Painting through the National Parks

I’m excited to blog my journey as I paint through the National Parks. I was blessed to live and work at Yellowstone National Park and have been obsessed with exploring and supporting our parks ever since.

During the pandemic I have begun to focus on my passion for art. Painting (along with creative writing and travel blogging) has been an outlet for me. I paint several times a week – working to expand my professional skills as an acrylic painter.

I decided to start sharing my art and blogging the stories behind each piece. Art is a continuum – it has a starting point, but your journey never really ends. You are always learning and growing as an artist.

The greatest joy of painting for me is when I can share my art and someone else enjoys it. The colors and composition help them dream a little and lift their mood. There is not greater feeling as an artist (writer, artist, musician) than to share your art and connect with another person through art. Art is part of the human experience.

I realized that I keep painting – only to put the art in a box and that is not moving me forward. I want to share my art and connect with other artists.

I follow excellent artists like The Art Sherpa and the talented NC painter Daisy Faith – they challenge their students/aspiring artists to paint regularly and around themes. The challenge is 30 days of painting (Acrylic April with The Art Sherpa) or Daisy’s suggestion of painting every day for sixty days around one theme that is close to my heart.

I am going to spend the next sixty days painting through America’s National Parks. I will blog (at least once a week) my art journey, sharing my art and what I learned.

This will be a crossover event as I post travel blog posts on my sister site adelelassiter.com with pro-tips for visiting the parks. (I’ve visited over 35 of our National Parks so far). This will allow me to combine my love of travel, writing and art together -hope you enjoy!

My goal is to sell enough of my art in 2022 to help pay for my supplies (canvas, paints, etc…) so I can keep painting. I want to sell the art on Etsy primarily to connect with art lovers and challenge myself to continue to improve. Support me on Etsy

I’m excited for you to join me in this Painting through the National Parks journey. It will be a adventure of painting and learning about our wonderful parks.

My first painting is a rendition of Yellowstone National Park’s Lower Falls. Located in The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, The Lower Falls of the Yellowstone River is one of the most iconic images in nature. The canyon is a kaleidoscope of color and light. An artist could spend a lifetime painting scenes the canyon – the colors and values vary depending on light and seasons – pulling hues of pinks and yellow.

Art led to Yellowstone becoming the world’s first national park – Thomas Moran’s paintings of the canyon convinced Congress to create Yellowstone.

Learning: I have painted the canyon before, but wanted to test my boundaries in this piece. I watched an Art Sherpa tutorial to learn her techniques on painting the Lower Falls. I then applied those skills to my own creative work.

With artistic landscapes I really lean into the values of the reference photos more than being exact. The canyon is so stunning I can’t replicate – but hopefully my painting echoes the beauty of the canyon.

The key with landscape paintings is layering and patience. I used a grounding color (background base) and built layer on layer from there. This painting took 3 hours to complete.

For a real-life example of the canyon:

Like the painting? Click here to check out my Etsy page

Join me on facebook

I invite you to paint along with me:

Whether you are new to art or a seasoned professional I recommend the following tutorial sites (free and paid)

• The Art Sherpa – Cinnamon is AMAZING at explaining how to paint simple to complex scenes – I have learned so much from her tutorials
• Ginger Cook – Cinnamon’s mom is equally talented and offers hundreds of free and paid tutorials
• Angela Anderson – my first YouTube tutorial was with Angela and I have been painting ever since
• Joni Young – enjoy her whimsical scenes
• Tricia Robinson – God Made Girl
• The Virtual Instructor
• Streamline Art