July 2019

My painting class was done for the summer, but I wanted to keep it going. I decided to do some more work on the series that I had in mind of scenes from my 2001 hike of the John Muir Trail. I took several hundred photos on that trip, and though many of them wouldn't make very interesting paintings, I was sure that some of them would work. This scene is from our second day on the trail, after leaving Yosemite over Donohue Pass and descending a couple of miles to Rush Creek. We rested for an hour or two in this beautiful spot.

On our third day on the trail, we passed by Garnet Lake, with a great view of Mt. Ritter and Banner Peak. My son, Aaron, and his wife, Alicia, were accompanying me at this point, and I think that after a couple of days of hard work, they were finally fully appreciating what a beautiful place this was.

On the morning of our fourth day, we hiked along Shadow Lake and saw this scene. I don't usually like to do much masking, but I thought it was needed for this one, for the trees and sparkles. I wanted to show the early morning light with lots of contrast, and I think I did it pretty well.

I had already done a couple of paintings several years ago that fit into this series. At some point, I'd like to show them all together. I could put them on a website that I've been planning for years but haven't got around to yet. Two of the paintings that belong in this series are from May 2015 showing the Tuolumne River and Palisades Lakes.

June 2019

The last class project of the spring session was a turtle. Ron supplied two different photos, one black and white and one in color, and the idea was to combine them. By the end of the class, I thought it just needed a little more work, which I could do the following week. When that time came around, I decided that I was satisfied with it as it was, so I started a new painting instead.

One spring afternoon I went for a walk on the Ukraina Trail in the Hayward hills. It was a beautiful day, and as I passed a rocky hillside with a few poppies, I thought that it could be the subject of a painting some day, and I took a photo with my phone. In my class, while everyone else was still working on the turtle, I started this scene and finished it up later at home.