Sketches from Sequoia National Park

I took my small watercolor sketch kit with me to Sequoia along with a small size watercolor Moleskine. Along the way I did several sketches and kept a journal of my trip. Here are 4 of the sketches.


Beetle Rock ~ my favorite of all the sketches I did this trip. I first read about Beetle Rock as a child in Sally Carrighar's book, "One Day on Beetle Rock". What fun to see it in person!


General Grant Tree ~ trying to capture the sense of height looking up at the tree from down below.


Round Meadow ~ I love how the red trunks of the sequoia stand out from amongst the other trees with their grey bark and deep green needles. The meadow was lovely in shades of green and yellow


Tunnel Log ~ my second favorite of the sketches I did this trip. I'm learning to push the darks and it's making my watercolors better!

Houseplants

Another sketch for the Wet Canvas Scavenger Hunt. This is one end of the shelf in front of my living room window. The gernaium has insisted upon growing up through the lamp, despite my attempts to train it otherwise. It seems happy and the compact flourescent bulb is cool enough that the plant is unscorched, so I have left it to grow.

Feels good to be sketching again. I didn't realize how much I had missed it.

Back to Sketching

It has been a long time since I've done much sketching. The Scavenger Hunt at Wet Canvas has been on my mind lately and so today after reviewing the current list, I decided it was time to pick up the sketchbook and begin anew.

#1 ~ Egg Cup
#2 ~ Open Candy wrapper with Candy ~ in this case a Tootsie Roll Pop!

I'm definitely a bit rusty after so much time away from sketching. Since I hope to begin oil painting again in the next couple weeks, I need to work on my "seeing" skills!

Grand Canyon in Winter

One of my Christmas gifts this year was three days and two nights at the Grand Canyon just after Christmas! We had fabulous cabin rooms on the rim of the canyon at Bright Angel with glorious views of the canyon. The first morning, I was up before the sun and sat and painted the sunrise view through the window. A dusting of snow the night before made it so lovely and wintry.
Later that day, while the rest of the group was out walking, I sat and painted another view from the window. By now, the sun and wind had removed the bit of snow fallen through the night.

Sabino Canyon Saguaro

For Thanksgiving weekend, I went to Tucson with my sister and her hubby. While there, they showed me around a bit and I captured a bit of the view from the nature walk at the Sabino Canyon Ranger District. This was my first up close look at Saguaro. They look like alien invadors to me! While painting this, I watched a family of quail circle all the way around me!

Autumn Glory

A week after the leaves began to turn, they were all golden and amber on the tree. In the late afternoon light, they shone with brilliance. I dropped all I was doing and did this watercolor sketch. The next morning I woke to wind and the trees were completely devoid of leaves. How glad I am that I was able to capture a glimpse of their autumn glory before they were gone.

Oak Leaves

More autumn leaves. These are from the Gamble's Oak outside my apartment. One day the tree was dark green. The next, the color was yellow green. On the third day, there were scattered clumps of these amber colored leaves.