Seattle’s Green Lake Arch

[By Tina Koyama in Seattle] The day after Monday’s dusting, we got a little more snow
overnight, but not enough to write home about. The more significant difference
for me was the drop in temperature. Although my weather app said it was 28 F, I
was hoping that my walk down to Green Lake would have warmed me enough that I could
stand to sketch outdoors as I had the day before. But my hands were freezing
even with the mitten tops pulled over my fingerless gloves. I retreated to
Starbucks.

Thawing my hands around a tall flat white, I picked a window
seat facing a row of knotty old trees. It’s one of my favorite views of Seattle’s
Green Lake Park, but it had been several years since I last sketched it.
The darker areas are the grass already showing through the scant
snow.

I’ll point out a bit of history: That classical façade in
the distant background at right is a piece of architecture taken from
the Martha Washington School of Girls for “neglected and unfortunate young
girls.” Built in 1921 near Lake Washington, the school closed in 1957, and the
city bought the property in 1972. (Local trivia: Apparently ghosts have been
sighted there.) The Green Lake Arch, as it is now called, was taken out of
storage in 2009 and placed at the park. I always thought I hadn’t noticed the
arch until recent years because so many things escaped my attention before I
started sketching. But now that I’ve read this bit of local history, I
realize it was erected only a couple of years before I started.