Colorado Sketchbooks

In July I traveled to Routt County, in Northwest Colorado. I visited family and did some historical research for a novel in progress.  On family outings and on solo trail runs  I carried small sketchbooks and a minimal pocket watercolor set. I made sketches of landscapes that caught my eye and heart, with the plan of making larger paintings from them in the months ahead. Here are a few I would like to share.

                   Mount Zirkel and Big and Little Agnes Mountains as seen from Steamboat Lake.

                            Hahn's Peak from  Steamboat Lake. In 1866, Joseph Hahn found gold, but succumbed to a brutal winter storm in 1867, before much could be mined. Others finished what he had started. The peak, part of the Elkhorn Range, dominates the landscape around it.

A solo trail run on the South Fork Trail in the Routt National Forest took me up though spruce and aspen and open meadows. One long meadow descent brought me to the quiet power  of the South Fork on its way to the bigger Elk River. I stayed a while, waded in the cold, rocky waters, then settled in to sketch.

                     Two views of the Zirkels as seen from the South Fork Trail.

All watercolor sketches by Kevin Macneil Brown, July 2017.