July 2026

 

I returned once more to my photos of Pioneer Basin from my 2008 backpacking trip with my friend, Gerald. I think what caught my eye first was the colors in the water. In my mind, this is a very special place, but it is also typical of hundreds of similar high sierra lakes, and I don't think I'll ever get tired of painting them

June 2026

While we were staying in Big Sur, we went out hiking in Palo Corona Regional Park in Carmel Valley, just a couple miles east of highway 1. After crossing the remains of an old golf course and crossing the Carmel River, we come to wide open rolling grassland and old oak trees, and a distant view of the ocean. It was an easy, peaceful 3 mile hike and we enjoyed it.

I wanted to paint something inspired by ocean views, so I chose one of my photos from 2004. We were camped at Patrick's Point and looking down from the cliffs when a group of pelicans flew just above the surf. It turned out to be challenging to paint the blue water with all of the foam and keep the pelicans from getting lost in the waves.

After missing a couple of years, we were able to go to the cow clinic in Novato. Maureen and Zim were able to spend three days working with cattle, something that they both love to do. On the last day, Ann got on Chris' horse, Shiner, to do some cutting, and I chose my photo of them to paint because it showed the action best. I've painted a few scenes like this before and always wished that I could show the motion better. I thought about trying to add some blur, but decided that it would just make a mess.

One day when we were out on the trail, I got ahead of Maureen and Judy, and turned around to take a photo. Usually I can't do that because I am too slow to keep up, but this time they had stopped for a couple of minutes and I went on ahead. In my painting I wanted to catch all of the light reflecting from the leaves by using a lot of dry brush technique. It kind of works, but it's not one of my favorites.

May 2026

Near the end of our 2001 hike of the John Muir Trail, Gerald and I had just climbed Mt. Whitney and were coming down the east side very tired and looking for a place to stop. We saw a nice little lake off the side of the trail (Mirror Lake) so we went down and set up camp. A little later we wandered over to the lake outlet and found a sign saying "No Camping". It was late in the day and we guessed that it was unlikely that anyone would see us there, so we stayed. The next morning we finished the hike to Whitney Portal and were picked up by Maureen.

Last week, we spent a few days at the cabin in Big Sur and we went out intending to walk on the headlands at Soberanes Point. We were hoping for the beautiful clear weather of the previous couple of days, but the coast was all in fog. We walked anyway and found it surprisingly beautiful with the surf fading away into mist. We both liked this cypress on the cliffs and I chose to paint it.

April 2026

I needed an idea for a painting for my next open studio class. I was hiking along while Maureen and Judy rode Zim and Mumu, and saw a bunch of poppies on the side of the trail and took a couple of photos. Previous paintings of poppies were a bit unsatisfying, and I wanted them to really pop out from the background, so I used a lot of darker green. It's kind of messy, but at least the colors stand out pretty well.

Among some old photos I found one that wanted to be painted. It's from one of our trips to Canada when we spent some time on Salt Spring Island. The scene is in Ruckle Provincial Park on a trail along the northeast shore. We've been to the island several times and we always love it there. One of the women in my painting class said that she grew up in Vancouver and knew the island. She said she loved the arbutus trees on the shore. We did too, and we noticed that the arbutus is the same tree that we call madrone in California.

We took Zim up to Placerville for the annual retreat. As usual, I took quite a few photos, but found most of them uninspiring since they look much like the thousands of clinic photos I've taken in the past. But up in Chris and Claire's place, I noticed a large photo on the wall, a tight shot of a horse and saddle. I thought about painting something like that, and I used a shot of Chris on his number one horse, Picasso. I think it worked out pretty well as a painting. It focuses on the saddle area where most of the action takes place while riding. If I had included the whole horse and rider that area would have been much less noticeable.

March 2026

I had been thinking of doing another painting of Zim, and one day he was standing outside of the barn and he turned his head just right to catch the sunlight on his face and I snapped a photo. It's kind of an odd pose, but I like it. I worked on the painting over a couple of open studio days at the senior center and I think I caught his look pretty well.

One of my favorite photos from the John Muir Trail was one of Garnet Lake with Mt. Ritter and Banner Peak in the background. I had painted the scene a few years ago, but was not satisfied with it. This time I painted it quite quickly in one session of my open studio class and I like it much better than my first try. One thing that I aim for is getting washes dark enough the first time rather than doing many layers. It makes a fresher looking painting. On this one I didn't do it 100%, but did pretty well.

February 2026

Near the end of our 1995 trip to the UK and Ireland we ended up in Bath. It was a rough day, after being stuck in a very hot train for hours, walking for miles trying to find a place to stay for the night, and finally settling for an old hotel next to the train station that was quite noisy. Then the next day we found a better place to stay and began enjoying this beautiful little city. In this view, the river Avon flows through the center of town.

 

We have lived on Kelly Street for nearly 40 years now. Down at the bottom of the hill, Kelly ends at the intersection with B Street and Center Street. Whenever we come home we always pass this funky little collection of shops on the corner. I've always thought that it made an interesting scene and one day, while waiting at the stop light, I took a photo with my phone, and used it to make this painting. Val's restaurant, which is just out of the frame on the left, is famous all over the area, and some day may inspire another  painting, but this time I focused on the bar on the corner, Curly's Place.

January 2026

Maureen suggested that I do a painting based on photos from our 1997 trip to the east coast. I looked through them and didn't find any that were very inspiring, but I did find one of the beach at Ocean City, Maryland, that had some potential. I remember being amazed at the whole scene when we were there. Huge crowds of people everywhere and the long boardwalk filled with with tacky little souvenir shops. It was like the beach at Santa Cruz taken to the extreme. Maureen's childhood friend, who we were with, said it was like a little United Nations with all the diversity, but as you can see it was nearly all white.

 I picked another scene from my 2001 hike of the John Muir Trail with my friend, Gerald. This is our campsite at lower Palisade Lake after a hard day of climbing the Golden Staircase with heavily loaded packs after being resupplied by Aaron and Alicia the previous day.

I happened across a photo from our trip to Mammoth last September that I thought I could use for a painting. I remember having that in mind at the time that I took it. As we often do, we went for a walk at Hot Creek and found this high desert scene on the canyon slopes.