Along the Jud Wiebe Trail

I spent the afternoon sketching along Telluride’s Jud Wiebe Trail. It is a steep three-mile trail with a climb of 1,300 feet. Stopping to sketch along the way definitely made the assent much easier for me than normal and is a strategy I plan to use more often. 

I worked mostly with pastel pencil and made several value sketches of the mountains and vegetation. I feel I am making progress on painting mountains but this pastel and gouache sketch of the plants along a portion of the trail is my favorite. This gouache and pastel sketch is in a 12 x 12 inch black Derwent sketchbook.