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.

December 2023

 

Bear's Ears National Monument is a large area of southeastern Utah that had been in the news when it was given protection by Obama, then greatly reduced in size by Trump, and then restored by Biden. It was a place that meant a lot to the Native American people of the area. On our recent southwest trip we wanted to see some of it. It appeared that the most popular trail was Mule Canyon to a ruin called House on Fire, so we set out to find it from our motel in Blanding, Utah. We discovered that as a very new national monument, Bear's Ears is only minimally developed, with very few signs or visitor information. After a lot of searching on bad dirt roads, we found a spot with several cars parked along the road that was the trailhead. The trail led up a beautiful little canyon and we enjoyed our walk so much that we didn't bother going all the way to the ruins. The rocks and meadows, birds and flowers were enough for us.

Two weeks after our southwest trip, we took Zim four hours south to the V6 ranch for a 4-day clinic about working with cattle. On the first full day of the clinic, the riders had to go 2.5 miles down the road to the town of Parkfield and bring back 125 yearling heifers and steers. I took some photos as they approached the horse camp, and used them for this painting.

One of the best days of our southwest trip, we went for a hike into Grand Wash, a canyon in Capitol Reef National Park that cuts through the rock formations of the park. It's a beautiful place with ever-changing views of the cliffs, and mile or so down the canyon are the narrows, where the wash is squeezed between high vertical walls. It's not so narrow as to make one claustrophobic, but it is pretty spectacular.

November 2023

 

 

In October we spent two weeks traveling through the southwest. On the way we went to Dead Horse Point State Park near Moab. We hiked out to one of the view points at the edge of the cliffs and enjoyed fantastic views of the canyons below. I started by putting together a scene from several photos including one of Maureen sitting near the edge. She suggested that I put myself into the picture instead so I looked through her photos and found one of me sitting at the same spot. I see it as kind of a warm-up painting after a couple of dry months.

September 2023

 

Pam Houston's barn. Maureen came across an image online that she thought I might like and sent it to me. It was a photo of a barn from one of our favorite writers, Pam Houston. I don't usually like to paint from other people's images, but this looked interesting so I tried it.

Mt. Ritter's west face. In 1976 I spent a week crossing the Sierra from Yosemite Valley to Silver Lake. I was hiking alone and for several days I was off trail and didn't see another soul. I was climbing out of the North Fork of the San Joaquin and was nearing Ritter Lakes at around 11,000 ft. elevation when my eye was caught by this bank of snow with Mt. Ritter behind it. Many years ago I painted the scene with pretty good results, but I decided to try it again anyway.

 One of my favorite places is Bridgeport Valley and the Twin Lakes area. We've been camping there many times and I've probably done more backpacking trips there than anywhere else. That includes three times making a complete loop around Sawtooth Ridge which is the main feature of this painting. This is based on a late afternoon photo taken on one of our camping trips sometime in the 90s.

In looking through old photos for something to paint, I came across some from a trip we did in 2004 into eastern Oregon. We saw antelope at Hart Mountain and Steens Mountain and I chose to do a painting based on my  photos. Pronghorn antelope range all over the high desert areas of the west, but I've only seen them a handful of times, so they are kind of special to me. That beautiful area is also quite special and I'd love to go back some day.

I came across a photo on Facebook that I thought would be fun to paint. It was by a photographer named Aston Meyer. I looked him up and he has lots of beautiful photos that I really like. I hope he doesn't mind that I used his photo for this. He didn't identify the location which was a good thing since people tend to flock to places with beautiful photos online. I would guess somewhere in the Palisades or Bishop Creek area.

August 2023

 

We wanted to go out to dinner for my 79th birthday, and I suggested Quinn's Lighthouse on the Oakland waterfront. We had been there once before and liked it. When we got there we found that the main downstairs area was closed and the upstairs was packed and very noisy. We tried to think of alternatives, and Maureen had read about a place in Alameda, Pier 29. So we drove across Alameda to the Ballena Bay neighborhood. The parking lot was nearly empty and an older couple was coming out and we thought maybe it was one of those places for old people. Well, it kind of was, but it was quiet and uncrowded and the food was ordinary but pretty good. It was right next to a marina with lots of boats, and as clouds moved in there was a rainbow. Then, as we were leaving, we saw an incredible sunset across the bay, which I tried to show in this painting. It turned out to be quite a memorable birthday.

July 2023

 

In June we spent three days in Novato where Maureen and Zim practiced working with cattle at a Chris Ellsworth clinic. As usual, I took lots of photos and used one of them for this painting. I wanted to show something typical of the action, dust and all. I find that painting cattle and horses is a bit challenging, but I keep trying.

For a couple of weeks I didn't feel like painting much. I had knee replacement surgery on July 5, and the recovery has been painful. After a couple of weeks, I felt up to going out for a while, so we went to the barn and then out to lunch. We chose to go to Mosley's Cafe, a tiny place on the estuary in Alameda. It's in the Grand Marina area, out at the end of a little pier where a ship of the Alameda County Sheriff and a couple of Coast Guard cutters are moored, besides countless private boats all around. I snapped a photo with my phone from our table and used it to paint this scene. It reminds me of the beautiful day there and how nice it was to be outdoors and free after my surgery.

June 2023

I looked through my photos from our trip to Darwin, and I found one of a beavertail cactus in bloom. It was found on a hike led by cousin Bill up to an old mine in the hills near the town. The intense color of the blossom caught my eye, which especially stands out against the muted colors of the desert landscape.

This is the center of Darwin, the intersection of Darwin Road and Main Street, and the town's only stop sign. The old gas station is kind of picturesque. I painted a view like this many years ago, but I think I did a much better job this time. I think it gives one an idea of what the town is like -- a scattering of shacks a long way from anywhere, but doesn't show the lively community of misfits that it is.

I asked Maureen for a suggestion for a painting subject, and she said maybe something with lots of color. She remembered a little street fair in the town of Ganges on Salt Spring Island in Canada that we visited in September, 2019. I remembered it too and the iPhone image that I shot at the time. I had often thought of trying to paint it, and now it seemed like a good idea. The island is one of our all-time favorite places and this brings back good memories of the several times we have been there.