The Last Kwanzan

 

On my walk to Green Lake, I saw the pavement covered with pink snowfall wherever I had enjoyed blossoms in the previous weeks. Wistfully, I looked for one last Kwanzan cherry to sketch at the park. Although this one had started to shed petals, it still had a full crown of pink. The temperature was only in the high 50s by late morning, so it wasn’t exactly warm. Avoiding the shade, a young woman sat in full sun, sewing (repairing?) a jacket – a refreshing change from the usual phone-gazers.

What a terrific season of pink we’ve had! And as the last of the Kwanzans leave the party, just arriving are the dogwoods and redbuds.

Dogwood

Redbud

Dogwood

Nothing Better

 

4/24/26 Project 9 Brewing Co.

On a lovely late afternoon, USk Seattle met at Project 9 Brewing for the first unsheltered drink & draw of the year. We had a great turnout, including Lisbon artist Mario Linhares, who was in town to give a presentation and workshop through the University of Washington’s Landscape Architecture Department.

Other sketchers who had never come to a USk outing before and long-timers who hadn’t come in a while all joined us on Project 9’s sunny deck. And why wouldn’t they? A warm (but not hot) Friday afternoon, sketching with good friends while sipping cold beverages – does it get any better? We all agreed that it doesn’t.

Bunny Sighting

 

4/23/26 Maple Leaf neighborhood

I don’t usually sketch during my short golden-hour walks; I enjoy having no sketching objective, destination or fitness goal. Still, it’s hard to resist a bunny quietly chewing grass. Getting out a colored pencil and my Field Notes made the least noise and movement.

Nordic Interior Redux

 

4/22/26 National Nordic Museum's interior

The National Nordic Museum’s current exhibition is an enchanting collection of reproductions from Finnish artist Tove Jansson’s “Moomin” children’s book illustrations. The exhibit also includes large photographs showing the artist’s fascinating, secluded life in a tiny house built on the rocky shore of a tiny island.

Sculptural bird suspended from the ceiling. 

After enjoying the exhibit, Roy, Mary Jean and I wandered around in the permanent collections to sketch. Whenever I visit the Nordic Museum, I’m just as intrigued by the building’s unusual architecture as by the exhibits. As I’ve done in the past, I stood on one of several “bridges” between the two sides of the museum and sketched across the length of the building from floor to ceiling (top of post). That’s MJ on the far “bridge” sketching a similar view from the opposite side.

At left is a closeup of one of several bird sculptures suspended from the ceiling.

Roy and I were passing back and forth a small concertina booklet to give to MJ for her birthday. For the booklet, I made the sketch below of MJ sketching a traditional Swedish carved Dala horse. Very untraditionally, it was whimsically painted with symbols of Seattle like the Space Needle. (I don’t have a scan of the sketch because we presented the filled booklet to MJ that day.)

Material notes: Restricted to pencil inside the museum, I happily pulled out my current pairing of warm/cool Derwent Drawing pencils, Brown Ochre and Grape. I love using Grape, which is almost a cool gray, but Brown Ochre seems a little too pale to show variations of values. I’m keeping the Grape for a while longer but swapping out Brown Ochre for something a bit darker.

One of many delightful reproductions of Tove Jansson's "Moomin" illustrations

Green Lake Kwanzans

 

4/21/26 Green Lake

Petal-peeping season isn’t over yet, and I don’t even have to go far to peep. The Kwanzan cherries at Green Lake seem to have exploded into pink pompoms overnight. Growing sporadically around the park rather than in large clusters, they pop brilliantly against the otherwise mostly dark foliage. Ironically, I didn’t even have to walk to the lake for these: I found them in a parking lot.

I must say that the second sketch might be one of my favorite tree sketches. It started raining shortly after I began, so I worked much more quickly than I usually would with water-soluble materials. Under-thinking instead of over-thinking!

I also may have exaggerated the vibrancy of the hues a bit -- so shoot me!

In the same parking lot, I found a few thirsty geese.

The Same Path

 

2/12/26

Jamie began hospice care a couple of months ago. His wife told me recently that he had stopped eating. I’m expecting to hear sad news sometime soon.

As Greg’s regular visitor, I have gotten to know a couple of spouses of other residents. Sometimes we talk about caregiving issues. Sometimes we simply greet or nod. The burden of the heart is an instant bond that requires no conversation.

We’ve all taken different paths to get here, but now we’re all on the same one. We all know there is only one destination.

2/7/26

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4/20/26

The Future is Finally Here

 

4/19/26 New Judkins Park Station and Mercer Island Station platform

Preamble:

For the first decade-plus of my career, I worked for the Municipality of Metro Seattle, which used to manage and operate the Seattle transit system. As tunnels were being burrowed for buses through the main downtown thoroughfare, disrupting traffic and businesses for years, most of the marketing was about how the new transitway would eventually be used for the region’s as-yet-to-be-built light rail system. This work wasn’t just for ourselves; our children and grandchildren would ride the light rail! (Much potential there for public relations copywriters like myself.)

That was in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. The 2020s, when all of it was slated to be completed, seemed like a very long way off. I’ll be sitting in my rocker by then, I grumbled, envisioning my 21^st century self. Meanwhile, my current tax dollars were already paying for that wonderful light rail system that I would be too old to use. (Even if I wrote it myself, the copywriting wasn’t enough to convince this grumbling taxpayer that it would all be worthwhile “someday.”)

Four decades later, I’m happy and grateful that I have lived long enough to enjoy that dream-like future (and I no longer begrudge my tax dollars). The light rail has been my most convenient form of public transportation for several years now.

My lunch at Dough Zone at Redmond Towne Center and Downtown Redmond Station

From my perspective, though, the pinnacle of the light rail system was the connection that opened only last month: After multiple, lengthy delays, each putting me one step closer to my rocker, the link between Seattle and the Eastside across Lake Washington was finally completed!

(Delays notwithstanding, this cross-lake link is an engineering marvel: It’s the first train in the world to operate on a floating bridge, which was, itself, the first in the world in 1940.)

Art at Downtown Redmond Station

During all those years that I had to commute to the Eastside for the second leg of my career, how wonderful it would have been to take a comfortable, modern train instead of bumpy buses or, most dreaded, my own car! I’m not grumbling about that, though. Now that the light rail can take me almost anywhere in the Puget Sound region that I’d like to go, I can enjoy easy, very inexpensive rides for fun in retirement instead of commuting to work.

All of that was just preamble (or maybe just amble). Today’s blog story is much shorter:

Kate, Jane, Ellie and I rode the new light rail connection all the way from Seattle to Redmond Towne Center last Sunday. Our mission was to scout the best stations for sketching potential and related amenities for a future USk outing. For me, it was also a satisfying sense of closure: Four decades of the promised future finally becoming the present.

Art and water feature at Bellevue Downtown Station

Bellevue Downtown Station

Art at Downtown Redmond Station

Jane, Ellie, Tina and Kate riding the historic rails!