Our Trip in Sketches

I mentioned that I did some sketches on our trip. I didn't bring my larger sketchbook with me because I thought, "it's too big. Who am I kidding? I'll never use it." I found a little Moleskine (a sketchbook) in a bookstore at Lake Powell and thought, "this will fit in my back pocket." So, I bought it.

Lake Powell

Some flowers that were growing between the rocks at the lake.

The kids jumping off the rocks at Lake Powell (this probably isn't to scale, the person should probably be smaller!)

These were mules at the Kaibab Trail (North Rim of the Grand Canyon). Steve took the older kids hiking down the trail, but he didn't want to carry Elise back up, so she and I hung out with the mules.

More mules

There had been a fire in the Kaibab Forest. Miles and miles of burnt trees. Some white and some black.

As we traveled to Zion, there were these "Vermillion Cliffs". Very deep red. Wish I could capture their grandeur and color.

When we got to Zion we got out at a shuttle stop and hiked down to the river. This is what I was drawing when I stood next to Aidan in the "Our Trip in Pictures" post.

Steve took the older kids hiking in the Narrows this day and I spent the day with Elise. We hiked to the Emerald Pools. This is the middle pool. The cliff is the opposite cliff face and just beyond the pool is a sheer drop. If it was spring the pool would have flowed over and been a waterfall.

This is a dragonfly a little girl found and gave to Elise. Elise asked me to draw it. I was going to press it between my book but thought better of it (see the smudge?) Oh, it was already dead. Elise wanted to carry it back to camp to show Steve but it blew apart on the shuttle! She said, "oh, that's okay, we have your drawing."

When we got back to camp, Steve and the kids weren't back yet, but our friends were. So we walked to the river to play in it for a while (we thought it might clean the kids up a little - no showers in Zion! HA! Boy were we wrong!) Elise wasn't still enough, but I managed to get some scribbles down of my friend's boys.

I drew the opposite cliff face while the kids played.

The tunnel at Zion was one lane, so I drew this cliff while we waited our turn. The Red cliff stood in stark contrast to the gray/white cliff behind it. If I had more time I may have put some color into the back rock, but it kind of captures the striking differences in rock.

After we left Zion, we went to Bryce. The rock formations there are funky "hoodoos".

More hoodoos.

The ravens were bold.....but they wouldn't stay still for a portrait.

This is called Powell Point. I only had a few minutes to sketch this. Everyone else hopped out of the car, snapped a few pictures and said, "okay, let's go!"

These last pictures I did in the car as we traveled away from Bryce and the terrain kept changing. There were just mountains and then beyond that there was another range and another.

As we went through the mountains there were stands and stands of aspens. They looked like stripes going up the mountains. We weren't still enough to capture it. Even the kids didn't really get a good picture of it.

Even in one view there is variation in the terrain. The foreground was like sand mountains, then a layer of rubble with a giant rock formation, then mountains..and mountains.

Then flat, with a rock, that got bigger and bigger as you approached it.

As we passed through Capitol reef, the formations were again, layers of different texture. Almost hoodoos then sand, then rubble, then mountain.

That's all she wrote (sketched).

I may try to recapture the first part of our trip from pictures and draw in the last 1/4 or so left of my sketchbook....but who knows when I will have time to do that.