"Crossing Yesler" Seattle city oil painting by Robin Weiss

"Crossing Yesler" 18x24 oil on panel          Sold

"Crossing Yesler is another painting that is available now at The Harbor Steps Gallery in Seattle. If you are interested in this work,  give Summer a call at 206-681-9321 during business hours and she can give you purchasing information.

I used a number of photos taken on location to design this composition. Again, more than paint some "thing" I wanted to paint the "feeling" of the city.
Looking up the history of the locations I paint is fun for me....so I'll share it with you too!

Henry Yesler arrived in Seattle in 1852 and built a steam-powered sawmill, which provided numerous jobs for those early settlers and Duwamish tribe members. The mill was located right on the Elliott Bay waterfront, at the foot of what is now known as Yesler Way and was then known as Mill Road or the "Skid Road," for the way the logs "skidded" down the steep grade from the ever-receding timber line to the mill. In addition to running the mill, Yesler built the city's first water system, in 1854. The system was made up of a series of open-air, V-shaped flumes perched on stilts that started atop First Hill and ran down past Yesler's home and to the mill. Later on, after complaints of dirty water, Yesler developed a system made up of log pipes buried beneath the ground.

Yesler also built the Pioneer Building on the site of his first home, which burned in The Great Seattle Fire of 1889. You can see my painting of the Pioneer Building here, now the center of Seattles Pioneer Square.