Mt. Ranier - Journal Artwork

My husband is a much better photographer than I am, but his pictures are his end product, while mine are mostly inspiration for some kind of art.  While I took less pictures at Mt. Ranier National Park than he did, I had brought my journal and some art materials to try working outside, with the supplies I brought.  We travel by car, so of course, I brought too much stuff to really carry, but was able to pick different supplies from a larger bag in the car for each hike or project, which was nice and I learned a lot!

Working in my smaller, 5" x 7" watercolor journal, these wild daisies were sketched lightly in pencil, then watercolor was added, finishing with my black artist marker.  

The daisies I was painting:

While we were by the lake, I attempted a charcoal sketch of Mt. Ranier.  I guess it's not bad, considering it's the first time I've worked with charcoal.

One of the pictures I took from that location:

Things I learned:

• It really is best to travel light.
• Make sure to take a few graphite pencils for sketching.
• Charcoal is messy, take wet wipes to clean up.
• Trying to stand and hold everything while painting is a pain - need to find a solution.

Wish list:

• Easel, or at least a drawing board.
• Something to sit on - lightweight stool?
• Backpack that is more accessible for my supplies.

Mt. Ranier

We took a little photography trip to Mt. Ranier recently, and although we were worried the weather was going to be foggy and cloudy, it turned out to be perfect!  Many of the wild flowers were in bloom, so I was able to get some inspiration pictures to use in future projects, as well as some classic pictures of the mountain.  This was the best place to take pictures of the mountain:

Because we arrived before the visitor center opened on the second day, I was able to get a clear picture of the words of John Muir, that have been carved into the steps at the Paradise visitor center.

Although you can find these all over, there are lots of these tiny, wild lilies in the shade near the lake.

The lupines are almost everywhere, and they are at their peak at this time of year!

It amazes me that we work so hard to get some flowers to grow in our gardens, while others will grow wild in the most inhospitable spaces!

If you pay attention, you can find flowers everywhere, even along the road.  This one is very tiny, but I love it with all it's details!

We were able to find this beautiful field of flowers on our second day and wished we had found it the first day so we would have been able to spend more time there.  Well, that's a reason to make another trip...

Trip to Olympia, WA

This past weekend, we took a little road trip and then extended it with a drive to Olympia.  Fortunately we happened to pick a wonderful weekend to visit, as the weather was beautiful, and they even had an event called "Sand in the City" going on down by the harbor!

It was impossible to get the full capitol building in one picture, as I only had my little pocket camera with me (my phone doesn't take that great of a picture), so here it is in pieces:

The grounds and view from the capitol are gorgeous!

And the sand sculptures were amazing!

Eastern Washington Road Trip

Eastern Washington is so different than Western Washington! Here we have lots of water, from Puget Sound to a variety of lakes, and the Ocean isn't that far away either. Out there, some of it is desert-like, although once in a while there is a lake or river. We saw fields of windmills, and in one of the areas, they were in process of building more, but they were too far away for me to get a decent picture. These pictures were taken as my husband was driving along the freeway, so some are close to the road, and it's amazing to see how large they are!

It amazes me how dry it can be, even near the river, but I found the rocky landscape very interesting. In some areas there are huge boulders and rocky outcroppings all through the fields, going on for miles. Other areas are being cultivated with a variety of crops, many being grown in circular fields, because of their watering system, which rotates around the water source.

Here's a group of photos that make a partial panorama of the area near the Columbia river.