First Look at the Sketcher Fest 2025 poster

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Gabriel Campanario
gabi@sketcherpress.com

May 16, 2025

Sketcher Fest Edmonds is coming up in just two months (July 19-20), and it’s time to unveil our official poster. It features exclusive artwork we commissioned from Port Townsend artist Virginia Hein.

With her sketching easel set up facing southwest from Brackett’s Landing South, Hein used ink, watercolor and a few touches of gouache to capture a quintessential Edmonds scene: A ferry pulls away towards Kingston as people enjoy a peaceful time on the beach.

Hein said she was struck by the clarity of light and the scale and beauty of the driftwood that visitors often use as furniture, as well as the slow and “romantic” comings and goings of the ferry.

“The pull of the waterfront is magnetic,” said Hein. “There’s a moment in the late afternoon when the light shifts, and suddenly the sea has a silver glow — magical!”

Hein was a Sketcher Fest Guest Artist in 2023 and earlier this year moved from her native Los Angeles to the Pacific Northwest, a life change she considers “a dream come true.”

As a recent transplant to the region, she’s in awe of the beauty around her every day. “I found the Edmonds waterfront not just beautiful, but so peacefully serene, a contrast to the Southern California beaches I grew up with.”

Hein’s work underscores the value of sketching as a way to understand and connect with our surroundings. “Sketching is always about discovery and understanding, and I am excited to become more deeply acquainted with the Pacific Northwest,” she said.

Hein has worked as an artist in one form or another throughout her life, as a designer for toys and entertainment, art director, illustrator, and teacher. She taught drawing at Otis College of Art and Design for 13 years and now teaches sketching workshops locally and internationally. 

Her book “5 Minute Sketching Landscape” was published in 2017, and she co-authored “The Urban Sketching Handbook Spotlight on Nature” with Gail L. Wong in 2022. You can see more of her work on her Instagram and website.

Copies of the Sketcher Fest poster and art prints of Hein’s watercolor will be available for purchase during Sketcher Fest. Look for the Sketcher Press bookshop at Graphite on Saturday, July 19, and at the Edmonds Waterfront Center on Sunday, July 20.

For more information about Sketcher Fest and to purchase tickets, please visit sketcherfest.com.