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.