explore and sketch as a prelude to a possible visit to Ukraine after the current craziness is over and it is safe to travel there.
 
And I do love my new Lamy 14K gold two-toned fine nib in my old Lamy Safari fountain pen.  I’m also experimenting with Sailor Kiwaguro Pigmented Black Ink.  The gold nib is reliable, smooth and has just the right flexibility for a variety of sketch lines.  Both the nib and a sampler package of ink are from The Goulet Pen Company which is a great source of pens, supplies and videos: https://www.gouletpens.com
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St. Andrews Church on Castle Hill in Kyiv - according to several sources, the church has foundation problems due to its position on the hill with recent cracks and new concerns that the church may collapse.  Enduring a war and nearby explosions is probably not helping to preserve one of the capital’s prominent historic sites.
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Rynok/Market Square and the Neptune sculpture in historic Lviv - a central square of the city planned in the second half of the 13th century. In the four corners, there are fountains—wells from 1793, with sculptures representing four Greek mythological figures: Neptune, Diana, Amphitrite and Adonis. The Market Place, together with the historic city center of Lviv, is recognised as a UNESCO world heritage site.  In recent news from a NY Times posting by Ivor Prickett, “for millions of internally displaced people, Lviv is the gateway to safety, however fleeting, in the west.”
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Armenian Street in Old Town Lviv – this street in the Armenian Quarter of Lviv was a refuge in the middle of the 13th century as Lviv has again become a refuge for those evacuating the invasion in other parts of Ukraine.
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Monastery of the Caves, Kiev - As one of the seven wonders of Ukraine, this complex goes by many names (Pechersk Lavra) and is an active monastery and significant historic site.  It is also another of Ukraine’s UNESCO World Heritage Sites.  It is maddening to think of an active invasion taking place around Kiev/Kyiv.
 
Thanks to those who have shared their photos.  After doing these interpretative sketches, I hope that soon we can visit some of these places and the people who are defending them.

​Leith Lighthouse – Newhaven Harbour, Leith, Scotland: Recently illuminated after being dark since 1930.  No longer a navigational guide, the 19th century tower was prefabricated in Edinburgh by James Dove & Company in 1869 and now serves as a community historical landmark for the port villages of Northhaven and Leith near Edinburgh, Scotland.  We visited the village of Leith while staying in Edinburgh for Lindy’s Plant Pathology Conference at the University of Edinburgh in 1994.

Skagen Lighthouse - an active lighthouse just northeast of Denmark’s northernmost town of Skagen in the far north of Jutland, Denmark.  It started operation in 1858, replacing an earlier 1747 lighthouse which was Denmark’s first brick lighthouse.  The current lighthouse is unpainted brick with an attached two-storied keeper’s house painted in bright yellow.  We visited this area while on a tour of Denmark and stayed in Lindy’s cousin’s “sommerhus” while we were in Skagen during the summer of 2001.​

​Strumble Head Lighthouse - on Ynys Meicel (from Welsh: St. Michael's Island), also known as Strumble Head, a rocky island at the northwest corner of Pencaer area, five miles west of the town of Fishguard, in northern Pembrokeshire, Wales.  The present lighthouse was erected in 1908 and replaced a light-vessel previously moored in the south of Cardigan Bay.  The circular stone tower is 55 ft high and still contains the original Fresnel lens lantern.  The lighthouse was reached by an iron bridge with a pipe handrail on the bridge that siphoned fuel from the mainland. 

​Manistee North Pierhead Light - located on the north pier in the harbor of Manistee, Michigan (Lake Michigan’s “Victorian Port City").  It was preceded by a light on the south pier in 1870 which burnt in the Great fire of 1871, along with the town of Manistee which coincided with the Great Chicago Fire, the Peshtigo Fire in Wisconsin, and fires in Port Huron and Holland, Michigan.  This tower was constructed of cast iron around 1927 and had a “Fifth Order” Fresnel lens.  We walked out on the cast iron catwalk to the tower during a blustery wind.  Evidently this catwalk is one of only four that survive in the State of Michigan.

I've received numerous wonderful comments from various readers of this post including one from "Mary" who shared her 1963 sketch of Sankaty Head Lighthouse on Nantucket Island.  Above the sketch is a vintage postcard of the light in its original position before being moved farther away from the cliff edge and when the Keeper's house was still there.

​Everyone loves a lighthouse!  If any reader wants to share their favorite sketch of a lighthouse, please send me a note or comment to this blog.

​Despite jet-lag, we went out into the shopping district to see what was around the hotel and to see if we could do a warm-up sketch.  It was evening by the time we got to sketching, so I tried a quick image of the main covered shopping street.

​​The next day we were scheduled to take the bullet train to the start of our walking tour in Kyoto, so before breakfast we went to the Sensō-ji temple grounds, and I found a place to sit in the temple porch to sketch the 5-story pagado.

Kyoto
​September 26-27, 2017
Kyoto was once the capital of Japan and the residence of the Emperor from 794 until the Meiji Restoration of 1868, when the imperial capital was moved to Edo/Tokyo.  It is a beautiful city and still famous for its numerous classical Buddhist temples, gardens, imperial palaces, Shinto shrines and traditional wooden houses.  I was looking forward to sketching along our tour and our fabulous guide, Nami, assured me that there would be many opportunities.  Our first visit was to the The kannonden at Jishō-ji, commonly known as the Silver Pavilion (Ginkaku) - a Zen temple in the Sakyo ward of Kyoto.  Unfortunately, it is also a popular site to visit and at the entrance I was greeted with this sign:

​It was apparent that they did not want anyone setting up to do drawings while blocking the crowded paths, so I had to resort to taking a few snapshots and doing a sketch later from my phone/camera image.

We visited many places throughout the city and really could have spent much more time touring the sites.  Here are a few sketches, including an illegal one of the Temple of the Silver Pavilion (Ryōan-ji) which is famous for its rock garden.  It wasn’t until after I started the sketch that I learned that there was a “NO SKETCHING” sign behind me for the rock garden too.

​After a very pleasant stroll along “The Philosopher's Path” through the northern part of Kyoto's Higashiyama district, our tour group took a 15-minute break to see the Sanmon Gate of the Nanzenji Temple.  I rushed a very muddy sketch of a spectacular 2-level temple gate originally constructed in 1628.  This was one of those occasions that I wished I could have taken more time to do justice to a remarkable edifice.

At another brief stop of our Kyoto tour was the Heian-jingu Shrine - built in 1895 to commemorate the 1100th anniversary of the founding of Kyoto as capital of the country and to coincide with an industrial exposition held that year.  We didn’t have time for me to do a sketch so I had to do one later from my camera image.  The vermillion torii (shrine gate) out front (not captured in my sketch) was spectacularly large while the vast grounds of the Heian Palace seemed equally impressive.  I later learned that this ​important Shinto shrines is actually a 5/8 scale reproduction of the original palace of the early emperors of Kyoto.

​Lindy and I finally figured out that it was too challenging to do sketches while walking and touring with the group, so if we were to do any sketches, we would just need to get up early .  However for some places that really demanded a sketch, I did post-visit sketches from my phone/camera such as this one of the Arashiyama Bamboo Grove:

For our first morning sketch, our hotel in Kyoto was near the Sanjō Ōhashi bridge.  Spanning the Kamo River it was an appropriate first sketch of our Nakasendo tour since it served as the ending location (or for us the beginning) for journeying on both the Nakasendō and the Tōkaidō - two of the famous "Five Routes" for travelers during the Edo Period between Kyoto and Edo/Tokyo.  Hiroshige captured an earlier version of the bridge in the 1830s, as depicted in The Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō.


​The current bridge is a non-descript 1950 concrete bridge, so I wanted my sketch to capture a view of the river front and one of the original giboshi (onion-shaped posts) that are also seen on many of the bridges, shrines and temples in Japan.​

Nakasendo
​September 27 – October 7, 2017
The Nakasendō (with the Japanese characters: 中 山 道 – “Central Mountain Route”), was one of the five routes of the Edo period, and one of the two that connected Edo (modern-day Tokyo) to Kyoto in Japan.  There were 69 stations (staging-posts or post towns) between Edo and Kyoto, with a total distance of approximately 534 km (332 mi).  We were scheduled to walk 10 days along the portions of the route staying in a variety of inns and hotels including a night in a classic post-town inn that had a history spanning 1,000 years.  Many of the inns have been managed by many generations of the same family.  Here is a map of the route that shows the post-towns we visited:

​The walks varied from 8 km to 24 km a day and took us through many beautiful red cedar forests and charming rural towns and farms.  I wish I had the opportunity to do sketches along the way, but I managed to do a few morning sketches supplemented by a couple sketches from my phone/camera.  Our tour leader Kaho was an enthusiastic supporter of my sketching efforts.  Each morning she would ask to see my sketch of the day.  I then asked her to augment the sketch with a description in Japanese and English.  This was a wonderful morning ritual for us and became one of my lasting memories of the tour.  My only regret is that the tour and ritual eventually had to end.  Here are some sketches that Kaho enhanced - and a few I had to do later from my phone/camera:

​This spectacular castle deserved a more spectacular sketch, but our wonderful lunch distracted us a bit – at least that’s my excuse for this one.

​For our first Nakasendo inn in Sekigahara, we discovered a Shinto Shrine near our inn.  During the early morning sketch, I was approached by a Japanese man who asked where I was from.  He liked the fact that I was sketching the shrine since he was about to do some maintenance work on its grounds.

​On the following morning, we found a local shrine that was near our 17th century inn in Hosokute.  The small building was in a spectacular red cedar forest backdrop.

​While walking through some of the older portions of the Nakasendo, we emerged from the forest to a spectacular view of the valley and distant mountains.  I did a rushed lunch sketch where I tried to capture too much of the vast scenic valley view.

Ena was a major post-town that still has a charming historic district and a contemporary museum devoted to Hiroshige – one of the chroniclers of the Nakasendo.  We spent some time in the museum watching a video of the wood-block print process and then had an opportunity to do some quick wood block prints using a copies Hiroshige’s blocks. ​Our hotel was near the Agi River which like many of Japan’s rivers was now a delightful river park.  This sketch tried to capture an old paper mill and the vermillion bridge in the distance that we would soon walk over on our way to the next leg of the Nakasendo.

​Our uphill walk to Shinchaya (“New Tea House”) took us through a town that was celebrating the autumn harvest, so we took a break from our walk to watch the drums and some remnants of a parade.  The villagers welcomed us with offers of beer and treats.  When we finally arrived at the Shinchaya inn, it was in a spectacular setting that deserved more time and talent to sketch all the views and character of the inn.  Lindy did some nice sketches under the morning sunrise, and I did a quick energetic impression of the inn.  The inn proprietor was kind enough to sign my crude sketch of his inn that had more character than I was able to capture in a 10 minute sketch.

​The next day we walked through Magome, one of the most picturesque post-town on the Nakasendo, where we saw a master watercolor artist doing a sketch of the town with his students.  He did not speak English so I never learned his name, but his drawing and watercolor washes were inspirational.  We later found him in Tsumago doing another wonderful sketch of this picturesque town, but we still couldn’t communicate with each other.

​For our morning sketch, Lindy and I found this old seemingly abandoned tea house on a hill above our inn.  The “fish hook” was a common device that allowed the tea kettle to be suspended at variable heights above the fire.

​In Kiso Fukushima, we stayed at a modern western-style inn that had a roof-top onsen – public bath.  The inn was still run by the same family for many generations.  The town had many historic sights, including this stretch of old inns and storefronts that was getting ready for another autumn Shinto festival denoted by the numerous Shide, zig-zag lightening strips of paper.

​Our next leg of the tour took us up to the Kaida Plateau that is dominated by Mt. Ontake, an active volcano which also has four large ski slopes.  On our way to the Inn in the valley, we stopped for a special lunch at the Kotoda Poppo Shop which was run by a retired couple who served us amazing home-made pizza on their patio that had a spectacular view of the valley and Mt. Ontake.  While I could not do a sketch during lunch, I did a quick sketch of our modern Japanese Inn that was in the shadow of Mt. Ontake.

​On our way to Karuisawa, our final stay on the Nakasendo, we strolled through Narai.  While savoring a quick lunch, Lindy and I did a quick sketch of the street of this old post-town.

​Karuizawa was an unexpectedly high-class mountain resort town which treated us to a “top-class, historic inn.”  There was so much to see during our morning walk that we settled on a simple sketch of a series of Buddhist figurines with their red scarfs underneath the Jinguji Temple gong – which was being loudly rung by the chanting attendant.

​I close the Nakasendo Way sketches with a sketch done from my phone/camera of our tour group under the shadow of Mt. Ontake.

Tokyo
October 7-11, 2017
​Our tour of Tokyo was led by Satoko and naturally started at the Nihonbashi Bridge – the start and end of the Nakasendo.

​Satoko, our tour leader, did a great job of introducing us to the city of the shogun, the Imperial Palace, the Edo Castle grounds, and the Kiyosumi Teien, one of the best examples of a Japanese garden in Tokyo.  All these sites deserved a few sketches, but after a full two days of touring I only did a couple of sketches from the luxury of our high-rise hotel room.

​On our free days after the tour, we followed up Satoko’s suggestions, which included the small but delightful Sumida Hokusai Museum.  I managed to get in a quick sketch while enjoying a post-museum snack:

​On our last afternoon, we enjoyed a leisurely water ferry ride from Asakusa to Hama Rikyu garden where we did some sketching while overlooking Tokyo Bay:

Many thanks to Lindy for her patience while I tried to get in "one more sketch"; to our amazing tour leaders Nami, Kaho and Satoko; and of course my fellow tourists: Susan and Bob, Ron and Julia, Beth and Alan, Jill and Caroline for all of their entertainment and comradery during many long walks.  A special thanks to Susan and Bob for organizing the adventure and inspiring us to actually go!

I owe a special thanks to the entire BIG Room team for their constant encouragement and support of the sketches.  I look forward to walking through the new hospital front door in 2019 with all the members of the BIG Room.  Thank you for your support of this sketchbook project, but most importantly thank you for your continuing great work together.  The past year of working with you was one of the highlights of my 30 years serving the University of Arizona and the Medical Center.

As the hospital building exterior framework nears completion, Schuff Steel organizes the “Topping Off” ceremony which includes speeches, “topping off” hats, and the ceremonial last beam signed by project and hospital staff before hoisting it in place.

Although the building construction continues at a rapid pace, there is still lots of activity in the BIG Room with user group meetings, BIM (Building Information Modeling) systems to coordinate, and all the related project estimating and documentation requirements:

The BIG Room is also filled with big characters who help keep us focused, on-track and in good spirits.  They also remind us that despite the demands of developing a large complex building, it’s important to have fun - whether it’s during a report-out or to create a shrine to weird food and multi-tasking in our shared kitchen.

The BIG Room and its talented collection of personalities is truly an experience.  Thankfully I got to enjoy this short time with some dedicated and fun people.

As the ironworkers continue to install steel framing for the new hospital, BIG Room holiday cards are now available at the Banner UMC Tucson Gift Shop!

For several months now the two large cranes have been hoisting the steel members up to the new hospital framework at a rapid rate.  Our BIG Room team are now fully distracted with watching not just the motion of the cranes, but also the dexterity and movements of the ironworkers as they dance around the steel framework on narrow flanges of steel or sometimes simply standing on safety wires.  Although each worker is secured with harnesses and self-retracting lifelines, it’s a precarious job and fascinating to watch.  The steel members on the ground are laid out in an organized manner for their ultimate position in the building.  Workers on the ground secure cables to the steel members to be lifted into place by a crane and then ironworkers on the edge of the building frame use a tagline rope to control the beams and ease the steel member into place.  When the steel is close to the point of connection, ironworkers position the beams in place with the long pointed bar of a spud wrenches to align bolt holes. Then bolts are inserted and the wrench end is used to tighten the bolts.   For “moment resisting” connections, where the steel members must resist a combination of tension and compression force, a team of welders makes the connection secure with deep penetrating welds.  The ironworkers are also involved with installing metal decking for the concrete floors that are poured on the decking.

At a recent lunch with some of the ironworkers from Schuff Steel I learned a few things about their lives and risks.  Aaron, a local ironworker, quickly but politely corrected my use of the term “steelworker” by explaining that “steelworkers” work in a steel fabrication shop preparing the steel members for use in the field.  The “ironworkers” are the ones working outside on a building to erect, position, bolt, and weld the steel members into place.  This hospital building that Aaron and his crew were working on is a unique project for them and for Tucson.  Normally these highly specialized workers are on a job for a month and then they are off to the next one – often in another city. Our project will keep them steadily employed in one place for many months.  In Tucson, there are just not that many steel frame buildings being constructed so for an ironworker in Tucson, the opportunity to stay in one place was a uniquely stable situation.

The jobs these guys do looks risky - and it is.  Many of them told tales of their last or most serious falls, including Aaron's recent free fall of 35 feet resulting in both ankles getting broken, an arm penetrated by a spud wrench and multiple other serious injuries.  He had a deep appreciation for doing a hospital project having spent so much time recovering in one.

With the BIG Room overlooking the steel framework, the BIG Room participants have a greater appreciation for the work of ironworkers.  We are also constantly reminded that our work together is important for the patients and hospital staff who will soon inhabit the new hospital.  Some of our patients occasionally get to watch the workers erect the building from their patient rooms.  To help connect our pediatric patients to the project and to give them some distractions during their stay, some of our project team have introduced Pokémon characters into the building framework.  It’s important to have some fun during a long and serious project.

What requires 18 large flatbed trucks to be delivered…

…three days to assemble…

…requires other smaller versions of itself to get assembled…

…weighs 700,000 pounds when fully assembled...

...will be taller than any building in Tucson, and is decorated with Christmas lights…

…and had 50 members of the BIG ROOM celebrate the final assemble?

A BIG CRANE!

Manufactured in Manitowoc, Wisconsin, our BIG CRANE is a Manitowoc 2250 Series 3.  These types of cranes are called “Lattice Boom Crawler” cranes meaning that they are not fixed “tower” cranes but can move around the site at 1 mph.  Due to the excessive weight of the crane, it needs to be disassembled when moving across existing onsite utility tunnels and then reassembled to complete the steel erection of the new building.  The crane has a 200-foot main boom and a 160-foot jib – which is 60 feet longer than a football field.  At its full height, the crane is 400 feet tall.  Christmas lights are installed on the boom of the crane with flashing strobe lights and an orange checkered flag at the highest point to alert helicopter pilots flying to our helipad around the crane.  The crane is scheduled to place 80 pieces of steel each day and will be working on site with a second (even larger) crane for five months on the project site.