A Rough Sketch

The background is much darker (and so more readily apparent) and a little more homogenous than in the original. Other than that, what you see is a good approximation of a quick sketch: one of the first I made using Pentel brush pens for inking. As such, it could be worse.

The dude in this reminds me (faintly) of a scene I witnessed years ago while on my way to deliver some furniture. First, some set up.

The neighborhood of Ballard used to be composed of working class folks and Norwegian retirees. There are still a number of retirement homes, fabrication shops, and small ship yards in certain parts of Ballard, but it is now considered trendy. It is filling up with condos, bars, and hip eateries where houses, dives (mostly pubs), and specialty shops used to exist. If you wander off from some of the major thoroughfares, you'll run into micro-breweries and more popular restaurants, but you'll also see old warehouses, a couple scrap yards, and decrepit roads running alongside disused railroad tracks.

One of these less traveled streets pulls away from the vestiges of industry, and heads north, into more commercial and then residential areas of Ballard. It would be four lanes across, if there weren't a large patch of gravel running through the center, about a lane and a half wide, disappearing only at intersections. Due to a lack of residential parking and the large number of apartments in the area, people often park their cars here at an angle, with every other vehicle facing the opposite way, creating an odd looking pattern of cars and trucks not unlike a strip of houndsooth, which often blocks the vision of drivers attempting to cross the street.

Riding down this street one day, I saw an old man standing in the middle of the road. He had an enormous, unkempt beard and wild, white hair of the sort you'd expect to see on an old time gold miner too long removed from society. He was wearing a red shirt, checkered black, leather boots, and a pair of old jeans held up by black suspenders and a large, brown belt. This man was standing in the middle of the road, his arms outstretched, his hands held waist high and facing outwards, his feet planted firmly on the ground. His shoulders moved with his head while he looked around, open mouthed. He remained this way as I passed him. I got the distinct sense that he was either a desperately lost rodeo worker or a bewildered time traveler from the old west.