Edmonds Marsh Site Plan

May 25, 2026

Early in 2026 I met some folks at my favorite Edmonds coffee house who were part of a nonprofit group to preserve and expand the Edmonds marsh estuary. Years ago it flowed freely into Puget Sound, allowing salmon to spawn upstream, go to sea and returned. But over time access to Puget Sound was blocked as development encroached on the estuary.
The hope and vision of Edmonds Marsh Estuary group is to restore and expand the marsh to an estuary by developing a free flowing stream to Puget Sound, replacing the culverts that currently keep salmon from entering.
That vision includes expanding the walking paths, adding observation platforms, a visitor center, a picnic area, and enlarging the parking lot.

Aerial view and Western Boundary Flood Barrier

We had a few meetings to discuss the details and review their materials. They were in need of a clear map showing their ideas, and I felt like it was a good fit for me to develop one for them.

Pencil sketch

Based on their aerial image, I created this pencil sketch, adding a little perspective to it in order to enhance the lower part of the plan, in particular the stream. The depth added to the buildings was to give it a sense of dimension, to make it more illustrative and less like a flat diagram.
The circle insets were added to allow more detail describing those areas.

finished illustrated site plan

All the areas of the site plan were rendered in color and named. The background areas were given gray values to lessen their importance, keeping the focus on the marsh and improvements.
You can learn much more by visiting their website at https://www.edmondsmarshestuary.org/.

Animals that call the Edmonds Marsh home

The existing observation platforms on the north end have illustrated signs showing all the animals that are part of the marsh life. I decided to illustrate six of these for potential marketing uses such as coasters, stickers, and so on.

The Marsh–a living landscape

We created a poster using a watercolor sketch I made of the marsh.