Sydney is an old friend who has a horse at our barn. She is just a few months older than I am and the horse, Cheyenne, is also quite old. He has a problem with his legs that means that he can't be ridden or turned out. He is mostly very calm and patient, but sometimes he gets excited and needs to move. A couple of months ago, Sydney and her friend, Jonathan, were walking Cheyenne around the barn when he made a quick movement which startled Sydney and she fell and broke her hip. She is slowly recovering, but she has been unable to see her horse for a long time. Some years ago Sydney asked me to paint Cheyenne and I turned her down, telling her that I wanted to stay free to paint whatever I felt like painting. Today that feels kind of selfish, and so I made this painting to give to her.
I chose to paint another one of my photos from Point Lobos. Actually, it was two photos. My first photo only showed one branch of the left-hand tree. At the time I thought that it might be a good scene for a painting, so I turned to the left and shot another one with the tree, and combined them when I did the painting. I like the way it turned out.
I found a photo I took in 2004 of the trail up the canyon from Twin Lakes, near Bridgeport. My first time up this trail was in 1957, when I started a boy scout backpacking trip here. Since then, we have done it a number of times and always really appreciated the beauty of the place. I love the pine forests and aspens, the meadows and sagebrush flats, and the rugged mountains all around. This is another painting that I think turned out well.
We took Zim up to Chris and Claire's place for five days as a little vacation for all of us. The weather was hot but it was a nice break for us. Maureen got a couple of lessons with Chris and we got to spend a lot of time with Claire. Zim was in the middle pasture with Bodhi and they got along very well. One day we were watching from above when Chris was doing the afternoon feeding and it inspired this painting.
