Small Lot, Big Equipment

5/4/13 Platinum Sepia ink, watercolor, Zig markers, pencil, Stillman & Birn sketchbook

On our way to the Sand Point Metropolitan Market this morning, we saw a disproportional number of heavy machinery moving slowly around a small lot on the corner of 25^th Northeast and Northeast 75^th in Wedgwood. I think the lot has been empty for a while – perhaps a gas station stood there at some point. It didn’t look like anything was being built, nor being torn down, and there were so many pieces of equipment in such a small space that it seemed to me that they could hardly maneuver.

Curious, and with this week’s Urban Sketchers Flickr group theme “People on the Job” on my mind, I went back this afternoon to find out what was going on. It turned out to be environmental cleanup activity, according to the worker I asked.

Technical note: I’m constantly switching out various art materials in my daily bag to minimize its weight and bulk while maximizing my sketching options. Since I had rarely used it, I recently replaced an orange Zig marker with something else. As I stood on a noisy, dusty, highly trafficked street corner, I regretted not having that bright orange marker, which would have enabled me to add the important color to this sketch quickly without having to get out my watercolors to mix the orange. Given that “construction orange” is always a prominent color in the urban landscape, I guess I’d better put that marker back into my bag.