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Maintaining & Protecting Vermont's Long Trail Since 1910

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Creating Winter Wonderscapes with Artist and Caretaker Kati Christoffel

December 17, 2020 by Chloe Miller 1 Comment

Kati Christoffel’s inspiration image.

Last week, watercolor artist and longtime GMC caretaker, Kati Christoffel, led eager participants through another wonderful painting workshop. This time, we transitioned into the winter season with a delightful snowy scene of a classic Long Trail shelter. Kati’s art workshops have been one of our best virtual event series, attracting dozens of aspiring artists from across the state. Kati’s patience and clear instructions mean any participant can walk away with a picture to be proud of. If you’re on the fence about joining a painting workshop, read through to get a sense of the experience!

Start with your supplies — and your Zoom link — handy.

All you need for a GMC art workshop is paper, pencil, and an artistic medium of your choice. Kati uses watercolors and teaches basic watercolor technique, but you can also use colored pencils, crayons, or anything else.

First, Kati showed us how to sketch our shelter, down to the roof overhang and support beams. We colored the shelter with a soft brown and used the back of the paintbrush to add woodgrain-like texture. We then sketched out a snow-covered spruce tree and filled the background with a soft, blended blue-gray reminiscent of a cloud-covered snowy day.

watercolor in progress
First-time watercolor user Chloe Miller attempts to nail a snowy gray.

We painted a lot of trees, from a detailed snow-covered spruce to a dense forest of varying detail. Watercolors are a forgiving and flexible medium, where varying the amount of water in your brush can create striking impacts. Finally, we carefully practiced drawing a Northern cardinal and peppered the bright winter birds throughout our snowy scenes.

two progress pictures of a winter watercolor sceneThank you again to Kati and everyone who participated in the painting workshop. You can follow Kati on her Instagram account @watercolorwanderer, and past recordings of her painting workshops can be found here. This workshop was also made possible in part by the Burlington Beer Company, a corporate sponsor of the Green Mountain Club. Tune in to our upcoming workshops here. We also host  a winter Outdoor Adventure Speaker Series, with details here.

Some of our wonderful participants’ paintings, and thoughts on the class, are included below:


“What I really liked about this class was that it’s centered around local people with a shared interest in the Long Trail and hiking – way better than the generic art classes that you pay for online. Here’s a picture of my piece, which I have titled “Snowy sky at night, Squirrely’s Delight.”” — Anna Gerretson
“This was my first time joining one of the Green Mountain Club’s classes — but it won’t be my last! I joined in the Zoom lesson from Pittsburgh, PA but have known of GMC for a few years.” — Sarah Carr
“I found this very enjoyable and satisfying with a takeaway that I was proud of learning a lot from the experience. I am looking forward to my next session.” — Jim Frick
“Thank you for this special opportunity! It was fun, relaxing, and informative. I was tuning in from NYC and participated with my best friend from VT.” — Julia Stacom
Kelly Shannon said, “I thoroughly enjoyed following along and creating a peaceful winter scene. I was able to shut off my mind and escape from realty for a while.”
Betty Gatewood, former Long Trail thru-hiker and GMC caretaker: “This was a trip down memory lane!”
“Watercolors aren’t my go-to medium but I was surprised by how fun they were and how many new techniques I learned from the workshop!” – Asha Dimatteolepape
Emily Griffin says, “It was such a fun, relaxing event that I was able to connect with friends virtually for.”
“My roommate and I decided to use this opportunity to have ourselves a wine and paint night – a pretty exciting Thursday night here in the Mad River Valley during Covid!” — Stephanie Kryzewski
Ann Christoffel: “We love Kati’s painting classes! We do them together as a family. Even when we’re not under the same roof, we enjoy seeing our friends and family at class on zoom! I’m no artist, but I’ve learned some techniques. Splatter painting is my favorite.”
“Getting ready to retire and plan to take up watercolor painting. This was my first class. Was so fun! Thanks! My husband and I thru hiked the LT in 2015 – the year I turned 50 – wonderful adventure. Moving to VT in one week. Can’t wait!” — Tammy Stemen
water color shelter
My brother and I had hiked 3 sections of LT over the past 3 years until we decided to let this year pass…On one of our multi-day hikes, there was an incident where he was paranoid a tick had gotten on him when we were settling into the lean to, so I am giving this to him with Tick Check as the title…” — David Dieffenbach

 

Filed Under: Education, Events, People

Comments

  1. Kati Christoffel says

    December 18, 2020 at 1:01 pm

    All of your paintings are so beautiful, and reading about everyone’s experience made my day. Great article Chloe! Thanks everyone for painting with me 🙂

    Reply

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hikers traverse snowy summit with blue sky in background

Winter Hiking Safety Tips From a VT Search and Rescue Coordinator

January 21, 2021

This article was written by Neil van Dyke and previously appeared in the Winter 2020 Long Trail News under the headline "Winter Hiking Safety." There are few times more beautiful for hiking than a crisp, clear Green Mountain winter day. The deep blue of the sky is experienced at no other time of … Read more

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The Green Mountain Club is the founder and maintainer of the Long Trail - the oldest long distance hiking trail in America. Established in 1910 to build this trail stretching the length of Vermont, the club now also maintains the Appalachian Trail in Vermont and trails in the Northeast Kingdom in its mission to "make the Vermont mountains play a larger part in the life of the people." Read more...

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