Big Bend in Water Color
I was going to say last month–but it was the end of January that my husband and I spent ten wonderful days in Big Bend National Park and a day in Big Bend Ranch State park. I took lots of photos–many of which are poster here earlier—taking photos a great excuse for stopping to rest along those hikes. But I also took along a tiny travel set of water colors.
Now before you feel too sorry for me working with such a tiny set—I do have a nice large palette with lots of tubes of paint but dragging along a huge toolbox wasn’t something I wanted to try—and I didn’t want to limit my adventure to stopping by the exhibit signs on the paved roads.
The paper I used came from Target in the school art supply section.
And again before you feel sorry for me, this paper had a nice feel to it—better for drawing but there was significant bleed through with markers and paint. It did not hold up to painter’s tape marking off boundaries—all things useful to know before going into the wilds with my art supplies and plans.
I discovered using markers to indicate values is not as easy as it sounds but I gave it my best shot.
The first few days I did line drawings with a Sharpie, a few I added marker shading and the last few days I added water color to some of the drawings.
I’ll be combining them into a book of some sort using the map of the park as the cover. I don’t work fast; I have to think about projects before embarking on them===and obviously all of these drawings are of such high quality collector status, they need to be properly displayed!
Here is a small sampling.
Sylvia Weir Art 
Love those sketches from your trip. I envision doing something like that on my next trip but I haven’t been able to travel for awhile and not just because of covid. I have a great little travel w/c palette and all the recommended minimal supplies not to mention many sketchbooks to choose from. Just got to figure out how to get out there and take the plunge!