Monday, August 24, 2009

Utica Reservoir in California's Sierra Nevada-Gay Kraeger


Every summer my neighborhood goes camping at a small lake in the Sierra Nevada. We take all the dogs, kids and grandkids. The kids are growing up now, but they still want to come. My neighbor's 20 year old son was counting the days until we left. My daughters are in their 30s and they still come if they can.

The lake is surrounded by granite, so our week is made up of canoeing, relaxing on the rocks, swimming in the cold water, (not me too much. I don't like to get cold.) and other fun stuff.


For this page I took one of the kayaks out to try and draw the boulders on the edge of the lake. The wind was blowing and I kept drifting past my rock. I had to stop drawing and paddle back upwind from the rock and start drawing again as I drifted by. I had to do this a few times to get the whole rock drawn. I colored it in when I got back to the campsite.


We went on a hike to Lake Alpine, on Highway 4. We didn't go on the paved road. We walked up a 4-wheel drive road that I can't believe anyone would take a vehicle on. We stopped for a few minutes on the way back so I whipped out my sketchbook and drew a little more granite. The blackbirds kept me company as I colored back in camp.

10 comments:

  1. I peeked at these images when you loaded them on flicker. What fun to get more story :) Wonderful pages!!

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  2. Beautiful loose sketches. What sketchbook are you using?

    Regards

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  3. Beautiful nature journaling. Love the compostion also.

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  4. Wow, Gay, these pages are so beautiful--you've painted the eternal granite with such strength yet such delicacy...

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  5. Okay, I want to be your neighbor and I want to journal alongside you! Your pages are beautifully composed and the application of wc is fresh and vibrant. Beautiful journaling!

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  6. Thank you everybody.

    Maree, my sketchbook is a brendabook. She sells them on her website, www.brendabooks.com

    mARTa, move on up to the upper part of the state, we have room for you in the neighborhood.

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  7. Wow, I loved looking through Brenda's site! What glorious books, thank you, Gay...

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  8. Beautiful sketching. And on the water at that!
    I enjoyed Brenda's site also. Which of her journals are you using?

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  9. I am very lucky to share a studio with Brenda. Those books are all around me all the time. I use different ones, but always seem to come back to the hard cover journal. I like the way I can lable the spines with the dates the book covers. Then I can see which one is which on the shelf. The link for the hard cover book is
    http://www.brendabooks.com/journals/hardboundwatercolor.html

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  10. Oh, you ARE lucky, Gay--all that glorious temptation right in front of me might be too much for me, though. *G*

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