What to take? What’s the weather going to be like? Will there be time for art? What might there be to paint or sketch?  It’s always a dilemma because you can’t take everything!

I chose my relatively new oils, hoping for some en plein air painting, plus my graphite drawing kit and mixed media supplies. (It might rain.) (And there’s always the fountain pen and little sketchbook.) It was only a four night trip, but one must feel they can cope with all circumstances!

Sometimes, you use everything, sometimes not. Often, opportunities won’t arise for art making at all, which can be frustrating. However, there are always “drive past sketches.” Here’s a link to an earlier blog about drive past sketching. Surreptitious little sketches can be made almost anywhere. So no excuses!

Here’s how it unfolded.

Day 1 – A beautiful morning. As evidenced in the first photo of Dove Lake and Cradle Mountain. We headed off early, up to the left, and along the ridge to Twisted Lakes, one of which is pictured above. Here, some of us insisted on a snack, so I took the chance to sketch.

I’m worked fast in an A6 sketchbook with my Lamy fountain pen and a waterbrush.

Both sketches are from an area to the left of the last photo above, looking south to Little Horn (shown in the photo). From Twisted Lakes, we walked along to the left, past Little Horn to Artists Pool.

On the way, the predicted thunderstorms started to roll in. I love a good thunderstorm. It always brings Turner to mind and makes me feel alive! There was time for a very fast sketch in my tiny sketchbook at Artists Pool. Then, we turned to head back across the face track and out onto the alpine plateau on the Western side of Dove Lake.

Now, we were virtually wet through, gortex and all! Thunder and lightening everywhere, and heavy rain. A short but steep, slippery, and difficult track down to lake level was considered more prudent than the long exposed trek across the plateau. Here’s a shot of the approaching front. (We needed to get back to the other end of the lake.)

If only I could have painted up there amongst it all!

Spectacular isn’t it! Well worth the soaking and scramble back down to the lake and our warm, dry hut at Waldheim.

The next day was wet, so we stayed ensconced in the hut, relaxing. We walked the day after that, but in the interests of shorter newsletter length, I’ll mention that in another Studio News.

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