“Autumn on the David Thompson Highway”
9″ x 6″ soft pastel on Pastel Card   $175 framed
Lorraine Young

Last week we drove to Jasper (Alberta) for a two-night mini-vacation (it was our 8th anniversary!).  Jasper is about a 4 hour drive from Edmonton normally, if you take Highway 16 (the Yellowhead,) but we decided to take a different route, one we’d both travelled in years (lives) past but never together.  The David Thompson Highway (Hwy 11) is a beautiful scenic, historic route that technically starts at Rocky Mountain House (west of Red Deer) and intersects the Columbia Icefield Highway (Hwy 93) between Banff and Jasper.  It’s really out of the way if you’re going from Edmonton to Jasper, but it’s a beautiful highway and an amazing way to approach the Rocky Mountains.

I took almost 500 photos on this two day trip and hope to paint at least four pastel paintings from them.  This is the first.