Sketchbook Snapshot: The Northwest Territories Connection

"Although the Northwest Territories are more

likely to be lumped with "the North" than 

"the West" technically, Tulit'a - a small Dene 

First Nations community of some 500 

inhabitants I visited in March - is farther west 

than most of the United States and Canada."

NWT Reflections, part 3: Throw-away wilderness

Click here for: 
Epic winter drive (part 1)
Driving on ice (part 2)

Saturday, our second full day in Tulit'a, we went exploring. 

Yes, sign behind oil drums reads 'BATTRIES'.

The first place our friend Jean took us to look for wildlife was the local dump, which is just that. A halfhearted landfill, the facility is a dumping ground for an astonishing range of toxins, hazardous wastes, appliances, decrepit vehicles, and the community's entire stash of trash. Most of it is starkly visible above ground, only partially blanketed in snow. 

NWT reflections, part 2: Driving on ice

There are too many photos of our winter road adventure to stuff them all into one blog post, so here's a photo-essay-follow-up to part 1.

In the summer, you'd take a ferry across the Mackenzie and Laird rivers if traveling from Fort Simpson to Wrigley. In the winter, you just drive across the river, as you can see by this short clip from our northbound crossing of the Mackenzie. Click here to view map of roads and crossings in the Northwest Territories.

NWT Reflections, part 1: An epic winter drive

Although the Northwest Territories are more likely to be lumped with "the North" than "the West"...

...technically, Tulit'a - a small Dene First Nations community of ~500 inhabitants - sits at 125.5775° W. That means it is further west than most of the United States and Canada, aside from some regions of coastal Alaska, Hawaii and British Columbia's islands. For perspective, coastal California is only ~123° W.

I made this geographic discovery just this evening, while discussing the longitude of the village wherein my husband and I, our puppy, and some friends (plus two more dogs) are blizzard-bound. Incidentally, we're only two degrees south of the Arctic Circle; between the boreal forest and the weather, it feels like it.

Sketchbook snapshot: Winter green...evergreen, that is

If you're somewhere where warm snaps don't come until the spring thaw, there are a lot of things about winter in the north that could get you down - loads of snow, horrifically cold weather, violent wind gusts that blast through even the warmest gear, and no end in sight.

Deciduous willows and other shrubs mingle with evergreens on
the shore of a great ice-fishing lake in Montana's Rocky Mountains.

In my corner of the West, we've been having a mix of bitter cold and snowy weather interspersed with unseasonably warm temperatures. While the warm-ups make it much easier for me to dig into the compost pile, the widely variable temperatures make life challenging for a lot of plants. 

After spotting a bunch of green grass, buried under several feet of snow, which I uncovered while cutting firewood a few weeks back, I've been pondering plants that stay green even in the depths of winter. 

Sketchbook snapshot: Drawing in winter

As anyone who has stared at a wintry scene knows, winter poses a unique set of drawing dilemmas and opportunities.

Some of the hurdles were identified by Harvard students and faculty during‘Drawn to Science’ and ‘Drawn to the Landscape’ courses I led in January. Thanks to the enthusiasm and curiosity of those students, I had a great excuse to go looking for specific answers. I mined reference books and online resources, and have come up with recommendations for how to meet these winter sketching challenges.

In Petersham, Massachusetts, we were grappling with the following:

1. Drawing trees in a forest of trees
2. Drawing trees, branches, rocks, fences, and other things with snow piled on them.
3. Drawing ice (on something and on/in water)
4. Drawing a sunset/clouds without color
5. Drawing tracks in the snow
6. Making things look 3-dimensional
7. How to draw curvy surfaces (such as plant leaves)

Sketchbook snapshot: Arizona's Sonoran Desert

Field sketches

Right now, I'm working on a book illustration commission, for a book about the history of desert bighorn sheep near Tucson, Arizona.

Since I have in-laws in Phoenix which we visit every Christmas, my husband, father-in-law, and I took advantage of the opportunity to drive a little further south to see (and sketch!) the ecosystem I'm illustrating.