More Green Lake Trees

 

6/28/24 Green Lake neighborhood

I finished sketching the last four trees in the Green Lake neighborhood that were documented by Taha Ebrahimi in Street Trees of Seattle. Not all of the trees she highlights in the book are huge, old trees (though many are). Some are surprisingly small and indistinctive, like the tiny, young ginkgo in the middle of a street island. The twin quinces both have leaves that had been well-eaten by some infesting bugs, and I worried about their health. They are distinctive, however, for being the first quinces recorded in the City of Seattle as right-of-way trees (out of only 19 quinces in the whole city).

Now that I’ve made small gesture sketches of all the Maple Leaf and Green Lake trees, I have in mind three that would make nice portraits. Since the gesture sketches were all done in morning light, I’ve gone back to see one of them in late-afternoon light, which is definitely better than morning. Unfortunately, one that would be particularly magnificent to draw has a trunk that will always be in shade due to its huge canopy. It’s always challenging to draw anything in total shade, but I’ll have to make do.

This page spread got a little cramped and more cluttered than I had intended. While walking around Green Lake to get from one tree to another, I suddenly spotted two crows mercilessly harassing a bald eagle minding its own business high atop a tree. I should have given the birds more space (and therefore kept more space for the trees), but the spectacle felt like part of my tree-sketching story, so I put them on the same spread. (I posted a short video on Instagram.)