Yellowstone National Park

A Journey Around The World – Leaving Yellowstone

Travel Sketching, Trip Around the World 2013

Driving To Badlands National Park, South Dakota           May 24, 2013

This morning we were camped at Yellowstone Lake in Yellowstone National Park.  It was very cold and so we didn’t waste any time packing up.  We still had a little more to see before heading east to South Dakota.

Our first stop driving along the Grand Loop was Upper Falls of the Yellowstone River heading towards the north east entrance.  It was near Tower Fall that we spotted the bear that I illustrated above.

The bear was on a mission to go some where and so I have tried to give this picture a sense of movement by using line, brush stroke and rhythm.

The watercolor painting of Upper Falls, Yellowstone River was a study done with only red, yellow and blue.  Mixing all of your colors from just three colors is a little more work but the resulting picture will have more harmony.  I am starting to paint more with a limited palette as I feel that this will improve my work.

As we headed east on Hwy 90 into Badlands National Park the landscape changed to this exotic mix of grass land with sharply eroded buttes, pinnacles and spires.  The cattle grazing in this landscape make for an interesting composition in the third picture.  I added black pen to this watercolor as I felt the picture needed something to help with the starkness of the black cattle.

A Journey Around The World – Yellowstone National Park, WY.

Travel Sketching, Trip Around the World 2013
Old Faithful, Yellowstone National Park
Norris Geyser Basin, Yellowstone National Park

West Yellowstone, WY, USA                     May 22,2013

As we drove in from the west side of Yellowstone National Park, we passed Tilted Lake and encountered our first bison.  The bison are grazing near the road and don’t pay too much attention to you.

That night we camped at Madison Campground at 6,800 ft.  We set up camp early and drove to Lower, Midway and Upper Geyser Basins. The board walks offer a chance to get close to the geysers and feel their heat and steam.

From am artistic point of view I was amazed by the variation in colors.  I found that painting some of the thermals offered the opportunity to work with some colors that I don’t always see painting the Canadian landscape.  Some of the thermal pools have this beautiful turquoise color a long with bright oranges and violet.

As a final thought for today I have found that so far this trip has offered a lot of different potential scenes for me to paint and sketch. I think it is good to try painting subject matter that is new or out side of my comfort zone.  The sketch of Old Faithful was my first attempt at painting a geyser.