Katrina Lund, Moab Artist

The red rock desert of southern Utah is a very special place to me and sketching is my way of remembering how these wild, beautiful places make me feel.  

I happened upon sketching one day in Arches National Park when I accidentally forgot my camera, but found a pen and some paper in my car.  I spent over an hour doing my first sketch of Sand Dune Arch and I was hooked!  That was over 20 years ago and I've been keeping sketchbooks ever since.     

I work in lots of different mediums, but my favorite is pen & ink combined with watercolors.  Mostly self-taught, my sketches come from direct observation, not from photographs or memories.  I work outside (plein air) and I usually work quickly, focusing on expressing the raw energy and emotion of a place rather than producing a polished piece.   

I use sketching as a powerful tool for authentically connecting, sincerely observing, and noticing all the details I'd miss otherwise.  Over the years, I've discovered that sketches are like little time machines taking me back to time capsules of my life, capturing all the details I would have forgotten.  For me, they bring back more than any photograph, and contain my emotions, thoughts, and my sense of place.

Most sketches are from my trips, mostly multi-day trips into wilderness or remote backcountry for both work or play.  My medium has to be easily transportable to accommodate the demands and the elements. With a B.S. degree in Watershed Ecology, it has usually been a science job that takes me to these striking landscapes, out there collecting data.   My sketchbook has been my constant companion through the western U.S. and overseas.  

I've been living in Moab on and off for over 20 years, but mostly on since 2001.  Originally a Utah native, I first moved to Moab in 1994 to be a river guide and live out of a beat-up Honda on the river road.  Extreme wanderlust led me all over the western U.S.  When I discovered that no other place gives me the feeling that southern Utah does, I quit bouncing around and called Moab home.  

When I'm not out sketching, I teach art classes and work as a seamstress.  I'm also a field biologist, working as an independent contractor doing endangered desert tortoise work in the Mojave desert during part of the year. Meanwhile, I’m wondering why I’m gravitating towards drawing and painting food so much these days. Hmmm…