Intro to Drawing & Watercolor: Pacific Salmon

Name: Intro to Drawing & Watercolor: Pacific Salmon
Start: 2026-07-18T13:00:00-07:00
End: 2026-07-18T15:00:00-07:00
Location: 600 128th St SE, Everett, WA, United States, Washington 98208

Schedule

Sat Jul 18 2026 at 01:00 pm to 03:00 pm

UTC-07:00

Location

600 128th St SE, Everett, WA, United States, Washington 98208 | Everett, WA

Join the Adopt A Stream Foundation community for an introduction to drawing and watercolor that is truly beginner friendly. The subject- Pacific Salmon! Learn with a pair of professional, lifelong, local artists whose passion is making art accessible for all. The event will begin with a demonstration of drawing techniques- the three tricks, that will provide a baseline that will help participants construct their salmon sketch, and then guided water coloring of their drawing (full, detailed class outline included below).
All art materials necessary to participate, including; paint brushes, watercolor paper, and watercolor paint sets will be included with registration and were generously donated by the class instructors Michael and Kriss Erickson.
Before or after the class all participants will have the chance to explore the Northwest Stream Center's accessible nature trail.

Intro to Drawing & Watercolor: Pacific Salmon
Saturday July 18th, 2026
1-3PM
at the Northwest Stream Center
in Snohomish County's McCollum Park
600 128th St SE, Everett, WA 98208
$8 for AASF Members, $10 for general admission
Only 25 spaces available!
Pre-registration is highly recommended.
Register online at www.streamkeeper.org or call 425-316-8592.
All proceeds support the Adopt A Stream Foundation's mission of teaching people to become stewards of their watersheds.

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Detailed Class Outline:
Part 1. The rudiments:
Michael uses an approach that he's tested for years teaching engineers at Boeing how to draw.
It’s used to confront the fear we’ve all been filled with about not having that “magical thing” called “talent”, and by providing a clear set of “tricks” or visual syntax and grammar skills - the same kind of thing we were taught when we learned how to write.
Writing is drawing (the by-hand skills needed to draw the alphabet is all the skill you need).
The three tricks:
Demonstrate: The “Eyes” trick
This requires drawing two circles, two dots and a line… creates the illusion of eyes. By shifting the two dots around, you can create expression, which leads to creating believable characters. You can put them on a rock, and they become a believable “person”.
The importance of starting here is to give the participant something believable that they can actually do instantly, proving Michael's point, that drawing and sketching are accessible to all.
Demonstrate: The Static Animation “trick”
Static means frozen. Animation is movement. This is how you create the illusion of movement on a frozen 2D flat piece of paper.
We do it with stick figures. Michael's “stick people” require the inclusion of “elbows and kneecaps”.
With these, you can go from a flat “bug splattered on your windshield” rendition, to one that can be made to dance
The importance of this (while also being fun) is to establish how easily it is to give the feeling of flow and movement to a drawing. The perception of motion (wind in the trees, flow of water, movement by creatures) makes even the roughest sketch come to life and carry both information and feeling. It’s accessible to everyone!
Demonstrate: The basic Shapes trick:
“Can you draw a square? Can you draw a Circle, Triangle, … and a few other things? If so, you can draw anything (once Michael teaches you how to “pop them out into 3-D and connect them together to make ANYTHING you can imagine.
This “trick” will be used in the rest of the class to form the underpinnings of the wild salmon image.
These 3 tricks are the underlying “syntax and grammar” of making pictures and unleash people to draw anything they can imagine!
Next, Michael will coach participants to get the basic shape of the salmon. Then, Kriss will guide participants in painting the salmon using the watercolors provided.
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Instructor Bios:
Michael N Erickson: Former Boeing Company "Envisioneer", Retired. Born in Alaska, lived the majority of his life in Washington State, drawing since childhood. Began freelancing in 1981.

An Ink illustrator/cartoonist/calligrapher, specializing in "quick draw" visualizations that safely depicted touchy worrisome issues pertaining to the human condition in the context of organizational stress and the complexity of large scale system integration.

For 34 years, created hundreds of large system visualizations or models, (Concept of Operation, System, Process pictures") and contextual storyboards for Boeing. The main job beginning in 1991, literally drawing on the walls during technical discussions across all domains and technical disciplines, problem solving with pictures.
Kriss Erickson is a versatile artist who has had several illustrations published as part of freelance magazine assignments. Kriss has sold her art since 1980, when she developed a unique recipe using Mt. St. Helen's ash to create small animal figurines. She has also sold colored pencil, watercolor and acrylic art in the form of greeting cards, original art and whimsical seasonal signs since 2004.
Kriss loves to work with colored pencils, acrylics and watercolor mediums. She loves color and motion as well as nature, fantasy and the surreal. She creates from her home in Everett, WA.
Kriss participates in local and regional art and craft fairs such as Oddmall.