Kubota's Terrace Overlook Completed

6/26/15 Kubota Garden Terrace Overlook

Nearly a year ago, the Friday sketchers met at Kubota Garden to sketch a team of rock wall-building masters and their students cutting stones for a structure that would become the garden’s Terrace Overlook. The overlook was dedicated in May, so it was time to return.

6/26/15 Sketched from the terrace.

I found the same spot where I sketched last time (see last year’s sketch at bottom of page), which was mercifully shady on this warm morning. Starkly beautiful, the platform is made of boulders that were hand-chiseled and assembled with a dry-stone stacking method – nothing gluing them together – which is a 10,000-year-old Japanese technique. I remember the clinking of their chisels as the craftsmen worked, amazed that every stone would be cut by hand. In my sketch from last year, a crane was on the premises moving some of the largest foundational boulders. Although you can’t see it in my sketches, the terrace looks over a large koi pond below.

For my second sketch, I walked over to the Terrace Overlook itself, sat in its shade and sketched a small sculpture of stacked stones that welcomes visitors there. Even a gardener’s noisy mower nearby couldn’t spoil the serenity. 

Sketched 8/8/14