I’ve been slowly trying to catch up on combining my journal entries from the trail and the sketch/drawings together. Often it’s hard to keep up with drawing images from the treks, and transferring the daily notes each day. I’m still pretty back logged. Today I have been working on a grouping that was from a section of the John Muir Trail in Yosemite National Park. Last year Mary and I spent a few days drawing and exploring this area below Mt. Lyell the highest peak in Yosemite. My journal that I carry, I laminate photos from the spots, I take a quick sketch on paper, and make notes of the days trek. Then by transcribing from these pages they become a combined vignette of what I saw and did during the day.
“ As we left Marie Lakes in Ansel Adams Wilderness the sun rose quickly. We got an early start to climb over Donahue Pass at 12,000 feet, and into Yosemite. Because being above timberline affords no relief from the sun, early starts are best. Only a small remnate of the once large snowfield now remains below the summit of Mt. Lyell the highest peak in Yosemite at 13114 feet. Entering Yosemite on the JMT, we get our first glimpse of Lyell Canyon from 2000 feet above. Its distinctive U-shaped valley carved by receding glaciers from the Pleistocene era some 17,000 years ago.”
Using a fine lead drawing pencil and a Generals charcoal white pencil on a medium Canson paper is my favorite choice. I like the way that the while pencil highlights the snowfields and bright granite of the landscape and the darker lead pencil shades into shadow leaving the paper as a mid-tone ground.
