Green Lake, Sunny and Not

7/4/23 Green Lake

As a Seattle native who remembers many Fourths of July watching fireworks dressed in a raincoat or fleece parka, I still laugh ruefully at the local joke that summer begins on the fifth of July. This year, however, summer began at least a week earlier, and the Fourth was actually hot and sunny. Walking around Green Lake early to beat the heat, I made the sketch at right. Usually I like to use a primary triad on sunny days because bright yellow is an easy way to give the tops of trees a splash of sunshine, but this time I thought I’d try it with a secondary triad instead. Th result looks less sunny than I wanted, even though I tried to play up the bright yellow-green in the treetops. 

A few days later, our brief heatwave broke, and I needed to wear a hoodie at cloudy Green Lake. An overcast sky usually prompts me to bring out my secondary triad, but following the lead of my previous sketch, I went the other way and used a primary triad instead (below). The sketch does look sunnier than the morning actually was; in fact, I love using this CMY triad in the summer just because it does tend to come off as effortlessly sunny. The darkest areas beneath the shoreline trees might look like shadows (implying sunshine), but they are also reflections, which are always dark.

It’s endlessly fascinating to me how both hues and values play a part in evoking light. Reversing my go-to triads pushed me to think about that instead of coloring on auto-pilot.

7/7/23 Green Lake