The Advanture Continues!
Week 5 of living full time in our camper van.
Hello, hello! Greetings from Lincoln National Forest in the Sacramento Mountains of New Mexico. I’m sitting in camp under a big Engelmann spruce and a squirrel is chewing up cones and dropping fragments on my head. Grasshoppers are flying through the air making these funny sounds like party favors, and there are so many butterflies and hummingbirds out and about. I’m feeling so lucky I get to call this beautiful place home for a while.
Here are just a few highlights from this week:
Cloud Appreciation
We were treated to so many cool clouds this week —New Mexico sure has some spectacular skies!
First up, a rainbow — without rain! Yep, this beautiful rainbow appeared at sunset and it didn’t even rain. I didn’t know that was possible. After doing a bunch of research my theory is that the rain evaporated before it hit the ground!
It was so fleeting and beautiful — like magic.
Here are some more cool clouds— all of these photos were taken from camp except for the one on the lower left that was taken on a hike — I just had to include that one because I absolutely loved the little cotton ball clouds above the horizon.
In Search of Elk
We went on 3 hikes this week, all starting right from camp. Here in Lincoln National Forest there are old logging roads, UTV trails, and even elk trails (my favorite). We did a combination of hiking on all of those plus just going across country — I’m still amazed that we can do that here — I’m used to having to stay on human trails!
No worries, friends and family — we took our Garmin inReach mini with us in case something happened and Jason had downloaded maps in the Gaia app since there’s no cell coverage here.
Also! After last week’s experience when we got totally soaked we packed our raincoats with us too! We always take plenty of water, salty snacks and usually pb+j sandwiches with us. And art kits, of course!
Here’s a quick recap of our 3 hikes:
Hike #1 Elk Poop Valley (Blue)
On Monday we did a 9 mile hike out to what we dubbed Elk Poop Valley! There was so much elk poop y’all! But we didn’t see a single elk, darn.
We did find 2 springs that feed into the Rio Penasco!
I’d love to learn more about how these valleys were formed but haven’t been able to find much online — please link me up if you’re in the know about this! They’re just so beautiful.
Hike #2 Elk Poop Valley Reduex (Purple)
Wednesday we decided to hike out to the valley again via a different route (5.1 miles) with the hopes of seeing elk. We struck out in the valley again, but we did see 7(!) when we were almost back to camp!
Hike #3 Yet Another Valley (Yellow)
Saturday we did a 5.6 mile hike to a different valley north of camp. We saw 2 elk right at the start of the hike — but then we didn’t see any the rest of the day. Once again there was so much poop in the valley — but no elk! I get the feeling if we want to see elk we should just stay in camp, ha!
Art Adventures
I’ve been practicing trees all week and I think I’m finally getting the hang of it! Yeah!
I started off doing some sketches with pen and ink to get the feel for the structures of the trees — this is a Douglas Fir in camp — the sketchbook was perched on a spruce for the photo lol!
I used my trusty Sailor Fude de Mannen pen filled with Platinum Carbon ink. Note: the pen doesn’t come with waterproof ink, but I just save the empty cartridges and use a syringe to fill them with the carbon ink, which IS waterproof.
Next, I spent some time trying to ID the trees around camp and put together a cheat sheet on how to tell the difference between pines, spruces and firs. For those who don’t know I’m a botany nerd and can geek out about this all day!
Here’s how to tell them apart in a nutshell:
Pines: the needles are attached to the tree in bundles called fascicles — a new term for me! Turns out the number of needles in the bundle are an important bit to tell species apart.
Spruce: the 3 S’s: sharp, square and stiff!
Firs: the 3 F’s: flat, flexible and friendly! Also, I learned that a Douglas fir isn’t a true fir, but a member of the genus Pseudotsuga whhhaaatt? They still have the 3 F’s, but the needles are attached differently to the branch.
Let me know if you have any watercolor pencil tips — I’m just getting back into them and I feel a little rusty! They seem great for tree textures like these conifers.
Then I moved on to practicing with big brushes in my sketchbook:
Some favorite mixes are:
Phthalo green (PG7) and phthalo blue (PB15)
🌲 Mixed with Hansa yellow deep (PY110) for a light green
🌲 Mixed with Transparent red oxide (PY101) for a deeper granulating green
🌲 Mixed with Quinacridone Burnt Scarlet for deep grays, greens and browns
🌲 and cerulean blue and cobalt turquoise light for blue spruces!
I love using Chinese calligraphy brushes to make interesting brushstrokes.
Art Friends: I’m honored to be an Ambassador for Art Toolkit, and they’ve generously given me a discount code for you! Use code LISAFAN10 for 10% off your purchase of an ArtToolkit, palette, or mixing pans.
I can’t wait to do some larger paintings!
Question of the Week: How do you get your mail?
The most asked question this week was “How do you get your mail?” and the answer is that we use a mail service for full time RVers. They scan our mail and then we can tell them whether to discard it or save it to forward to us.
We can also order from Amazon and have it delivered to a locker — gonna try that next week. Crossing fingers that it works out!
I also had several questions about how I store my art supplies and I’m working on a blog post for that for Art Toolkit — stay tuned!
Have a question about art, van life or anything at all? Leave me a comment below!
That’s it for this week! Thanks for reading and following along on our adVANtures — it’s so great having y’all along for the ride! — Lisa & Jason
Love looking at your sketchbook pages. Makes me want to drag my supplies back out! 🩵
I enjoy following your adventures. And your art tips are so helpful. Kathy