Big Sur

A couple of weeks ago I went camping in Big Sur, California with a friend to celebrate my birthday.  I took my sketchbook and pens with me-the following is what I drew in between some fabulous hikes and stargazing at the Milky Way.

This was drawn with a Micron 05 at our first camping site in Big Sur.  My friend Greta has a wonderful aptitude for cooking delicious meals with only a small gas stove out in the wilderness.  I've captured her  adding chopped zucchini into the pasta dish we ate for dinner that night.

Our second day was spent hiking up and down the gravel bars of the Big Sur River in Big Sur Pfeiffer State Park.  These two sketches were my favorite from the entire trip.  I drew the left one with a Papermate Liquid Expresso pen, the right was drawn with a Micron brush pen.

The last two days of our trip was spent at Limekiln State Park.  We didn't have reservations and the attendant luckily was able to fit us into the hiker/biker site right on the beach!  This was my first time camping so close to the Pacific-the view made my socks roll up and down!  The above left sketch is from Limekiln Creek.  The map at the top marks our site within the park right under the Hwy 1 bridge.  The last three sketches on the right are of Greta cooking our meal that night.  A detailed menu is at the bottom.

This sketch was drawn on our last day at the beach.  The marine layer was really thick.  I thought about drawing in the fog but I decided to not clutter up the sky with "misty" marks.  This was drawn from my POV with the Micron Brush pen.

Here's my last sketch of the trip, it was drawn with the Micron Brush pen.  Again this was a pretty foggy view.  I ran out of time and wasn't able to finish the cliff but I did draw in the kelp beds in the distance and the sea birds on the rocks.

This was my first time visiting Big Sur-I love it!  Could someone please give me an excuse to move up there, it would be heaven to wake up to those views each day and see the Milky Way each night.