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.
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