Both Sides of the Street

6/5/23 Maple Leaf

6/7/23 Northgate Community Centery

My daily fitness-walking routes take me all over my own Maple Leaf neighborhood plus the three adjacent neighborhoods – Green Lake, Roosevelt and Northgate. I vary the streets I walk on for different views. Out of habit, I sometimes find myself taking the same side of a street I always take, and I have to make a conscious effort to walk on the opposite side. When I do, it always surprises me that having a slightly different viewing angle makes me notice different things or appreciate something I’ve ignored before.

6/7/23  Green Lake

6/7/23 Green Lake Village

Sometimes I turn around and walk backwards for a few steps because, again, the vantage point or light will be different.

6/9/23 Maple Leaf

6/9/23 Maple Leaf

It reminds me that it’s important to walk on both sides of the street – in both directions.

6/11/23 Maple Leaf Park

6/13/23 Green Lake

6/15/23 Maple Leaf

6/18/23 Maple Leaf

6/18/23 Maple Leaf

6/21/23 Green Lake

6/29/23 Maple Leaf

7/12/23 Green Lake

7/12/23 Green Lake (workers on the same project as above)

7/18/23 Maple Leaf

7/19/23 Green Lake

7/20/23 Roosevelt

7/20/23 Roosevelt

7/24/23 Maple Leaf

Maple Leaf Park Gazebo

 

4/10/26 Maple Leaf Park playground and gazebo

After I had posted a sketch of Mt. Rainier from Maple Leaf Park, I received a comment on Flickr asking how the gazebo was doing. Gazebo? I walk around Maple Leaf Park several times a week – how could I miss a gazebo? Then I realized that the “gazebo” was in reference to the structure in the lower part of the park where the playground is, where I rarely walk. I also hadn’t thought of it as a gazebo because it’s a very open structure compared to most gazebos (when I think of a gazebo, it’s something I duck into for shelter in case of unexpected rain). When I did a little googling to learn more about the gazebo (and found this article), I realized that the person who had commented on Flickr is one of the artists, Nick Lyle.

Gazebo detail

All of that made me realize that I had never sketched the gazebo! The next day, I immediately corrected that. The 10-foot-tall, forged steel structure is very airy with birds, plants and other natural motifs. Now I know why I hadn’t sketched it before – it’s very challenging to make the delicate, arching “branches” show up in front of all the deep foliage behind it.

I stood inside the completely open gazebo (no rain shelter here!), which is “evocative of the web of life that connects both the urban and natural worlds,” to sketch a cormorant detail. As often happens, I discovered that I hadn’t appreciated or even noticed those details until I sketched them.

Maple Leaf Park: Old is New Again

8/18/17 Confluent Boulders sculpture at Maple Leaf Park

“The biggest and best highlight is a completely unobstructed view of Mt. Rainier – possibly the best within the city limits!”

That’s what I wrote on the Urban Sketchers Seattle blog to promote yesterday’s outing to Maple Leaf Reservoir Park. Perhaps I oversold it just a tad, as the cloud cover never did reveal The Mountain. Still, a good turnout of sketchers found plenty to sketch in “my” neighborhood park on a beautiful morning.

Sketched in March 2014: Same view, very different style

As you know, I sketch at this park regularly, so I was bound for a redux, no matter what view I chose. But it had been more than three years since I sketched this view of Confluent Boulders and the iconic water tower behind it, so it didn’t feel old. (At right is my sketch from 2014 just to show how much my style has changed.) It was especially enjoyable this time with the warm sun at my back and Natalie and Anne for company. 

As I was just saying about the sketch I did of the Interstate 5 overpass near Green Lake, familiar views feel fresh when I try to imagine them being seen through the eyes of a newcomer. Maple Leaf Park was new to everyone who joined the outing yesterday, so it was fun to imagine seeing and sketching it for the first time.

Drawing Wind

 

Shortly after the previous sketch

6/9/26 Maple Leaf Park

We had a couple days of strong wind a few weeks back. The two sketches above were my attempts to capture that wind – first at Maple Leaf Park and then again with a single tree on my walk home. I think the single tree captured it better, though some of the energy might be apparent at the park.

The rest of these are more fitness walk-sketches from the past month or so. The colorful pages are the result of using my first handbound sketchbook from UglyPads. I’ve now filled that one, but I haven’t made another yet. Standard staples are a bit too short for the number of pages I had stacked, and the book started falling apart after I passed the midway point. I had to patch it together with washi tape to finish it. I think I’m going to have to get my bookbinding materials out and stitch the next one.

5/26/26 Maple Leaf

6/5/26 This was fun to capture... a bunch of kids blowing bubbles at the park!

6/12/26 Maple Leaf

6/25/26 Green Lake Park

6/29/26 Maple Leaf

This Moment

 

7/6/24 Maple Leaf

Although plants and animals suffer from lack of rain, I appreciate this time of year when I can go out for my daily walk without checking the weather first (in other words, no excuses). Sometimes I have to consider the heat, but I don’t mind planning my walks for early morning if I have to – that’s the best time anyway, when the air is still fresh and the day unburdened (and I get to see lots of dogs on their walks).

7/7/24 Maple Leaf (Unexpected to see a Goldfish Crackers truck in the 'hood!)

When I know I have time to sketch as much as I want, I try to find some kind of narrative to what I observe. It’s always challenging fun to put the sequence together, not knowing what will follow each sketch until I draw it. Occasionally I give myself the additional challenge of narrating the sequence with a haiku (usually prompted by whether I have space on the page).

7/8/24 Mt. Rainier from Maple Leaf Park

Often I attempt neither narrative nor haiku – just the usual random walk-sketches that have made up the bulk of my urban sketching for years now. Although we still have several more weeks of reliably dry and pleasant walking weather, this time of year always feels precious and fleeting. Each sketch is a mantra: Appreciate this moment.

7/10/24 Maple Leaf

7/15/24 Maple Leaf

7/24/24 Maple Leaf

7/22/24 Maple Leaf

7/28/24 Cloud City Coffee (This is one of my ongoing self-challenges:
Trying to draw only part of what I can fully see. It's never as easy
as it seems like it should be.)

7/30/24 Green Lake and Maple Leaf

8/2/24 Maple Leaf

A Fresh Look at Maple Leaf Park

 

10/13/23 Confluent Boulders by Patrick Marold, Maple Leaf Park

Maple Leaf Park is one of my walking routes, so I see it regularly, and I’ve also sketched there countless times. It’s not exactly fresh to me anymore. Interestingly, though, whenever I’m there with someone who hasn’t seen it or doesn’t visit regularly, my eyes are refreshed. It happened last week when I sketched with Natalie.

For example, even though I have sketched the Confluent Boulders sculpture at least twice before, I had forgotten that one boulder is slightly warmer in hue than the other. I did observe that the very first time I sketched them in 2014, as is apparent in my sketch from back then, and I also observed it the second time in 2017. Since then, I’ve glanced at it but never thought about their relative colors – until I pointed out the sculpture to Natalie and decided to sketch it again myself.

Meanwhile, Mt. Rainier had made a surprise appearance, despite patchy clouds throughout the sky. That’s one view that never gets old, no matter how often I see or sketch Her Majesty.

Her Majesty from Maple Leaf Park

Sidewalk Stories

 

4/12/26 Maple Leaf

If you walk north of Northeast 95th in Maple Leaf, the sidewalk abruptly ends, and the pavement turns to gravel, which cars park on haphazardly without a curb to guide them. Pedestrians must then walk the slalom of parked cars or negotiate the road with moving vehicles. I always wonder, did the city's tax money suddenly run out?

Even sidewalks can have stories.

If you note the temperature as the days move forward, you'll see them gradually getting warmer. My walk-sketches become a record of spring's optimism.

4/8/26 Green Lake

4/24/26 Green Lake

5/5/26 Maple Leaf Park

5/8/26 a Maple Leaf garden

5/8/26 Maple Leaf

5/11/26 Maple Leaf

5/20/26 Maple Leaf