I went looking for more painting ideas from our trips to the Southwest. This one was from our 1992 trip when we spent a few days camped at Capitol Reef. The Fremont River runs through the park and it makes a beautiful contrast with the dry red-rock canyons. We have plans for another trip to this area in October and I'm getting pretty excited about it.
I came across a photo on Facebook that I thought would be fun to paint. All I know is that it is somewhere in the Sierra and probably taken recently.
My cousin, Joe, passed away recently, and we made a trip to Darwin for a memorial. Darwin is an interesting place. It is a semi- ghost town near Death Valley where Joe and his wife, Jody, have lived for the last 40 years or so. When we arrived a group of family and friends were hanging out at Buck's place, a shack that Joe and Jody fixed up to rent out on AirBnB. I took a photo with my phone and it turned out to be the one I chose to paint. It seemed to sum up how I felt about being there.
After our trip to Darwin, I looked through some old photos from 1999, the last time we visited Joe and Jody. At that time, they took us on a long drive into Death Valley National Park on rough desert roads to see the Racetrack, a playa where rocks mysteriously move across the salt flats leaving long trails. On the way we passed Teakettle Junction, a very remote location where people have left many teakettles hanging from the sign.
