In October, 2023, we were in Santa Fe, staying with our friends, Greg and Nancy. They took us for a drive up into the nearby mountains and the aspens were in glorious color. I took a bunch of photos and I chose this one to paint from because I loved how the yellow leaves stood out against the dark firs.
One of our favorite places near Mammoth Lakes is Hot Creek. It is a geothermal area where hot springs come up into the cold water coming from the mountains. Swimming there is dangerous and forbidden but we like to go there just to walk along the banks and enjoy the beauty of this high desert area. We were there right after Labor Day this year and our visit inspired this painting.
Sydney is an old friend who has a horse at our barn. She is just a few months older than I am and the horse, Cheyenne, is also quite old. He has a problem with his legs that means that he can't be ridden or turned out. He is mostly very calm and patient, but sometimes he gets excited and needs to move. A couple of months ago, Sydney and her friend, Jonathan, were walking Cheyenne around the barn when he made a quick movement which startled Sydney and she fell and broke her hip. She is slowly recovering, but she has been unable to see her horse for a long time. Some years ago Sydney asked me to paint Cheyenne and I turned her down, telling her that I wanted to stay free to paint whatever I felt like painting. Today that feels kind of selfish, and so I made this painting to give to her.
I chose to paint another one of my photos from Point Lobos. Actually, it was two photos. My first photo only showed one branch of the left-hand tree. At the time I thought that it might be a good scene for a painting, so I turned to the left and shot another one with the tree, and combined them when I did the painting. I like the way it turned out.
I found a photo I took in 2004 of the trail up the canyon from Twin Lakes, near Bridgeport. My first time up this trail was in 1957, when I started a boy scout backpacking trip here. Since then, we have done it a number of times and always really appreciated the beauty of the place. I love the pine forests and aspens, the meadows and sagebrush flats, and the rugged mountains all around. This is another painting that I think turned out well.
We took Zim up to Chris and Claire's place for five days as a little vacation for all of us. The weather was hot but it was a nice break for us. Maureen got a couple of lessons with Chris and we got to spend a lot of time with Claire. Zim was in the middle pasture with Bodhi and they got along very well. One day we were watching from above when Chris was doing the afternoon feeding and it inspired this painting.
For many years when our kids and grandkids were growing up we did an annual winter weekend in the mountains. We would rent a cabin in the Sierra, usually near Arnold, and spend lots of time playing in the snow. I also enjoyed just wandering around taking photos. I liked places with lots of smooth, untracked snow. This painting was inspired by a shot from 2005.
In September, 2003 we made a trip to western Canada and spent several days exploring the Sunshine Coast. It's an area of the mainland coast about 50-100 miles and a couple of ferry rides north of Vancouver. It is reputed to have more nice weather but otherwise is similar to Vancouver Island. We did some hiking in provincial parks along the way even did a little kayaking. This painting is based on a photo from that trip. We went back again in 2019, and found it still beautiful but rainy.
Looking through old photos, I found one of Mono Lake that I took in 2005. We happened to arrive at the south shore area just at sunset and three gulls conveniently appeared in the foreground. The colors were rather subdued, so I used some artistic license and intensified them in the painting. This work marks the beginning of a new routine for me. My friend, Terry Preston, encouraged me to join a group of artists who meet weekly at the Hayward Senior Center. It's listed as a class but there is no instructor or leader, just an open studio for whatever the participants want to do. So I went last Tuesday and did most of this painting while enjoying the company of about a dozen lively senior women artists.
In 1995 we had just arrived in Edinburgh, Scotland. We got off the train at Waverly Station and found the tourist office where they helped us make reservations at a B and B. We climbed through several floors of a beautiful shopping center and came out on Princes Street in New Town. A passing shower had wet the streets and right there was this fellow in full Scottish dress playing the bagpipes. It seemed like the perfect welcome to Scotland, and I snapped a photo which inspired this painting.
On one of our days in Big Sur, we hiked around at Point Lobos State Park. As on previous visits, we had to park out on the highway, but once we were on the trails, it was beautiful as always. I was taking lots of photos of the scenery but then we came across this painter and I thought it made a nice complement to the landscape. I felt like expressing my appreciation of her painting, but I didn't want to disturb her concentration. I know how annoying an interruption can be when you are really focused on your work.
I looked through some old photos for a painting idea and came across one of a gull on the beach at Patrick's Point State Park. The photo didn't have much color so I tried to add a little more, maybe not very successfully. There is still something that I like about it, though.
Near the end of April, we went to a clinic at Chris Ellsworth's place near Placerville. It was cold and wet much of the time but there was a good group of people and we had fun. At the end of the last day Chris got on his horse, Picasso, and loped around the arena. I tried taking a couple of photos, hoping for something to paint, but they weren't ideal. Then I looked at Maureen's phone and she had taken a video of the ride. I managed to find just the right frame and used it for this painting. The result was not as good as I had hoped. Maybe some more work on the background would have helped, but I didn't feel like spending any more time on it.
In mid-May, we spent four nights at the cabin near Big Sur. It was nice to get away and we did some good short hikes, but my memory of it is tainted by the fact that I somehow lost the cabin key and spent a stressful half day to fix the problem. On the way there, just before the turn off from highway 1 to Palo Colorado Road, there it this great view of the coast and just as I have done many times in the past, I pulled over and took another photo. Back at home, I painted it with memories of our recent trip.
In Capitol Reef N.P. there are the remains of an old farming community called Fruita. On our 2023 trip, we stopped there to visit a small gift shop. Nearby there was this old wagon and a barn with several horses. It was a picturesque spot and I took several photos. I used one of them for this painting.
Maureen saw that I was looking through old photos for a painting idea, and she pointed to a small painting on our living room wall and said "Why don't you paint that?" It was just about the only art that we had ever purchased. In 2000, we spent three days in Paris. On our last morning we were just about to leave on the train to London and we walked by this cafe near our hotel. It was "Les Deux Magots", a place that was a famous hangout for artists and intellectuals in the 30's. A street painter was working out in front, and on an impulse, we bought one of his paintings. The oil paint was still a bit wet and we had to be careful carrying it on the train with all of our luggage. I looked through our photos and found a couple from that time and put together this painting. It's a bit messy close up, but at a distance it brings back good memories.
