Field Sketches in Antarctica

Seal head shot!

Over winter break I had the opportunity to work in the Dry Valleys in Antarctica! I was a field assistant with a group of 6: one of my professors and a graduate student here at UMaine, and 3 others from UC Santa Cruz.

The project involved sampling and measuring hundreds of mummified seals that died usually thousands of years ago. These seals can reveal what past populations were, what they ate, and how these abundant animals responded to changes in the climate. This information will help reveal how they may react to current warming in the Antarctic.

I learned a ton about seal identification, bones, the breakdown of bodies, and also about the area: the glaciers and landforms and history of research there.

We kept pretty busy but I made the time to do a few sketches while we were there! 24 hours of sun made doing this more convenient! Had to bundle up a bit, but temps were usually warmer than back in Maine !

I will do some more posts on my trip soon to share more pictures and stories !

Seal mummy close to our camp in Marshall Valley

Camp in Wright Valley. In the background is the Denton Glacier and the peak is Loki ( this was the Asgard range). We slept two to a ten in the tall yellow Scott tents and the striped tent was our big cook/hang out tent

The large southern end of the Clark Glacier coming into Wright Valley

I began to sketch this section of Victoria Valley but the helicopter arrived to bring us back to camp so I haven't finished it yet !

Sketches in the North Cascades

I just returned from my fourth consecutive field season with the North Cascades Glacier Climate Project            . I had yet another awesome, adventurous, exhausting trip, and I completed a few more sketches this year to show some of the beauty! I brought up colored pencils to some locations, and watercolors to others, adding to the same field sketchbook I have used the previous three years - it's getting pretty worn out! I will post more pictures from the trip later this week :-)

An alpine type of buttercup, right at our campsite below Columbia glacier (8/2/12)

A quick sketch of  Blanca Lake from the ridge above camp, right before the terminus of Columbia glacier (8/3/12)

The beautiful view of Mt. Baker from our campsite on Ptarmigan Ridge near Camp Kaiser. The shadows on the snow are so beautiful in the evening (8/5/12)

Turn around at the previous campsite, walk up to the little ridge right above it, and you can see Mt. Shuksan!  This would be our destination, where we would be hiking the evening I painted this. Note the crevasse on the snowbank just below camp, that was a first! (8/7/12)

The terminus of Lower Curtis glacier on Mt. Shuksan. The big seracs are so awesome, we can explore right below them, and sometimes in little caves where the bedrock beneath is exposed -- not a good sign for the glacier though (8/8/12)

In my last post I mentioned that I would be working on a crevasse measurement research project that I plan to continue each season I go to work on the glaciers. I did a quick sketch here of a crevasse in the blue ice near the terminus of the Easton glacier. (8/10/12)

I had a blast doing this drawing! I am sitting on snow out in the middle of this beautiful melt lake at the bottom of the Iceworm glacier on Mt Daniels (8/14/12)

Last glacier measurement day, and a tough one! I drew this quick sketch at our lunch spot on the Lynch glacier on Mt Daniels. It shows Pea Soup Lake at the terminus of the glacier, and the snow coverage on parts of it! Gorgeous colors in person! (8/15/12)

Capturing beauty on the glaciers

Tomorrow I leave for my 4th field season with the North Cascade Glacier Climate Project! This year I will be doing some of my own measurements - of crevasses! - as a research project for credit at UMaine. I put an image of my project hypothesis below. Also, I can't wait to use my little field sketchbook again - I am bringing up both watercolors and colored pencils and will alternate packing one or the other in at different glaciers. I look forward to posting pictures and sketches when I return on August 17th : >

Crevasse areas I will be measuring on the Easton Glacier on Mt. Baker

Various members of the team!

Probing for snow depth

Camp!

Seracs!

Mt. Baker <3

QUANTIFYING CHARACTERISTICS OF CREVASSES:

What matters it how far we go?

My other art gift to Jackson for his 20th birthday this summer was a water color/ colored pencil drawing of the two of us. I used a picture we had taken at school for reference, and I didn't go for exactness in our features or in shading, I kept it more light. The glowy colors at the top and across our faces are Christmas lights I had strung up in my room :-)  

Initial sketch - trying to give our features some resemblance!

Started out with some colored pencil, I thought the watercolor going over it might create a neat effect

A little off-kilter if you compare the real picture, but I love it !

Set sail for the kingdom

I'm looking forward to bringing everything I experienced in my first year at UMaine into various projects over the summer. I will definitely be making art in my free time as per usual, and I have been getting some comic-drawing books at the library to work with, but I am excited to see what I can do with some of my new or increased skills gained through my art classes! Especially in terms of my glacier sketches when I head out to the North Cascades for the 4th consecutive year in August!
Below is a progression of glacier sketches from the 5.5" x 8.5" sketchbook I have brought with me the past 3 years, as well as some of the works I have completed once at home!

Talus and cliff view from campsite at Columbia 7/27-28/09

Lupine by Columbia 7/28/09 - Day 2 of my first glacier trip!

View from ridge above Columbia campsite, looking towards Blanca Lake. I started and did a lot of this my first field season, on 8/29/09, but I continued it my second year, on 8/3-4/10!

Rock with flowering heather growing up the back, at the Easton glacier campsite.

View from our Sholes and Rainbow Glacier's campsite on Ptarmigan Ridge.

Camp Kaiser, near Mt. Baker, on Ptarmigan Ridge. I started this my first year on he glaciers, and continued it on the second, although there was much more snow and ice the second year!

Mokey Paw sketch at the Columbia campsite, 8/2/10.

A sketch I started off our tents in the foreground and Mt. Baker in the background, at the Rainbow/Sholes campsite.

Michael's Sword, a pinnacle on Daniels, I observed it from the Iceworm Glacier.

The third field season I experimented by bringing up a small set of watercolors instead of colored pencils. I liked it more for some subjects, such as flowers, and showing snow, ice, and water, but showing the rock and trees with paint was more difficult for me.

After we worked on the Lower Curtis Glacier on Mt. Shuksan I painted some of the flowers nearby - some variations of small, purple Phlox, narrow, purple Penstemon, and my favorite, the bright orange Indian Paintbrush!

I painted this from Lyman glacier, the area surrounding the water is actually rocky, but I liked the form of the ice on the water on its own.

Below is artwork I completed for my AP art drawing portfolio (the concentration section) my senior year in high school, in random order.

Enjoying Mt. Baker from a nearby ridge, the beauty and serenity one feels in this sort of place is represented by the magical flowers.

The same hiker returns, but now the glacier has receded greatly, and exposed bedrock and blue ice, as well as run-off streams, have resulted. The mountain and its glaciers are still incredible, but their dwindling power and presence decreases the natural beauty, and thus the magic that causes the flowers to grow.

The glacier's on Mt. Baker are all gone, and although the mountain is still awe-inspiring, it is nothing compared to what this hiker saw as a girl, and the same magic is no longer there.

I painted this after my first field season in the North Cascades, looking up from just below the base of Columbia Glacier. 2009

I didn't end up including this in my AP concentration, but I did put it in the breadth section. It is a view of what Columbia glacier may look like once it has melted away, with two lakes, and bedrock that has not yet begun to  grow much plant life. It is beautiful, but not in comparison to the glacier. I like the contrast between the top one done in acrylic paint and this piece done in watercolors. 

This piece was also in my breadth section, it is a cropped view of one of my crampons that I wear over my hiking boots while climbing on glacial ice.

An illustration of me, jumping over a crevasse! I showed the layer of snow accumulation seen in the crevasse, but this piece as meant to be more illustrative than exact or scientific in any way.

I painted this  for my dad's birthday in October after my second field season! It shows him in the foreground, making his way up the Lynch Glacier on Mt. Daniels! In the background we can see members of the documentary film crew that followed us around that year!

My nordic skis, their Peltonens, gliding through the snow like magic!

Snow girl! she represent me, seeing snow as beautiful, represented through the magical plants around her. On the bottom the growth is shown: as the snow picks up, the plants grow taller and bloom.

Snow girl walking through the new fallen snow. The idea that she and the snow together form the magic is shown through the growth the of the plants which spring and then bloom as she approaches.

Snow girl portrait

She is painting the snow back onto Mt. Baker, giving its glaciers life and a positive mass balance!

This year at UMaine I was taking all the beginner art courses: Drawing I and II, 2d and 3d design. So, I didn't do much art that wasn't observational, or pretty regulated by my professors, but I learned a ton. Our last project for Drawing II, which we worked on in and out of the classroom, was a landscape diptych or triptych. I chose to do two views of glacial spots that went well together!

Iceworm Glacier

Camp Kaiser

The diptych!