Yosemite Backpacking Watercolors

For my scholarship I signed up for a backpacking watercolor course with the Yosemite Conservancy. The course takes place over three days in Yosemite and involves backpacking to May Lake with a group of students and a watercolor instructor/guide. The course began with the basics: color mixing techniques, sketching, and composition. Then we moved onto more advanced lessons such as depicting moving water, reflections, and rendering realistic clouds. By day two of the course, you are working on an entire watercolor painting.

The strategy that worked best for me was to first do a quick sketch to figure out composition, geometry, and a color palette. I usually did these in pencil and pastels. I then moved on to a more detailed watercolor painting. The outcome of my paintings varied considerably—some were just not meant to be while others I was very satisfied with. Unwittingly, the less I stressed out over the results, the better the painting seemed to be (at least to me). Sometimes I mixed my coffee in with the watercolors and this seemed to help give the paintings warmth that I couldn’t find by mixing raw watercolors alone. I don’t think I ever arrived at depicting clouds in any realistic manner, but that just means I have more work to do!

Here are the paintings I did over the span of the three day course. They are not arranged in any particular order or according to any theme. My favorite painting is the one with a big rock on the lakeshore, reflected pines in the water, and mountains in the background.

If anyone looking at this post is interested in a course like this, you should check out the Yosemite Conservancy website. They have a whole range of classes available.