December 2024

We started our 2019 trip to Canada by flying to Seattle and driving north. We expected it to be a long day so we had reserved an airbnb in White Rock, just a few miles across the border. We had stayed there once before on a previous trip and found it to be a nice little seaside town. It's kind of a tourist destination and we saw all kinds of people. We walked to the shore and saw a couple of guys decorating the pier for something called the Moon Festival. I don't know what that was going to be, but it made for an interesting photo and then a painting.

On our trips to Mammoth Lakes, we almost always include a visit to Hot Creek. It is an area of volcanic activity and hot springs bubble up right in the cold water stream. It was once a popular place for people to soak in the warm water, but for safety reasons it has been closed to swimming for many years. It's a beautiful high desert place with great views all around and we like to walk there.

When we stay at Tamarack Lodge in Mammoth Lakes, we almost always go for early evening walks along the lakeshore. On out last visit, I was struck by the reflections in the lake and this bunch of rowboats. When I had the painting about half done, I messed up the reflections and decided to start over. I hated to give up all the work I had already done, but the second try came out closer to what I wanted and I am happy with it.

November 2024

On our October 2023 trip we were on our way from southern Colorado to Santa Fe, and we stopped for a couple of hours at the Ghost Ranch near Abiquiu, New Mexico. We were interested because it was a place where Georgia O'Keefe painted some of her best works. It is a retreat run by the Presbeyterian church but it is much like a park with a beautiful wild area with hiking trails. We tried one of the trails leading up into the red rock areas but it was quite warm and we only went a mile or so. The photo wasn't very inspiring and I messed up right at the start when I splashed a drop of water on the still wet blue sky. I tried to patch it up by suggesting some wispy clouds and it turned out better than I expected.

One summer day I looked out the back door and saw Sunny sitting on the table watching her yard. I thought that it might be a subject for a painting. I was working on the idea that just about anything can be made into an interesting piece of art.

October 2024

The night before we left Mammoth, it snowed at the higher elevations and we heard that Tioga Pass was closed. We packed up and left in the morning and when we got to Lee Vining we asked about the pass and heard that it had just opened again. The road was clear and dry but the peaks above the pass were dusted with snow. Near the top, we stopped for photos and I used one of them for this painting.

There was a post on Facebook to advertise Chris Ellsworth's clinic at V6 ranch this year. It included a photo of Chris riding out in the hills of the ranch. It was a great photo and I was inspired to try and paint it. The clinic starts next week and Maureen and I were signed up to go, but she decided that she was not yet ready for the rough riding and long hours in the saddle. I've enjoyed being there the last couple of years and I'll miss it.

September 2024

 

I still wasn't done with Pioneer Basin. I did another painting based on a black and white photo that I took on the 1967 trip with my dad. I used an old Rolleiflex camera with 2 1/4 inch square film. It was a great camera and made very sharp images, but it got stolen when some kids broke into our house in the early 70s. Dad and I were wandering around the basin when we came across this little tarn which made a great view with the high peaks of the Mono Divide beyond it.

We spent a few days in a cabin at Tamarack Lodge in Mammoth Lakes. It was the first trip that we were able to do since June when Maureen came off her horse and broke seven ribs. We borrowed a portable oxygen machine that made it possible for her to handle the high elevation. We had some very cold weather but enjoyed the beautiful location. One evening I saw a pink sky out of the window and hurried out to get a photo by the lake in front of our cabin, and it inspired this painting.

One day while we were at Mammoth, we went up to Lake George and walked along the shore. Maureen was not able to do any real hiking and this was a good alternative. The lake was all sparkles and I wanted to capture that in a painting, I tried a method that hadn't used before. With an old toothbrush I splattered masking fluid onto my paper over the area of the lake. I hoped for nice little round droplets but it turned out pretty messy. I went ahead and quickly finished the painting, but felt that it was not as good as I wanted. Looking at it now, I think it is not so bad.

August 2024

 

For the last couple of months I haven't had the time or energy to do much painting. Just a few days after our trip to Big Sur, Maureen got bucked off of Zim and broke seven ribs. She spent a few days in the hospital and then had to go back for a few more days weeks later. She was in a great deal of pain and was not able to do very much for a long time. She has very slowly recovered and now is doing all right but still taking pain meds and using oxygen most of the time. So I recently got back to my painting, and did this scene from Goblin Valley State Park in Utah. On our October, 2023 trip, we stopped there on our way from Capitol Reef to Moab and found it to be a very interesting place with lots of colorful rocks. There was a little valley filled with hundreds of hoodoos that we could wander among. There were some kids climbing on the rocks, and one of them is in this painting.

I've been thinking about some of the special places that I have known in the High Sierra. One of them near the top of my list is Pioneer Basin. One thing that all of those places have in common is that they are not easy to get to. This one is no exception, being a couple-days hike in from Rock Creek over 12,000 ft. Mono Pass. I first visited it with my dad in 1967. I was young and full of energy, but dad was in his 50's and found it hard but he really enjoyed the spectacular location. I visited it once again in 2008 with my friend, Gerald, and this time it was I who was finding it hard going.

After finishing one painting of Pioneer Basin, I wanted to try another. I chose to do a repeat of a scene that I painted several years ago. I thought that maybe I would be able to improve on my earlier painting, but it turned out to be very similar and in some ways not as good. Anyway, I enjoyed doing it and that's what really matters.

 

July 2024

 

On our 2019 trip to British Columbia, after several days on Salt Springs Island we were headed forVancouver Island. We arrived at Vesuvius just as the ferry was leaving and had to wait an hour or so for the next one. It was another rainy day like much of our trip. I took a few photos with my phone and used one of them for this view from the ferry docks.

As we were leaving the Big Sur area in June, we stopped to walk around the headlands at Soberanes Point. Our car was battered and eventually totalled by our insurance, but it was a beautiful day and we enjoyed watching the waves breaking on the rocks.

June 2024

 Our plan was to spend four nights at the cabin near Big Sur where we have been going for many years. We arrived Monday afternoon and spent Tuesday driving down to Nepenthe for lunch and then a hike at Andrew Molera. That night around 10 o'clock we were both reading and enjoying the total quiet when we heard a big crash outside. We went out and found our car half covered in branches and badly dented and the rear window shattered. It was still driveable, so in the morning we packed up and left. On the way, we  stopped for a short walk on the headlands of Soberanes Point. It was a beautiful scene and a line of pelicans flew past which inspired this painting.

We had lunch at the Keva Cafe at Nepenthe and I took a photo of the scene which I used for this painting. It was a beautiful day and we enjoyed it a lot.

May 2024

One beautiful spring day I decided to go hiking at Las Trampas. It was my first hike in a long time in a place other than the trails at the barn where we keep our horse. I took a few photos and many of them were of wildflowers. Later, I looked through them for something to paint, and this shot of a fiddleneck flower stood out. I liked juxtaposition of the hills in the background and the close-up flowers.

Here is another scene from our little hike in Valles Caldera, NM, last October. The trail wandered through open forest near the edge of a big area of grassland. One bright aspen stood out against the dark pines. It was a great place to be on a beautiful fall day.

We went to a barbecue at Norma and Mike's ranch way back in the Livermore hills. We enjoyed seeing old friends on a beautiful warm day. I did a little hike up the road and took a few photos. I seem to be attracted to tree trunks in my paintings and here is another one. I thought about painting something with more interesting subjects, but this one said more to me.

April 2024

I went ahead and did a second painting of this scene from our 1973 backpacking trip in the Glacier Peak Wilderness, this time in landscape orientation. It helped a bit that I had already painted it but I still had some of the same problems as the first time. Still, I think it gives a pretty good impression of our incredible campsite view.

We spent another week in the Placerville area again to help Chris and Claire by feeding their horses. When we were there in February, the weather was awful, but this time it was nice and we had a good time there. We made a couple of walks down to the Cosumnes River and sat in the little park just watching the river flow. It reminded me of the Bob Dylan song. Back at the house, I painted the scene.

This scene is from last year's trip to the V6 ranch for a cattle working clinic with Chris Ellsworth. I had followed the riders on foot as they rode out to gather the herd, and took a photo as they were moving them back to the horse camp. Hot, dusty work.

March 2024

In February we spent several days at Jodie's place near Placerville to help Chris and Claire take care of the horses. Claire had surgery on her ankle and was not able to get around much and Chris had to come to the Bay Area to teach riding lessons. It was like a little vacation for us. We had 15 horses to feed three times a day and a couple of stalls to clean, but we were free to do whatever for much of the day. It rained a lot while we were there and one morning after a night of rain, we were down by the barn to feed and I liked the look of the mist on the hills so I took a photo and used it for this painting.

On Facebook the only group that I belong to is "Eastern Sierra & Scenic Hwy 395". I like it because I love the area and people post a lot of photos. Some of them are really good photographers. One day I came across a photo of a little stone cabin and some great mountains. I usually prefer to use my own photos for paintings, but once in a while I find one from someone else that just cries out to be painted.

I walk the mile-long trail to the water tower from the barn a couple of days a week and I've been doing it for months. I am almost always accompanied by Maureen riding Zim and Judy riding Mumu. When I reach this spot on the trail I often think it would make a nice painting. Now I've finally done it. I walk pretty slow, so by this point the riders are usually far ahead, but I don't mind. I sit on a bench by the water tower and wait while they ride a little farther.

In September, 1973, we did a backpacking trip into the Glacier Peak Wilderness in the North Cascades of Washington. It was some hard hiking, especially for Maureen, who was three months pregnant with our future son Aaron, and our dog, Matt, who had to carry all of his food in a doggy backpack. We drove to the town of Darrington northeast of Seattle, and hiked up the White Chuck River to Kennedy Hot Spring, then thousands of feet up to Lake Byrne. We found a campsite near the lake shore with an incredible view of 10,541 ft. Glacier Peak across a huge canyon. I used my camera's self timer to get a shot of us in camp. In painting it I expected the top half to be difficult, but it turned out to be quite easy, but the bottom half was hard because it was very dark and murky in the photo and I'm not so good at doing people, especially ourselves. I'm thinking of trying it again in landscape orientation so I can use it in my next calendar. I recently looked it up and found that this hike is not possible anymore because several years ago floods wiped out everything — road, trail and hot spring.

February 2024

 

We frequently go out for a ride/hike from the barn where Zim lives. Maureen rides and I walk, and we often go with our friend, Judy, on her horse, Mu Mu. We almost always go on the same trail which is officially the Goldenrod Trail, but everyone at the barn calls it the Water Tower Trail, because it goes past a large water tank. It winds along a wooded hillside with lots of nice views. I especially like one spot where there are lots of big mossy rocks. One day soon after a rainstorm, I came around this bend to see this scene all wet and sparkly and I took a photo. Later I decided to paint it, but it seemed to need something more, so I inserted Maureen and Zim from another photo.

On our trip to the desert last May, we were on our way from Darwin to our motel in Lone Pine and the sky was putting on a great show. We stopped several times for photos. I liked this scene for the clouds and light, and just to add a bit more interest I inserted the shapes of several wild burros from another photo. There are burros all over the Death Valley area and they seemed to fit here.

We spent a few days in Santa Fe last October with our friends, Greg and Nancy. Greg really wanted to take us to eat at one of his favorite places, Cafe Pascual, near the plaza. It is a popular place and was quite busy, so we had to wait a while to get a table, but the food was very good. I took a photo outside with other people waiting and I thought it made a nice scene typical of Santa Fe.

I felt like doing another scene from Santa Fe. This is the St. Francis Cathedral a block away from the plaza. It's a beautiful building and we found that the interior is just as fascinating.

January 2024

I was getting ready to start the new year out with a painting. I looked through a stack of old papers and found one that was a painting that I had started months ago and put it aside because I didn't like the way it was going. I had done a sketch but only painted the sky. On seeing it again I decided that it was not so bad and I may as well finish it. I think it came out pretty good. It's from a photo I took many years ago. We were camping at Twin Lakes near Bridgeport and I climbed up the moraine at the mouth of the canyon in the late afternoon and got a nice view of Matterhorn Peak.

I tried doing a painting from one of my photos at V6 ranch last November. It was late afternoon of the first day of the clinic and all of the riders had gone out for a ride out on the range. I followed on foot, just sauntering along enjoying the golden light through the trees. This scene caught my eye and at first I wished that the fallen branches weren't there in the foreground, but then decided that they were interesting too. I think it turned out to be one of my better paintings.

Another scene from V6. We were driving back to town in the late afternoon and the light was really  pretty on the distant hills and I stopped for a photo. For the painting, I wanted to make the warm light of the hills stand out against the shaded foreground. I think it worked out pretty well.

While we were staying in Santa Fe last October, we drove up through Los Alamos to see Valles Caldera National Monument. Years ago we had driven through this area and remembered it as being very beautiful. It still is, but a big fire a few years ago has burned many areas of the forest. We went hiking in one corner of the valley that was not burnt, and really enjoyed it. This large ponderosa pine stood out near the edge of the valley grassland.