At the end of the summer this year I got to spend a few days with family in BC. While there I squeezed in some plein air painting (aka outdoor painting) with my mom, and my sister caught a pic of me sketching in action (above).
There was just something about the colours of that firewood pile and the angle of the sun creating cool shadows on it that caught my eye – I couldn’t help but sketch it! I made the drawing first in pen, then went over it with watercolours mixed on the spot.
The wildfires were in full force throughout the province at the time and the smoke was abundant, but it didn’t stop the beautiful views. For this quick sketch I enjoyed simply using a Winsor & Newton watercolour marker in Payne’s Grey – one of my favourite colours to use for mountains scenes.
When I got back to Calgary I was inspired to make a Kootenay Lake themed watercolour kit, pulling colours from where my mom and I were sketching. I sent it off with a little hand made watercolour palette for her birthday, for her further plein air adventures (& hopefully more with me to come as well) 
Though I was really enjoying painting in real time on the trip, I also snapped some Instax pix with the intention to paint from them back in my studio some day (well maybe not the feet pic lol) :
A short but sweet trip <3
