Waterton Wildflower Festival

Today I attended a Sketching along the Trail course in Waterton. It was a morning long course that is held annually during the parks Wildflower festival.

The fun began on the way out, when I got held up by this:



Gotta love a good ol fashion down home cattle drive. Something about seeing all those cows walk along the yellow line- made me laugh for the rest of the trip!





As I reached Waterton I was amazed at how calm and pristine everything looked. It was the perfect day. Half way up the Red Rock Canyon Rd I saw standing right on the side of the road two very large Moose! Meese? Mooses? ...whatever. They were large and amazing and apparantly not too camera friendly because as soon as I pointed my lens at them - they were gone. Drat! This was the only pic I managed to get.




The course was amazing. A local artist led a group of us around Lost Horse Creek. We found meadows, and valleys of amazing flowers. She left us to ourselves to sketch whatever we chose and she would just go from person to person giving tips, advice etc. I learned lots about utilizing the "source of light" when I paint or draw, as well as excercising my ability to focus on the negative space surrounding a given subject.

I took lots of photos. The instructor talked about the importance of photographing as much as we can so that we will have images to refer to for accuracy etc in future work we do. This type of a collection that artists build up is apparantly called a "morgue." I spent some time before I left trying to build up my own morgue. It was fun to use the camera a bit. These were some of my favorite pics taken today.

What a great day! It was the perfect way to relax, unwind and get in touch with the things I really enjoy. I came home feeling like I'd spent the day at the spa or something. :) Only I reckon it was better!