Tag: water

Hiking To and Sketching At Ice Lake

A few years ago (5?) I was told to check out Ice Lake and to take a jaunt over to the nearby Island Lake if I get up there. Well, I finally made it. Yesterday morning I headed up into the mountains for a bit of day hiking. It’s a bit of a climb, but oh-so worth it!

Here’s me capturing the view from my lunch spot:

It was pretty chilly and my hands get cold pretty easily, but I needed my right hand free for dexterity…

I’m pretty happy with the results. Taking more time certainly helps, and I tried some new tools (like a bigger brush and gator board for backing).

An Afternoon at the Animas River

Further down the Animas River from the bridge is a series of rapids that rafters and kayakers love to play in. I took an afternoon break and enjoyed a late lunch before sketching the beginning of the rapids. These are easily accessible from one of the many parks in town.

Trying to get better with my watercolors, so I experimented with adding some color to the sketch.

Of course, since I didn’t have to leave just yet, I didn’t. While sitting a few different rafts came down. I thought they’d be a fun challenge to capture in sketch.

Art in Big Bend

After leaving Brant’s I headed further west in Texas to visit Big Bend National Park. Even though it was hot (and I’m out of practice with the heat, so it felt pretty miserable) I explored the park for 4 days. Of course, I carried my trusty little moleskine pocket sketchbook everywhere. In addition, on bigger hiking days, I tucked a few sheets of watercolor paper into my daypack and a mini art kit.

On the first day in the park I hiked into the Santa Elena canyon. Tucked in the shade of the cliffs, sitting next to the Rio Grande river, it was nice and cool. I loved taking a few minutes to capture the scene. The cliffs on the right, across the river, are Mexico.

The next day included a hike up to Emory Peak, the highest point in the park. After reaching it and enjoying lunch, I pulled out my watercolors and tried to capture part of the scene before me.

It was hot and humid, so it didn’t take long for my watercolors to dry out. As they did, I pulled out my little sketchbook for this quick render. It’s a zoomed in view of a slightly different angle of the Chisos mountains.

After getting back from the mountains, I zipped around on my motorcycle for a bit more sketching and painting.

The bright buildings in Boquillas, Mexico, really stood out against the natural desert backdrop of the mountains.

I sketched out this fun tunnel that leads down into the Rio Grande Village campground, where we stayed during our visit. Later I’ll go back and add some watercolor to it. On one of the trips out of the valley the timing was perfect and the sunset was highlighted within the tunnel. Of course, that was heading the other way on the road. This direction gives layers of mountains to play with and a big sky above them.

Painting in Dry Tortugas

While I spent most of my time in Dry Tortugas sketching, I did complete some watercolors as well.

For the first I sat on the beach and sketched out the nearby lighthouse, with the fort nearby for scale.

With the sketch completed, I tried to capture the amazing colors in the water and the textures of the clouds in the sky. There were pelicans cruising by, scouting for fish. On the rainy morning, I went up to the second floor and found a comfortable spot looking out a window over the keys. A corner of a fort’s bastion provided an interesting contrast to the organic expanse of the water and keys themselves. I didn’t actually add any paint until later in the day, but the color of the water was more dramatic with more light so I’m glad that I waited.

 

 

Sketching in Dry Tortugas

While in Florida, we left the RV at a campground in the Everglades and motorcycled down the Keys to Key West. There we caught the Yankee Freedom ferry out to Dry Tortugas National Park, where we camped for three nights. Fort Jackson was a lot of fun to explore, the key (island) was gorgeous, and we just had an absolute blast!

I brought along some watercolor paper, a new mini moleskine sketchbook, and a handful of pens and paints. Everywhere you turned the view was stunning and I had a lot of fun sketching and even worked on a couple of paintings.

There was a tour every day, explaining some of the fort’s history and design/construction details. We caught the second half of a tour one day and I sketched the first three images while we were stopped, listening. After the tour was over I came back and added some details and shading.

Inside the fort, with a powder-storage building on the left. You can see a cannon up at the top left section of the wall.

Up on the second floor, looking down the hallway. The arches were fascinating, and made gorgeous patterns. (I added all of the brickwork that night by flashlight).

The final stop of the tour was up on the third level, looking down toward the front of the fort (just to the right of the lighthouse).

There are three ways to visit the island: the ferry we took, by private boat, or via seaplanes. These guys came in three times a day, dropping off visitors. You can see the chain of keys off in the background, behind the landed plane.

We walked the moat/sea wall at least a dozen times every day. Between the amazing colors of the water, the views of the fort itself, and the array of sea-life visible from above there was always something new to see.
These conch shells, down inside the moat, had hermit crabs living inside them – moving about less than an inch at a time.

One night it really rained. A couple of campers’ tents didn’t survive and they had to find somewhere else to sleep for the evening. Ours held up just fine, but it was still raining when we woke. I headed into the fort (which opens/closes with the sunrise/set) to stay out of the rain and spent a wonderful morning sketching and painting. Here’s a view of the bridge, the only entrance into the fort, and the old pilings for the coal storage, the current helicopter pad, and the hammock of trees where the tents are set up.

There were so many amazing things underneath the water. I tried to sketch them while walking along the moat wall but couldn’t quite capture the sensation of looking down into the water.

One of our favorite parts of the fort was that the moat had an actual crocodile living in it! Carlos apparently blew in with a hurricane about 12 years ago and has been living there ever since. One morning we spotted him directly below us while up on the second floor of the fort and I sketched out this view. I got to see him reach up out of the water and snap a bird down from its perch a few inches up the fort wall on our first day.

Since we only caught the second half of the tour, we joined in another day for the first half. Here’s the sallyport (entrance) to the fort while catching up.
It was so fascinating to watch the birds about the island. The pelicans were fun to watch. We tried to guess when they would suddenly dive into the water after soaring above it. Way more fun, and more interesting, than we thought they would be. Here are a few captured while at the dock. We also watched quite a few herons. They didn’t seem to like the pelicans when they got too close, and it appeared mutual.
The sunrises and sunsets were spectacular. I couldn’t quite capture this sunset in shades of black and white, but thought it was worth trying. From the bottom, the water with patches of lighter blue, a wall of clouds that set on the horizon, then the colored sky with silhouetted cottony clouds, and then a whispy cap of cloud cover over all. The next morning I quickly sketched out the fort silhouetted by the rising sun. Someone happened to be walking out the sallyport with a flashlight at the moment, illuminating the entrance and bridge.Next to our tent we had two hermit crab concentrations. There must have been hundreds just around our tent and thousands on the island as a whole. In the evening/night you really had to pay attention to where you stepped. Each corner of the fort had spiral staircases leading to the upper floors. On our final morning I found a comfortable seat and sketched out the beginning of the stairwell from the ground-floor. In our last hour, while taking some photographs from the roof of the fort, I quickly sketched this rotating cannon while walking. On the ferry back to Key West I added details and shading. On the ferry, waiting to depart I sketched the lighthouse in pencil. Along the ride I inked the image, added shading and details. So I blame any lopsidedness on the boat’s motion. With the lighthouse finished and more than an hour to go, I sketched fellow passengers.

What an amazing trip! We absolutely loved it and highly recommend an overnight trip to Dry Tortugas!

(Here are the paintings done while visiting.)

Sketching in Biscayne National Park

During our time in South Florida, we used a campground in the Everglades as our base and visited nearby parks. One of those was Biscayne National Park, where we spent a day exploring.

The boardwalk goes out a spit of land into the bay. At the end we could see a lot of water birds, looking for their dinner. As with so many water-centric drawings, I feel that this sketch would be drastically improved with a splash of color added… Still on the boardwalk, I had fun sketching the trail itself (though here it’s a rocky trail and not a wooden sidewalk). Ashley enjoyed the view over the water while patiently waiting for me.

Though we didn’t get to take a boat out to the Keys, we did visit while Park after Dark was being held, so we waited around until dusk for the festivities to begin. A couple hours at the picnic table resulted in this palm tree sketch.

Suspension bridge in Yosemite

First night in Yosemite National Park we hiked up a trail near our campground and went across a suspension bridge along the way. On the way back we stopped and enjoyed the view while I sketched it.

Suspension Bridge in Yosemite

Graphite Sketch of Suspension bridge in Yosemite

My favorite part might be the inclusion of the sketchbook at the bottom of the sketch. I thought about adding another one inside it, but thought that might be a bit much.