Gardenkeeping

Raise Your Sights

I found an old sketch book of mine. The first half of it is filled with drawings that I did back in the spring of 2014. David and I had taken a trip to Spokane for a family reunion and were on our way back home to Port Townsend. I decided to pass the time by sketching in a book that my dad had given me. I wanted to see if I could capture the changing scenery of Washington. It was quite a challenge for me. As we drove, I would try to hold these fleeting images in my head and sketch as much as I could remember.

Looking through the pages, I really began to miss that familiar landscape, having driven that stretch of I-90 my countless times over the years. The land changes so drastically as you move from east to west. When you’re in Spokane, you see Ponderosa Pines everywhere and outcroppings of exposed basalt. This eventually gives way to the Scablands, a stark landscape with an interesting geological history of multiple mega-floods that scoured the land during the last ice age. Then you come to the Cascade Mountains where the pine trees quickly get replaced by fir and cedar. My sketches stopped there. I can’t remember why. Did it get too dark to see? Maybe. All I know is that it left me with a wanderlust; a feeling that hasn’t visited me for a while. I wasn’t sure what to do, so I thought to share these drawings with you!

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