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The challenge of sketching snow in a journal is an ongoing dilemma, as it tends to show up flat and non-descript unless there are some lively contrasts. Living in Western Colorado, I have a lot of opportunities to try my hand at winter scenes (way too many!). Today we woke to about 4 new inches of snow on the ground. The landscape was magical--everything turned into a Winter Wonderland, sparkling white. A hush enveloped the land. The sky and ground were the same color (whiteish) and the snow-laden trees, grasses, and cattails were coated with mounds of pure white fluff. This was the view out my front window this morning, across our acre, our neighbor's log home, and the fields beyond. I was lucky enough that the next page in my journal happened to be tan (I bind my own journals and sometimes mix papers in them), and I knew it would make the snow stand out against the dark background. I whipped out my portable gouache palette and used a Derwent Blue-Grey colored pencil to sketch the basic shapes in, then laid in swashes of white gouache. The gouache covered the tan paper, but an interesting contrast of tones developed from different areas where the background showed through. (The paper was Rives BFK 104 lb. tan) I liked the effect. And of course, the more you look, the more you see the different shades of grey, blue, green, brown, and other colors reflected in the snow. I used the blue-grey pencil and a dark brown one to add details and shading. My very peaceful, pristine scene was captured in the journal without much fuss, thanks mostly to gouache, that versatile paint that can be applied thickly or watered down easily. Now what will I do on the next page, which is white? .

I was washing dishes at the kitchen window and preparing dinner when I glanced out the window and saw a mule deer at my bird feeder, nibbling the sunflower seeds. I tiptoed to the back room quickly, grabbed my journal and a Graphitints pencil, and just sketched the outline of the deer as quickly as I could get it down. I knew I only had a few seconds before it would move on. Sure enough, it gave me only about 20 seconds as a sketch model, then backed off and joined its companion deer that was waiting in the wings. I only had a skeleton of a sketch, so I got out my "Mule Deer Country" reference book and "fleshed out" my deer's form looking at those photographs, and then splashed on a bit of color. I'm so glad I took the time out to do it--it's a sweet moment captured forever! Graphitints pencil, watercolor, on Arches Velin in the journal.

True to the last 4 years (recorded in my journals), our first significant snow falls a few days after Thanksgiving. On this morning, the view out my window is of Shangri-la... with 2" of snow covering the land and low-lying clouds hovering around the base of Mt. Lamborn, the sun just rising above the saddle between 2 mountains, and a flock of geese migrating through. The sun is at its southernmost tip at the Winter Solstice, when it rises in the center of that saddle, then slowly climbs its way back northward, rising over a different tip of the mountain every day. It's fun to track its trip in my journal, and it connects me even more deeply with the earth seasons. Rotring Artpen washed with Niji waterbrush on Arches Text Wove.

A sketching excursion with friend Kate while on a trip to Missouri--she knows the best places to go! A lovely afternoon sitting on the bank of the stream, weather warm and sunny, Autumn claiming the landscape, and the sounds of water trickling over the edges of stone. Sketching and catching up with a dear friend--pure delight! Watercolor on Arches Text Wove (Velin) in the journal.

Spent a lovely weekend the last of April in Gateway, CO, at the Gateway Canyons Resort. I'll be doing some teaching there. The landscape is for swooning--red rock canyons and mesas, the Dolores River running through, blue skies, and hawks soaring. The Palisade is a Chinle and Wingate sandstone formation that dominates the view from the lodge. Journal sketch with watercolor on Arches Text Wove (Velin).