Garden on the roof

We met to sketch this p-patch located on the top of the Mercer St. parking garage.

By the time we had the throw down, quite a few sketchers had gathered.  It was good to reconnect with the rather large group from Seattle who had attended the USk International Symposium in Amsterdam.  





My attitude is if I'm within view of the Space Needle, it must be included in the sketch! Most people sketched this unusual auto from the front or the side. But I had to do the side with the Space Needle in the frame!



I'm rather partial to Airstream trailers so one of my sketches today had to include the one in the garden.



Several of us gathered for lunch around the corner at McMenamins Queen Ann. I have a sketchbook I've dedicated to the McMenamins lamps. So I got one more.



More photos. 

UpGarden

8/18/19 Space Needle and sunflowers

UpGarden is aptly named: It’s the highest p-patch in Seattle. Noted as the nation’s first rooftop community garden, it opened on the top level of the Seattle Center parking garage in 2012. Now thriving and filled with flowers, fruits and vegetables, the garden is a welcome spot of green in the shadow of the Space Needle. USk Seattle has been meaning to meet there for quite a while, and it finally landed on our calendar today.

I took a leisurely stroll around the garden and noted several fun potential sketches: the Airstream trailer (filled with gardening tools) in front of a crane; corn stalks with the Queen Anne towers behind them; a vintage Ford Galaxy 500 filled with plants. The hard part was choosing! Although the sunflowers were past their prime, I didn’t mind: I liked the composition of the tall plant’s heart-shaped leaves in front of the Needle.

What’s next? I couldn’t decide, so I pulled out the trick that served me so well in Amsterdam: I made a page of thumbnail-size sketches of the compositions I’d spotted earlier.

8/18/19 Views from UpGarden

The first time I sketch again with USk Seattle after I’ve been traveling, I’m always filled with joy and gratitude for my community here at home. I’m fortunate to be able to travel and sketch with people from around the world, but it’s when I do that I am reminded not to take my homies for granted. Many sketchers don’t belong to a local group, so the symposium is their only opportunity to be with like-minded folks. I’m much luckier than that; I can do it several times a month.

Driving home with the top down on the Express Lanes, it was 73 degrees and clear. This is, unarguably, the best time of year to be here. I don’t want to be anywhere else.