Green Lake Through Fresh Eyes

10/23/16 brush pen, colored pencils

I’ve lived near Green Lake for almost 30 years, walked around it at least weekly year-round, and sketched there more often than at any other park (164 results came up in my Flickr photostream search of “Green Lake”). When I see the same things day after day, they sometimes become invisible. That’s what made this morning’s Urban Sketchers outing in the Green Lake neighborhood especially rich for me: I had the opportunity to see very familiar places and things through other sketchers’ eyes, and they became fresh for me again.

10/23/16 brush pen, colored pencils

For my own sketches, I seemed to have been in a tree mood. Suzanne and I both set our stools down near Starbucks facing the two rows of magnificent old trees leading from the street to the community center. I’ve sketched those trees many times, but I never tire of them. This time I chose an angle with the playfield behind them.

After that I walked to the street next to the La Escuelita Bilingual School, where the cherry trees had lost most of their leaves. I was tempted to give them more color, but I am ever “truthful to the scenes I witness” (maybe to a fault).

I forgot to take a photo of our sketchbook throwdown, but at least a couple dozen sketchers must have made it today. We lucked out with mild weather and even sunshine by noon!