Late February at Green Lake

2/25/16 brush pen, watercolor, inks, colored pencil

Taking a short break from work this afternoon but without a plan or thought, I found myself driving to the south end of Green Lake to a scene I had sketched two summers ago. We’d had a lot of rain then, but that day the sun was back, and I had decided I could skip my yoga class to sketch instead. This week we’ve had a wonderful run of warm and dry weather – today it got all the way up to 60 degrees! – so it must have been that unexpected delight that brought me to the same spot. Except for the firs in the distance, the trees are still black and bare at Green Lake – not a bud in sight. But if you had asked the many strollers, runners, dog walkers and bike riders what season it is, they would have answered unanimously, “Spring!”