West and East

10/15/20 Maple Leaf neighborhood

This maple, closest to home on my annual leaf-peeping tour, has been slow to get started this year, but now it’s making strides. One sunny morning last week, I stood in the middle of this quiet street and had to move out of the way only once (for a garbage truck). I was facing west on Northeast 81^st Street (at left). I’ve noticed that the color pattern on the north-facing side of the tree was quite different, so my intention was to go back another day and sketch that side.

A few days ago, an overcast morning cleared to blue skies and sunshine in the early afternoon, so I went back, but the light wasn’t right (I think I need to go closer to sunset). Sitting in my car this time, I faced east instead – the opposite direction as my first sketch – and there’s more color on this side (below).

When I looked back on my blog at the sketches I made of this tree last year, I noticed that the crooked caution sign was still upright back then! Interestingly, by Oct. 23, nearly all the leaves had already come down.

One of my favorite things about urban sketching is recording the changing trees and seeing how different they might be from year to year.

10/20/20