On the Road Again

Dateline: Charlotte, NC.

Warm and muggy although it is sunny. Out visiting my mother for a few days. I love road trips but this one was on a tight schedule which makes it more of a ram and jam trip. I started out with the idea that I'd do sort of "photo travel log" kind of trip but less than an hour into it having stopped to take some shots along the Gunnison River in Colorado where I started, I realized that plan A wouldn't work. It was just going to take too long to get out here if I stopped to take photos along the way. I've got a GPS on the windshield and every time I got back into the carand started off again it would tell me that my ETA was now later than before I had stopped. I couldn't stand to see that the whole trip so I just kept driving amking mental notes of what struck my interest along the way. Fodder for paintings.

 What I hadn't considered is that the days are shorter now, i.e. it gets dark earlier, I'm getting older and it is getting harder to drive long distances straight through like I used to. What is even more rediculous is that I had originally planned to ride my Harley out here. That's still a ride I want to do but not when I'm under time restraints.

I brought a lot of my painting stuff along. I'll be here until Friday (got here yesterday, Saturday). I've got pretty much the next  four or five days to do nothing but paint and draw. Mother doesn't get out much anymore and other than an evening or two out for supper, we've got no plans which is kind of nice. Four or five days with no agenda. Seems kind of like cheating. Oh, it's not that I won't have anything to do. Like I said, I've got lots of paintings in my head that need to come out. It's just nice to have nothing else to do but do that.

I believe I'll get started.

Gunnison River Fall

This is a "little gem" 6x8 oil painting of the fall colors on the Gunnison River down in the bottom of the Black Canyon N.P.. I do paintings in both watercolor and oil for the gift shop at the visitors center for the park where they sell my prints and note cards.

The Black Canyon is an extremely difficult piece of landscape to paint. The lighting varies dramatically from morning to evening and finding an advantageous point of view is hard. With enough effort and persistence however, the rewards can be dramatic.

The gentle flowing waters of the Gunnison Riveer in this location made for an excellent opportunity to work on the reflections in the water which I especially like in this piece. This painting is at auction here.