KRISTEN LINK Notes from Nature:

A Science Illustrator’s Adventures in the Alaska Wilderness

Fireweed Leaves

Epilobium angustifolium

2012
Watercolor and graphite
An exercise in the enjoyment of fall colors.

Uplift

2012
Pen and marker

Purple Saxifrage

Saxifraga oppositifolia

Nikolai, Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, 2011
Acrylic
This is one of my favorite plants, which grows in the high alpine in well-drained, rocky soils. It always amazes me to see bright purple flowers emerging from the rocks.

Upper Martin Creek Glaciers

Upper Martin Creek, Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, 2012
Watercolor and graphite
This is a beautiful little cirque under a blue sky. The glacier has some fresh snow on it.

Middle Peak

Hawkins Glacier, Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, 2012
Watercolor
This gorgeous face of granite rises straight up from the glacier. It played games with me while I was near it and never came completely out of the clouds, yet I always thought it was special knowing that it was there.

Rainbow Trout

Oncorhynchus mykiss

2010
Watercolor

Left-hand wall with display case

Chitina River Valley

From the Hawkins Glacier, Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, 2012
Watercolor and graphite
I was drawn to this landscape because I liked the transitions from dryas to yellow cottonwood forest, to glacial moraine, to riverbed, to snowing mountains. It seemed to capture a great deal of the Wrangell mountain landscape in one frame.

Salmon Travels

Silver Salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutch)

2010
Watercolor
Salmon are amazing and unique fish. They are some of the only life forms that can change from living in salt water to freshwater. This illustration shows the changes that the adult Coho or Silver Salmon undergoes. It absorbs its scales into its body to make tougher skin, changes color from silvery blue to green and pink, and develops more pronounced canine teeth, a slight hump on its back, and a snout, or kype. These changes help it to camouflage in its new stream environment and defend territory for mating.

Burned Landscape

Chakina Burn, Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, 2012
Watercolor and pen
It was really cool to walk through this old burn. The colors were amazing with the new willows and fireweed turning yellow and pink and contrasting against the black trees. I was also surprised how many woodpeckers I saw.

Below is a display case with bound sketch books and drawings.

Stones from the Chitina River

2012 - Watercolor and pen

McCarthy Creek Bed

2012 Gouache and pen

Collection

2012 - Gouache and pen.

Ferry Landscape

2012 - Watercolor and pen

McCarthy Creek

2011 - Watercolor and pen

Noatak Stones

2011 - Watercolor and pen

Welcome Green

2012 - Gouache and sumi ink

Coltsfoot

2012 - Gouache and colored pencil.

Porphyry

2012 - Watercolor and pen

Siberian Iris

2012 - Gouache, colored pencil, and pen

Bog Rosemany

2012 - Gouache and pen

Bremner Plant Notes

2012 - Pen and watercolor

Mystery Moss: Lung Liverwort

2012 - Gouache and pen

Glacier Creek Cabin

Glacier Creek, Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, 2012
Watercolor and pen
This is an old classic 8 x 10’ cabin. It may have been built by Martin Radovan, a copper miner who worked in Glacier Creek by himself into his 70s.

Bremner Garage

Bremner Historical District, Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, 2012
Acrylic
An abandoned gold mine deep in the wilderness is one thing that makes the Wrangell-St. Elias unique. This is a garage sheeted with flattened oil barrels, proving that you have to be resourceful and use what you have when you operate so far from town.

Swirling Snow

Upper Martin Creek, Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, 2012
Watercolor
I painted this sketch quickly in the evening as the clouds and the darkness were coming in.

Upper Chitina River Valley

Hawkins Glacier, Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, 2012
Watercolor
I did this sketch perched up on the lateral moraine of the Hawkins Glacier where I had a nice view of the fresh snowfall on the Chugach across the Chitina River.

University View

McColl Ridge, Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, 2012
Acrylic
From McColl Ridge you can see almost every mountain in the Wrangell-St. Elias (and there are a lot). It was a dream come true to wake up to a clear morning there. I painted this while looking towards the University Range.

Tana River Valley

McColl Ridge, Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, 2012
Watercolor
I sketched out this painting in the evening, but couldn’t finish it because my watercolors were freezing. I took it up again in the fresh morning light. You can see the headwaters of the Tana River coming off the glaciers.

Bremner Pass

Bremner Historical District, Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, 2012
Acrylic
Here is a high mountain pass in the Chugach Range. Even though it is late July, there is still snow in the mountains from the previous winter.

Alpine Tundra

Pika (Ochotona sp.), Long-tailed Weasel (Mustela frenata), Marmot (Marmota sp.), Ptarmigan (Lagopus sp.), Dall Sheep (Ovis dalli), and Mountain Goat (Oreamnos armericanus)

2010
Acrylic
In a catalogue illustration the artist creates a scene with an unnatural concentration of different species. This painting shows some of the animals in the high alpine ecosystem.

How Do You Begin to Know a River?

Sockeye Salmon (Oncorhynchus nerka) and Person (Homo sapiens)

2011
Watercolor
This image was created for an interpretive sign that will go on the side of the road in Slana. The text for the sign inspires river stewardship and educates us about the connective ecology of a watershed. The Copper River Watershed Project originally commissioned this painting.

Igning Drainage

2012
Watercolor and pen
A landscape study from a day hike as artist in residence for Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve.

Nikolai Ridge, Ode to the Wrangells

Nikolai, Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, 2010
Acrylic
This painting is of the landscape looking towards the place where I live. You can see the high-glaciated mountains of the Wrangells that make the head of the Kennicott Valley, the crumbly rock of Bonanza and Porphyry Ridges and Green Butte in upper McCarthy Creek, and the green tundra that links it all together.

Handful of Tundra

Hawkins Glacier, Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, 2012
Gouache and pen
A study of what’s growing under my feet. This tundra was from an exposed slope near the Hawkins Glacier.

Moose Sketch

Alces alces

2011
Gouache and sumi ink
This is the same moose from the painting “Spring Moose,” but captured with a different approach.

Grouse Feathers

Falcipennis canadensis

2011
Gouache and colored pencil
Four feathers from the same bird exhibit an array of different patterns. These complex patterns are what allow the ptarmigan to camouflage so well.

Right-hand wall with display cases showing individual sketchbook pages

Kugruk

2011 - Colored pencil and pen

Bog Orchid

2012 - Gouache and pen

Aspen

2011 - Watercolor and pen

Meltcap Mushrooms

2012 - Gouache, watercolor, and pen

Jellies

2012 - Gouache, pen, and colored pencil

Burned Landscape Accordian

2012 - Pen, watercolor, and charcoal

Fireweed

2011 - Gouache, colored pencil, and pen

Bettles on the Kuyukuk

2011 - Watercolor and pen

Bremner Sunset

2012 - Watercolor and pen

Up the Chitistone

2012 - Watercolor, pen, and colored pencil

Blue Sky & Icebergs

2012 - Watercolor and pen

Beaver Pond

2011
Watercolor
Painted upon returning from an evening walk. The water was so smooth it seemed like an alternate world punctuated by water lilies.

September Snow

Upper Martin Creek, Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, 2012
Acrylic
I got really cold painting this one. The snow line had actually gone lower to where I was sitting the day before but I loved the contrast between the freshly white mountains and the red-gold tundra.

Butterfly Camouflage

Mountain Sorrel (Oxyria digyna) and Fritillary Butterfly (Boloria sp.)

Skolai Pass, Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, 2011
Acrylic
I am fascinated by the way animals can pick such the perfect spot in an environment to hang out and be invisible. I only noticed this butterfly that looked like seed pods on a mountain sorrel plant after it opened its wings, which were orange on the other side.

Wintergreen

Pyrola grandifolia

2011
Watercolor
Pyrolas are some of my favorite forest plants. They always seem to take me by surprise: shy and delicate, growing in the mottled light.

Sedges

Carex spp.

Noatak River, Gates of the Arctic National Park, 2011
Gouache and pen
A study of two sedges growing in the tundra in Gates of the Arctic National Park. With such a large extensive landscape to take in, sometimes it is nice to focus on something detailed.

Bear Cones

Boschniakia rossica

Chrystaline Hills, Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, 2011
Gouache and pen
These are really cool plants that don’t photosynthesize, but parasitize the roots of alders. They look like little cones growing out of the ground, but are made up of many reddish-brown flowers.

Columbine

Aquilegia formosa

Chugach National Forest, Cordova, 2012
Gouache and pen
A uniquely shaped flower that is always a welcome sight to me.

Willow Flowers

Salix spp.

2011
Gouache
The variety of willow flowers caught my eye one day in early spring when I was eager to find new growth.

Lupine

Lupinus arcticus

2012
Gouache and pen
These are some of the earlier flowers that brighten up the aspen-cottonwood forest by my house.