Old Fall River Road - Watercolor Painting Process

Earlier this year we went to Colorado to tackle a couple sections of the CT. After we did that we went and saw some of the great views of the Rockies from the comfort of our car.

We drove up Old Fall River Road to the Alpine Visitor Center then drove down Trail Ridge Road on the way out. The highest point on the road was 12,183 ft. The views were spectacular from up there. 

We stopped a few times along the drive to get out and enjoy the view. The only place we walked at all for (remember, just backpacked 43 miles) was down a short set of stairs to Chasm Falls. This was a really nice waterfall with a great open view of the valley and the mountains opposite of it. That was the only waterfall that we saw up close but I know there were many more to be found.

We barely scratched the surface of exploring the park because of how tired we were but we got some amazing views and we got a taste of the magic of the park.

I created this painting from a photo I took on our way up. I wanted to capture the feeling of driving up a mountain road. It's really fun and a little scary.

Here's the sketch that I made as I prepared for this painting.

Here it is transferred to my Arches watercolor paper. I'm a huge Arches fan, I used to get Canson, but I totally fell in love when I started using Arches' paper. I highly recommend it. You can get it on Amazon through the link here.

The sky was a bit challenging to me, getting those clouds to stay white and look nice and fluffy was new to me. I used a combination of lifting with brushes and paper towels. I ended up doing two layers for the sky, one here at the beginning and one later on.

I love this stage of the trees where they're messily painted in and the colors fade from yellow-green to darker green. It almost makes me want to leave them that way, but the details are nice too.

I wasn't quite sure how to tackle all that complex rock on the right side. I started out drawing it out in a super detailed and accurate manner but then decided to be more free with it. I painted it accurately but with less detail than real life, I think that would have been too much and taken away from the feeling of the painting.

I enjoyed having the Jeep in this painting.

Things are getting bolder...

Here it is almost completely done.

 

Aaaand ta-da! All finished :)

A great piece to remember the beauty of the outdoors and the excitement of a drive up in the mountains.

For info on the supplies and materials that I use and recommend check out my KIT page. You can shop for those supplies directly from the links on my page.

If you're interested in the original of this painting you can support me by purchasing that here on my website.

Thanks for tagging along as I painted this one! I hope you enjoyed.

Kimberlee Everhard is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com.