North Cascades

Exploring mountain quiet and light.

Fall is in high gear! Here are some new sketches from the Methow Valley.

A beautiful book on the North Cascades has just been published.

Check out my video on sketching in the North Cascades!

A look at my favorite waterproof pens and some recent sketches.

Watercolor field sketches from a glorious week in the North Cascades.

Sketches and stories from Mt. Baker and visiting Girls on Ice 2013.

New 5″ x 5″ watercolors featuring the North Cascades as I warm up and explore compositions in my studio.

Review of my first backpacking trip wearing Vibram Five Fingers.

When out in the field, I think about building my “palette of place”: my vocabulary of color, climate, and stories. People often ask if I work from photos and I do, but field work is integral to my process. Sketching and painting outdoors allows me to look at my surroundings closely and from different perspectives.

I worked this morning on a painting of Mt. Daniel in the North Cascades. The process of this painting began with my field work in 2007 when I hiked to Mt. Daniel with the North Cascades Glacier Research Project to survey the Ice Worm, Mt. Daniels, and Lynch glaciers. Camped just below the small Ice

I joined scientist Mauri Pelto on Mt. Baker in August of 2007 to monitor a number of glaciers. We were traversing from the Sholes Glacier to the Rainbow and paused for lunch in the Portals Pass. I sketched and noticed the strong shapes and shadows. This year as I’m processing my North Cascades fieldwork, I

I’m back in Seattle after an inspiring 11 days out with “Girls on Ice,” a program free to select high school girls to learn about glaciology, mountaineering, and (this year!) art. My co-instructors were Erin Pettit who first began the program while a graduate student at the University of Washington and Cecelia Mortenson, a mountaineer

Monday night I returned home from a lovely few days on the eastside of the N. Cascade mountains. My boyfriend and I took his mom on a lovely overnight to Cutthroat Pass. It’s a 5 mile hike in from Highway 20 that ends with fantastic 300 degree views. (Read a trail description here.) I did

Another penguin study… this one of a King penguin chick. They look like they’re wearing massive (and awkward) down furry parkas. Steve from my Silver Glacier trip a couple of weeks ago also sent me this great photo of me painting in the field. The view is of Silver lake and I’m hoping to complete

I’m catching my breath after a busy past few weeks which have included moving from Bainbridge to Seattle, teaching a nature journaling workshop, and now I’m just returned from a wonderful trip to the mountains. This week I had the privilege of accompanying North Cascades National Park scientists up to Silver Glacier on the flanks

I gave a presentation for the Mountaineers on March 12th with Jon Reidel, a glaciologist from North Cascades National Park. I brought a display of my paintings and talked about my project, “Portraits of Ice, Witnessing Climate Change.” It was wonderful how well received our combination of science and art was, and to learn more