On my way home...

‘Magnificently lush’ may be the best way to describe Glacier National Park. The green of everything grabs your eyes like no other park on this trip. There are the mountains that resemble the Tetons and Zion. The rivers echo Kings Canyon. The grandeur of Yosemite and Grand Canyon are evident here in Glacier. It is a park of parks and it is punctuated by all of the plants that grow through it. The wildflowers accent all of the green with purple, yellow, red, and orange. Glacier National Park is truly an artist’s paradise.

Going-to-the-Sun road was a terrific overview of the park. This road stretches from the west side through the park to the east side. The road is lined with mountains, waterfalls, valleys, and of course glaciers. Driving Going-to-the-Sun took about four hours. With so many ups and downs, along with construction, it is quite the feat to complete the drive. It is definitely a day’s activity. To change things up, I made sure to get a nice long hike in. I picked a route to Grinnell Glacier. Grinnell Glacier is one of the most famous glaciers and it is named after George Bird Grinnell, one of the people who worked hard to make the Glacier area a national park. This eleven mile hike goes through dense forest and up to alpine terrain. Along the way there are several beautiful lakes. One of the lakes, Joesphine Lake, is the craziest green color. Higher up is Grinnell Lake which is covered with ice! Of course, I had to take a little dip into the water, just to say I did J. It was incredibly cold. I stayed in for eleven seconds, my own personal record. I did, however, see a girl later that day jump all the way in…and I thought I was crazy. On the way down, I was lucky enough to see a couple of Big Horn Sheep. These creatures are so cool. The whole hike back to camp was a lovely experience; a perfect capstone to this trip!

I have officially left Glacier National Park which means I am kind of done with my trip in a way. It is very sad in one way and joyful in another. I’m sad to leave a trip where I was so lucky to see so many beautiful places. On the other hand, I am excited to be back teaching and not living out of my car J. The last six weeks have been an amazing creative period of my life. I have never been such a productive painter! The National Parks that I visited were so inspiring in many ways. Gigantic mountains, furious rivers, massive glaciers, dry desert sand, and so much more of our lovely earth have left their impression on me. I have found these beautiful places to be a place of renewal and I know that millions of other people have had this same thought. We are lucky to live in a world where people find these areas unique enough to sit them aside for viewing pleasure. If you have never seen any of these parks in the western US I highly encourage you to find the time and put forth the effort to make a trip like this come true. Cheers to an incredible experience!!!

Pictures from Glacier National Park

Big Horn Sheep at Grinnell Lake

Tiptoe-ing through icy glacier water!

View of Grinnell Glacier and Josephine Lake

The start of a painting outside my camping spot

Small waterfall on the way up to Grinnell Glacier

Beargrass in front of Grinnell Glacier

A Yellowstone Update

On the road away from Yellowstone and traffic has finally eased. Yellowstone National Park has been by far the busiest place on this trip. Long lines at the grocery and longer lines of cars at every turn could easily categorize Yellowstone, but then you must ask why. This park has an incredible amount of natural treasures to offer. Geysers, hot springs, and mud volcanoes all give Yellowstone a unique landscape that no other park has given me on this journey. I wrote a little bit about Old Faithful in my last blog entry, but there are many other geysers. The Great Fountain Geyser was my favorite. It look blew up more water than any geyser I saw and it had these terraces that made it look like the geyser had hundreds of little waterfalls. The Grand Prismatic Spring was a very colorful, very hot pool of water. Because of the high temperature of the water only a few microorganisms called thermophiles can live there. These thermophiles are very colorful little things and give the water bright orange, green, and yellow colors. The brightness of the water makes it look unreal. Mud volcanoes might be the most interesting of all. The Fountain Paint Pot was a great bubbly mess. It looked like liquid clay just boiling and popping everywhere. Very surreal!

The weather was the wildest here at Yellowstone. One night it was so cold that our breath froze to the sides of the tent. On another evening, I was hiking along at sundown and clouds started to pass over. Next thing I knew, little pieces of hail were falling out of the sky. During the daytime, it was hot and sunny and at night, very cold. It was nothing like Indiana weather. Not that I miss those 90 degree days with 95% humidity J.

For this park, I decided to paint at the Lower Falls of Yellowstone River. There is a gigantic waterfall there. The water has this awesome green color to it and the canyon walls leading down to the river are yellow, orange, and gray. Beautiful! I worked on this painting longer than any other on the trip. I had so much fun with it. While painting, I fell into a trance where I lost track of time. These times are the best. Whenever I can lose track of time because I am in love with what I’m doing is a real blessing! Photographs of the first sketches of the Lower Falls are up on the blog, but since I lost myself with painting, I forgot to take a final picture! Coming soon: Mr. Smith’s final painting of the Lower Falls.

The Great Prismatic Spring

Great Fountain Geyser (The Picture Doesn't Do It Justice)

Lower Falls at Yellowstone RIver

Four Sketches on the Back of my Canvas

A Final Sketch Before Painting

Although He Looks Small This Was A Big Bison!

Hot Spring Terraces

A Yellowstone Update

On the road away from Yellowstone and traffic has finally eased. Yellowstone National Park has been by far the busiest place on this trip. Long lines at the grocery and longer lines of cars at every turn could easily categorize Yellowstone, but then you must ask why. This park has an incredible amount of natural treasures to offer. Geysers, hot springs, and mud volcanoes all give Yellowstone a unique landscape that no other park has given me on this journey. I wrote a little bit about Old Faithful in my last blog entry, but there are many other geysers. The Great Fountain Geyser was my favorite. It look blew up more water than any geyser I saw and it had these terraces that made it look like the geyser had hundreds of little waterfalls. The Grand Prismatic Spring was a very colorful, very hot pool of water. Because of the high temperature of the water only a few microorganisms called thermophiles can live there. These thermophiles are very colorful little things and give the water bright orange, green, and yellow colors. The brightness of the water makes it look unreal. Mud volcanoes might be the most interesting of all. The Fountain Paint Pot was a great bubbly mess. It looked like liquid clay just boiling and popping everywhere. Very surreal!

The weather was the wildest here at Yellowstone. One night it was so cold that our breath froze to the sides of the tent. On another evening, I was hiking along at sundown and clouds started to pass over. Next thing I knew, little pieces of hail were falling out of the sky. During the daytime, it was hot and sunny and at night, very cold. It was nothing like Indiana weather. Not that I miss those 90 degree days with 95% humidity J.

For this park, I decided to paint at the Lower Falls of Yellowstone River. There is a gigantic waterfall there. The water has this awesome green color to it and the canyon walls leading down to the river are yellow, orange, and gray. Beautiful! I worked on this painting longer than any other on the trip. I had so much fun with it. While painting, I fell into a trance where I lost track of time. These times are the best. Whenever I can lose track of time because I am in love with what I’m doing is a real blessing! Photographs of the first sketches of the Lower Falls are up on the blog, but since I lost myself with painting, I forgot to take a final picture! Coming soon: Mr. Smith’s final painting of the Lower Falls.

From the Tetons to Old Faithful

I just finished watching Old Faithful blow in Yellowstone National Park. If you’ve never seen Old Faithful, it is a hole in the earth that has water inside it that shoots out! When it erupts, kind of like a volcano, it looks just like someone was underground with a fire hose and they are trying to put out a big fire. They gave Old Faithful its name because it is the most ‘faithful’ of the geysers and erupts about every 90 minutes. Very cool.

Before this evening’s wonderful display of nature, I spent the last several days painting, photographing, and hiking in Grand Teton National Park. It is very close to Yellowstone. In fact, they are pretty much connected. The Tetons do not have any “Old Faithfuls” but they do have some incredible mountains. The Teton mountain range is the most beautiful series of mountains I have seen on this trip. While they are not the tallest mountains I have seen, they appear very tall because they look like they rise right out of the ground. I learned that there is a fault line (this is where earthquakes happen) right by the Teton mountain range. Through lots of earthquakes, some really big and some small, the Tetons have rose and rose. Actually, they are still rising little bit by little bit. After running around the park for the day we found an incredible spot to camp just outside the park. The view of the Tetons were awesome. With nothing in the way, I just gazed at these incredible rocks.

The next day I headed to Jenny Lake to paint. The view of Teewinot Mountain was so close up that it seemed to be towering over me! I found a great spot to set up my easel in the shade. I enjoyed watching the ferry boats and canoes full of families make their way around the lake. It was a beautiful day. I started by painting Teewinot. Teewinot mountain has a very interesting contour. The top of the mountain goes up and down, up, up, down, down, and everything in between. It was a lot of fun to paint because there were lots of different colors and shapes involved in the landscape scene. While painting it, I felt like I was trying to put together a funky puzzle of shapes! My next painting was of Jenny Lake. I thought this might be a challenge because there weren’t as many shapes and colors as the painting of Teewinot mountain. After working for a couple hours on the Jenny Lake painting, the whole canvas was covered and really beginning to take shape. It was by far my most realistic painting yet. No coincidence, I hated it. The painting seemed really boring to me. I like the bright colors and intense shapes of my other paintings. While I really was looking to do something different, I just couldn’t. So I started adding waves to the lake and more intense colors into the bush in the foreground. I just went kind of crazy! While I’m still not sure how I feel about the painting, I enjoy it more than before. That’s why when you really don’t like something, just put up with it a little longer or change the thing all together!

The last couple of days have been spent hiking in the backcountry. Backcountry here in the Tetons is remote and gorgeous. There are so many waterfalls, creeks, and wildlife. While hiking back to our camping spot we stopped by a beautiful waterfall called Hidden Falls and an overlook called Inspiration Point. It would have been nice to do a painting there….very inspirational. We hiked seven or eight miles back in the woods and right under the Tetons. Our camping spot was right near a rushing river. It was great to hear that sound all night. In the morning we woke up and took off towards the car. On the way we saw more rivers and waterfalls, but the prize came with some close up encounters of a moose. It was feeding on plants right by the trail. I hiked up really close to it. In fact, I was too close. As I was taking a picture of it (you should see it on the blog), she started to charge at me. She took a couple steps towards me and ducked her head towards me. I quickly moved back and she stopped. I was lucky! I live to see another day, paint another painting, and write another story.

Pictures of the Grand Teton National Park

The Zion Lion

Zion National Park is a ferocious, yet lovely, place. Like a lion, it is a little scary at first. Huge sandstone mountains, high elevation landings, and fast moving rivers! While it may be intimidating, I am in love with this place. It may be my most favorite park yet (of course, I think I keep saying that as I go along!) Zion seems like you drove straight into the bottom of the Grand Canyon. The sandstone mountains make someone feel so small like a little ant looking up at a tall person wearing a big pair of boots! Everything in this park is so easy to get to. There is a shuttle that takes everyone to different stops. I have hiked Angel's Landing and The Narrows. Both of these hikes are accessible to anyone and two of the most awesome hikes I have done yet. I can't say enough about this lovely place. You'll have to come for a visit!

Extreme Outlook!

This is my road trip buddy Mac looking out into the canyon from Angel's Landing. The views were absolutely stunning and a tad scary :) To get an idea of how high up we are, there is a road and a small triangular bus stop just to the left of Mac's hat.

Hiking Angel's Landing

Hiking Angel's Landing was a very exciting trek! It gets so high and narrow towards the top that they have chains that lead all the way up to the 'landing' to hold onto. Absolutely beautiful views of the whole park from this area. I love it!

A Lonely Roadside Sunflower

A Sunset at Zion...my favorite shot so far!

The Grandest of Places!

I left the Grand Canyon today.

The Grandest of Places!

For the last three days I have been inside the Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona. It is a beautiful place with lots of interesting rock formations everywhere. The Grand Canyon is also the hottest place we've been so far. Way down in the canyon it was routinely 105 degrees. Hiking in 105 degrees is absolutely crazy. So during the middle of the day we would go to Bright Angel Creek and play around in the chilly water until we were cool. On the last day we were hiking out and passed a herd of mule. It sure would have been nice to take one of those guys back up to the top!

The first day of the trip I found a wonderful spot to paint on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon called Point Imperial. After scouting out several different locations there, I found Mount Hayden, which is this fantastic little rock that sits out like an island. I spent several hours that morning painting. It was really tough at first to paint the Grand Canyon because there are so many different rocks and it just gets confusing to try to draw everything! But after I gave the whole canvas a little bit of color, I was really able to start shaping things up. I really enjoyed the way it turned out.

Paintings!!!

I've been meaning to get close up pictures of my paintings up and here they are. These paintings are from Rocky Mountain and Yosemites National Parks. I still have a couple more paintings that I need to photos of. I will post them up soon!

Longs Peak in Rocky Mountain

Half Dome view from Merced River



View of Dead Tree at the Royal Arches

Yosemite Valley

Glacier Creek in Rocky Mountain N.P.

Pictures from the hike Kings Canyon National Park