April 2015

 One day recently, we decided to go out for a hike, so we drove out to Morgan Territory Regional Park. The day was sunny, but very cool and windy, especially up in the hills. As we were hiking there were a number of scenes that seemed worthy of a painting, and I took a few photos with my phone. Back home a few days later, I picked out a couple of shots to paint.

 First I did this dead tree. I thought it made an interesting shape and I liked the contrast between it and the green trees in the background. In my photo, the tree was centered, but for the painting I remembered advice from somewhere that centering an object makes for a dull composition, so I offset it a bit. In hindsight, I think I should have followed my instincts instead of following someone else's advice. I remember many years ago reading lots of rules for composition in photography, and at some point, I became aware that there is a lot of artwork that breaks the rules, and I often find it more interesting because of that. So I began learning to trust my own gut feelings about what looked good. Now that I am trying to learn to paint better, I sometimes get distracted by other artist's ideas.

 Then I did this one of a tree and distant cows. I liked the shapes of the meadow and the shadows of the tree. Both of these paintings were done fairly quickly, but I think they came out pretty good.

Another day recently, I was walking with Darby out into Garin Park from the ranch where our horses are boarded. It was a beautiful day with puffy white clouds, and as we came out of the woods on a steep hillside, I thought that the scene would be fun to paint. I got out my phone and called Darby back to me and got a shot as he was trotting back to me. I painted this during the first two days of my class when we are free to work on any of our own ideas. I am quite pleased with the results, and I like that I put Darby into it because he is so much a part of my hiking experience these days.

Poppies and Peaks

Nearly every day Maureen and I go up to the ranch where our horses are boarded to check up on them, get them out of their stalls for a while and feed them some grain. Maureen usually rides one or the other of them too. I don't ride so often, so sometimes I take a walk with our dog, Darby, instead. We were recently walking down the hill near the barn when I noticed a nice patch of poppies. I thought that they would be a nice subject to paint, so I took a couple of photos with my iphone. I wanted to get the hill and sky behind them too, so I got right down on the ground among the flowers. My painting followed the photo quite closely. I feel that if there is creativity in my photography, it will show up in my painting too. For this painting, I decided to use a bit larger paper size than I had been using before, 11x16 instead of 10x14. Somehow, covering a larger area feels like a bigger deal and maybe I put a bit more into it.

I was trying to think of something that I would like to paint, and for quite some time I have had in the back of my mind some old memories of high and wild places in the Sierra. In particular, I thought about an area I hiked through in September, 1976, on a week-long solo backpacking trip from Yosemite Valley to the east side of the range at Silver Lake. The headwaters of the North Fork of the San Joaquin is very far from the beaten track, and it felt wild, lonely and beautiful. Late in the day, I remember thinking that the surrounding mountains looked like those of a Maxfield Parish painting. I think I caught the feel of the place pretty well in this painting.

The morning after the scene of the last painting, I hiked up out of the canyon and into an area as wild and desolate as any I had ever seen. This was Ritter Lakes, just west of Mt. Ritter, the highest peak in the whole Yosemite-Mammoth area. Beyond the lakes is Mt. Ritter's southwest glacier. In 1976, the glaciers were fairly good sized, but I would guess that they are smaller now. A few minutes after I passed this view, I ran into another hiker, the first person that I had seen in four days. By a strange coincidence, he was following nearly the same route as I was at the same time. We spent the next couple of days together, and it was really nice to have someone to talk to again.