My artist friend, Jodi, and I decided to make a trip out to Mt. Baker, a 3 day plein-air painting experience that I'll always remember. Here's a recap of our experience!
Day 1:
I met up with Jodi at her house and we drove 2.5 hours to our airbnb in Deming, Washington. We still had several hours until dinner so we decided to walk to a nearby river and set up to paint. This river was so pretty with big, moss-covered rocks, and trees surrounding the area. We spent the next few hours painting until it got too cold and headed back to our place. Thankfully we left when we did because it started to rain during our walk back. We cooked a delicious dinner and mapped out our hike for the next day, a roughly 7 miler around Chain Loop Trail. We went to bed early because we were going to wake up super early to catch the morning sunrise on the mountain.
Day 2:
We woke up early at about 4:30 AM, got ready, and headed out to Artist Point where we would start our journey. By the time we got there about 5:30 in the morning, there were a handful of cars in the parking lot. We hiked up Huntoon Point to catch the sunrise over Mt. Baker and Mt. Shuksan. It was INCREDIBLE. It's been a while since I did a sunrise hike but my excitement overshadowed my sleepiness. The views were absolutely incredible and the sun rising up behind Mt. Shuksan was so beautiful. Jodi and I set up our chairs, ate some oatmeal, and set up our painting supplies to paint this incredible sunrise scene.
We painted for a couple hours and packed up for our next destination, the start of Chain Loop Trail. The first leg of the trail was fairly difficult and my calves burned from the incline. However, there were so many pretty wildflowers and views of the mountains along the way that it was easy to not focus on the pain most of the way. We made plenty of stops, taking pictures and admiring the scenery. Once we found a good location to stop and paint we set up our chairs again and painted some more. I decided to do some ink and wash with watercolors because it allowed me to be quick with my sketches and put down some layers of color on top. This style isn't something I do often in my art practice but I was really happy with how it turned out.
After a grueling hike I have to admit I was looking forward to seeing the parking lot. I somehow managed to ration my water adequately throughout the hike that I was able to take my last few sips from my water bladder in the parking lot. It would've been bad a few miles back!
Our dinner that night was a delicious burrito bowl with all the yummy add-ons. It was sooooo good after a day like this. After dinner I taught Jodi how to play Azul, my favorite board game, and then we knocked out pretty early!
Day 3:
After knocking out early the previous night at around 9:30 we felt pretty refreshed for our last day here. We started our day with a balanced breakfast, scrambled eggs with leftover toppings from our burrito bowl night. We spent some time working on our unfinished paintings until it was time to check out of our airbnb. We drove to a local coffeeshop in Glacier called Wake N' Bakery where we got some drinks and food, then continued to work on our paintings. My small paintings were slowly coming together and it was exciting to see it happen. We continued on our drive, stopping at a local farm stand on the way until we got back home.
This experience was truly a memorable one and I'm grateful to spend it with my friend Jodi. Even though we took plenty of photos, we now have these paintings to remind us of this trip together. Thanks for following along!
Until next time, stay colorful.
Truc-Quan
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