I stayed in Gimmelwald, a small village in the Swiss Alps, last summer with my husband. We would get up early in the morning to hike up farther into the mountains on a trail that went straight up from our village. At the top of a steeply inclined field, there was a bench that overlooked the village and valley below. This became our daily breakfast spot before continuing on our hikes.
In the words of travel writer Rick Steves, “If Heaven isn’t what it’s cracked up to be, send me back to Gimmelwald.” I spent four days in this area last summer hiking and sketching; it felt like an isolated paradise floating above the rest of the world. One always had a sense of the height of the place, always a glimpse of the drop off to the valley below.
One of my favorite aspects of the visit was that we would hike miles up into the Alps and then come across a working farm that also served food and beverages to hikers. It was my own little alpine Starbucks nestled into the green hills. The little cheese farm that we had coffee at the morning I worked on this sketch is located just behind me in the photo. The day before, we hiked to Rotstockhutte, a hostel-type place that also served food to day hikers, and had some coffee, tea, and fresh pie. As we walked away, we were debating how they got their supplies, and just then we saw a helicopter flying in supplies-looked to be kegs of beer from where we were standing!
Here’s a painting from my trip to the Swiss Alps last summer. We stayed in Gimmelwald in the Bernese Oberland Region. My husband and I joked that every place we stood was a 45 degree angle. This painting became about the sharp angles of the mountains. I tried to balance the negative slope of the foreground grass with the positive slope of the distant mountains. I was also trying to keep each slope a slightly different angle for variety.
It’s wonderful when the weather turns and it’s warm enough to enjoy being outside again. I painted this small painting in a creek near my house early this spring when the redbuds were blooming and the leaves of the undergrowth were just starting to pop. There’s an interesting contrast in the woods at that time between the achromatic trees, ground and rocks and the very highly saturated new growth of the buds and blooms. The greens of the woods for those couple of weeks becomes an almost fluorescent green.
After a couple of hours painting plein air, the painting still needed some work. I spent a couple of more sessions on it in the studio bringing it a bit more up to snuff.
This is the last sketch from my Europe trip sketchbook. I sat in the gardens of the Oberhofen Castle and drew this view across Lake Thun. I was intrigued with the unique shapes of the mountains. There was a worn softness to them that was fun to put to page.
Theses are a couple of really quick sketches from hiking in Berner Oberland, just quick stops along the path.
The day we arrived in Lausanne, we were travel-worn and at the part in our trip when we just needed a lazy day. We walked a beautifully landscaped path along Lake Geneva and sat to sketch the vineyard-covered hills rising from the lake. That evening, we picniced in a park and went to sleep to the cheers coming from the streets because of the World Cup.
Here’s a quick sketch and notes I did while waiting for a train in Paddington Station.
England’s Dartmoor National Park has large granite outcroppings called tors. Hay Tor is one of the most impressive and popular. There are small footholds and handholds to scramble to the top. After exploring the rock structure, I sat in the field in front of the tors to make a quick graphite sketch. Like everywhere we hiked in the park, we shared the space with the grazing sheep. 