Liberty Bell Mountain
Posted: November 14, 2025 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: liberty bell mountain, mountains, north cascades highway, peaks and valleys, watercolour 3 CommentsSome years ago, after teaching a workshop in Anacortes, WA, we planned to visit our son, then living in Kelowna, B.C. Our new Anacortes friends suggested we take the North Cascades Highway instead of the interstate, as it’s more picturesque. They were so right, and it turned out to be a terrific trip, as we encountered some spectacular landscapes of high granite peaks and turquoise lakes. I even found a bit of time to sketch along the way.
I’ve always wanted to go back to painting some of the scenes from that day. And recently, I had a good reason to go back. As part of my Peaks and Valleys launch week events, yesterday I used a quarter sheet to paint Liberty Bell Mountain, captured in a photo from that drive. If you’d like to see my process for painting this — from value sketch to drawing to final painting — I will be posting all the steps tomorrow in my launch week email update. If you’re not on my email list you can sign up here.
I hope you enjoy seeing the process as much as I loved revisiting that long-ago drive.
Wonderful peaks! Thanks for sharing your process with us!
Mountains and rocks are just as fascinating to paint as the suburban or rural landscape. Being able to simplify them is so important to catch their spirit. I was delighted to see your “Peaks and Valleys” come out as I have been looking at a number of my old photos and memories from times in the Rockies and elsewhere, considering what to paint. This additional exercise is lovely in its simplicity and is further inspiration to get out the paints.
Naomi, I am happy to see your work in the course. I see you posted a few more sketches which I will look at today!