June 2021

 

I came across a photo on Facebook that I thought would be fun to paint. I usually prefer to use my own photos for paintings, but this one caught my eye and reminded me of many past High Sierra experiences. It's of Cottonwood Lakes, a bit south of Mt. Whitney, a place that I've never been to, but it looks quite familiar anyway. It has been several years now since I've been to a place like this and I really miss it.

A couple of weeks ago we spent three days in Novato at a cow-working clinic with Chris Ellsworth. At one point in the clinic, Chris rode a cutting horse brought by one of the participants, and put on a good show of how it is supposed to be done. Working from one of my photos, I painted this hoping to capture some of the fast action. I don't know how successful I was, but I like it anyway.

Every September we used to spend a few days at Mammoth Lakes. We missed the last couple of years, but plan to do it again this year. I was thinking about some of the beautiful places we saw there and I remembered making the relatively easy hike up to T J Lake on our last trip. I used a couple of my photos to put together this scene.

 

 One of the places near Mammoth that we often visit is the Sherwin Creek Campground a short distance out of town. The campground is closed after Labor Day, but we like to wander around the area anyway. On our last trip there, I took a couple of photos of the cones under a stand of pines, and used them for this  painting.