October | 2023 | Finch's Creative Endeavors

This watercolor piece was inspired by my recent trip to Yellowstone and my newfound love for Thomas Moran. The man truly was an activist artist and helped convince Congress to make this area the first national park in the world – which happened on March 1, 1872. Also… Congress bought his 7 x 8.6 FOOT oil painting (below) for $10,000 ($251,660 in today’s dollars).

Lower Falls of the Yellowstone River, from Artist’s Point (picture taken by me and used as a reference)

I did this painting for my aunt, using my late uncle’s watercolor pencils 🙂 It was so fun to discover how to use the pencils and bring out the colors of the canyon. I probably should have swatched the colors first, but I did it eventually and it was very helpful.

But… Thomas Moran himself said that the colors of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone “were beyond the reach of human art”, so I didn’t stress too much 🙂

my first draft – something happened with the proportions that I just wanted to start over; I used sharpie to sketch out the important shapes

I’m so used to black and white pen only drawings that I had to put some ink back on this piece – I wanted those deep, dark shadows and to bring details to the trees and rocks that I couldn’t finesse with the watercolors.

Time lapse of adding some pen and more watercolor layers

I used a lot of color layering, alternating around between pen and watercolor, scraping off paper with the wet brush, letting things dry and coming back.. and eventually decided it was finished. Final piece under different lighting below: