October in the Jemez

We spent this holiday in the Jemez Mountains, which are surprisingly large enough to forget about, especially since they're practically in the back yard. We have spent quite a bit of time in the last 10 years in the closer hills and valleys of the Jemez, and always take visitors into the Valles Caldera area. But just a mere hour further are more trails, more roads, more unexplored (to us) territory. Today we meandered along the Rio de las Vacas.

I had originally decided to skip taking any photographs since I have a backlog of random landscapes in the mountains, all of which remind me of the time I've spent outside, but which can become cumbersome to store and talk about. Once at the Rio, however, I had to take a few. Autumn is really about all of the colors and the light makes them more provocative. But perhaps it's also the anticipation of the upcoming season of brown and grey (and hopefully white) that also intensifies the red and gold of autumn.

Our collection of leaves and wild rose hips.

Vibrant green moss on a blackened log.

An incredible blue sky.

 

I brought my sketching materials, but had forgotten to throw in any color. Yet here I was surrounded by nature's vibrant hues. At first I was a little discouraged, and I wrote for a bit about it, but decided to draw at least something. A landscape didn't seem like the right choice since it would necessarily be black, grey, and white. After half-heartedly sketching a few pine needles, I was inspired to add some color directly from the leaves we collected earlier. So, by smooshing them around with my pencil, I got a few spots of color.

I then remembered the online summer sketch course I signed up for and only looked at the first 3 days of, taught by Alisa  Burke, and did something new for me: I used the pine needles and color blotches as inspiration and went to town with doodles and writing. Which is what I learned in the first 3 days of the sketch course.

So much fun! I didn't get to finish this sketch and hope to get back to it, but the very idea of it felt freeing and productive. I'll have to keep exploring this idea.

And, I think I still have access to the summer sketch class, so I guess I should get back to that, too! I should not that it wasn't Ms. Burke's fault that I didn't follow through with the sketching. It was my lazy ass that didn't commit to it.