crag doodles

samantha z, illustrator, scientific and medical artist

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On the move! Ready to (sort of) kick back for a week in the city by the bay! Good thing my setup is always travel size! 😉✈️🌁☕️

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What’s your van setup? I can burn hours geeking out on van life feng shui 😉 My MO: full bed, bookshelves and trunk access kitchen are a must! 🍳📚🚐💨

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No matter how much time I spend in the desert, I cannot get enough. Perhaps it’s the lack of readily available water, or the space or the bareness of it. If you spend enough time in that in red rock the thirst becomes a part of you, gnawing at you until you return.

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More plans and tiny vans…😊💚🚐

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‘Men come and go, cities rise and fall, whole civilizations appear and disappear-the earth remains, slightly modified. The earth remains, and the heartbreaking beauty where there are no hearts to break…I sometimes choose to think, no doubt perversely, that man is a dream, thought an illusion, and only rock is real. Rock and sun.’ ~Ed Abby — Became epically homesick for the desert today after seeing a screensaver. *facepalm*

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Rise and rack up instaworld! Here’s another tiny cowboy coffee to get your Monday rolling 😊☕️🏔

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Headed back to thinner air, sharp pockets and sweeping alpine vistas this weekend 💚⛰…detail from my watercolor sketch, drawn while cragging near Jumpoff Peak in the Lost River Range

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Art happens in the spaces between that everyday business of living. That act of appreciating, of taking yourself out of the stream of action to connect with a person, an idea, or to awaken something in yourself, is to experience the fundamental nature of art. ­­­

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I’d rather be drinking coffee with grounds in the bottom 😉☕️⛰

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The most beautiful women in my life have hair on their legs, dirt under their fingernails, sunburned and windburned faces, and are always looking towards the horizon 💚⛰ So many women in the outdoor community have taught me what it means to be brave, compassionate and independent…and they make great characters to draw! Moab folks, maybe you can recognize who inspired a few of these? 😉

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‘The Mountains are Calling, and I Must Go’ ~John Muir — Spent my weekend catching up on freelance work, daydreaming about mountains…(at The District Coffee House)

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The new American Dream? 🚐🌈 love me a 1950s style home life cutaway 😉

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Bus doodles make me happy 💜 also; exhibit A: I am terrible at drawing straight lines 😅

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Monday calls for extra coffee...☕️💜 --- Had the entire weekend to myself for sketching and coffee drinking! More details of these 12 tiny #cowboycoffee doodles to come 😊

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I can't wait to get back out under the stars. --- I got used to living 5 minutes from dirt roads, spending as much time as I wanted outdoors, foraging, not wearing shoes. Living in a city, even a small, fairly down to earth one, is a big change for me. Although starting a new chapter in my career had been invigorating and exciting, right now I'm really missing red dirt in everything, quiet desert nights and howling wind. #sketch #starsleep http://ift.tt/1UIdolj

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Look at everything always as though you were seeing it either for the first or last time: Thus is your time on earth filled with glory. ~Betty Smith --- Detail from this weekend's round of #cragdoodles. One of a group of limestone standing rocks near Jumpoff Peak...it's the little things 💚⛰✏️

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Rough night's sleep overflowing into my sketchbook today- journeying into the chaos of the unconscious mind has always reminded me of the open #ocean. Every step on the shore of wakefulness can be planned and calculated, however in dreams we are at the mercy of the wind and waves...