"My neighbor, he gone stole my rifles…"

El Capitan from Valley View. 9" x 12", oil on canvas.

Its an early Friday morning, I'm heading east on my way up to the Sierra Nevada Mountains in anticipation of catching a good weekend's painting. Driving through Manteca I stop off at The Mangy Moose Cafe a small narrow breakfast bar cafe half way out of town.

I sit down next to an old guy, Butch—big white tobacco-stained beard, handlebar mustache and cowboy hat. We get talking, he shares with me a little of his roots and his peregrinations in the West. "You live in town?" I ask, "No" he answers in a dry raspy voice, "I live 3 miles out of town." "You like it?"  "It's ok" he continues, "but my neighbor, he gone stole my rifles…if he come round again, he be goin' to the morgue." Here I was, having grown up on the rainy side of the Atlantic, watching TV matinees of John Wayne and Clint Eastwood, now finding myself face-to-face with the wilder side of the Wild West.

After a selection of further anecdotes from Butch—that really was his name—I depart The Mangy Moose and continue up highway 120. Passing Chinese Camp, then Moccasin, I climb falteringly up Old Priest Grade, my transmission making vehement sounds of protest.  Eventually I arrive on Big Oak Flat, and turn into the Forest Service Station seven miles beyond Groveland.

Having purchased a campfire permit and discussed with the ranger the pros and cons of dispersed camping on forest service land, I head up towards Yosemite. Just outside the park boundary I turn off on the road to Hetch Hetchy and set up camp in a forest that had been victim of the not-long-past rim fire.

The afternoon takes me in to Yosemite, seeking a suitable subject to set down in oils. I come to Valley View, the low-angled sun hitting broadside the massive rock expanse of El Capitan, its golden rock face reflected in the turbulent waters of the Merced river.

As the final hour of daylight approached I found I was joined by a small gathering of photographers. One especially conscientious man wearing waders was submerged knee-high with his tripod in the river. The scene reminded me of a group of earnest herons gathered at the end of the day in high hopes of one final prize catch.

As the dusk descended and the photographers departed, I finished up my own prize catch and headed back to my camp for a meal in the near pitch-black forest of charred trees.

Springtime in Tinker's Dell

Tinker's Dell, 9 x 12" Oil on canvas

Last weekend I did a small 9 x12" painting of a patch of woodland in the park not far from my home. The wood has a slightly unkempt feel about it, but this appealed to me as you can almost forget you are in the middle of the city.

It reminds me a lot of an English woodland, so I liked the idea of creating a painting that could almost have been painted a century ago in some hidden valley in the downlands of England.

Today I visited the the wood again, taking with me a bundle of books to read. A red-shouldered hawk flew onto the dead branch of a tree, obviously on the lookout for a lunchtime snack. Eventually he swooped down to the ground creating a big arc with his black and white barred wings and ascended with some unfortunate rodent in his talons.

I was reading a poem by the 16th century poet, George Herbert: 

The Answer

My comforts drop and melt away like snow: 
I shake my head, and all the thoughts and ends,
 Which my fierce youth did bandy, fall and flow
 Like leaves about me: or like summer friends, 
Flies of estates and sunshine. But to all, 
Who think me eager, hot, and undertaking, 
But in my prosecutions slack and small; 
As a young exhalation, newly waking, 
Scorns his first bed of dirt, and means the sky; 
But cooling by the way, grows pursie and slow,
And setling to a cloud, doth live and die 
In that dark state of tears: to all, that so 
Show me, and set me, I have one reply, 
Which they that know the rest, know more then I.

I must confess I don't always find Herbert's poetry easy to grasp. But after reading this poem, I happened to read Psalm 39, which seemed to tie-in with Herbert's poem. Here are a few verses:

“Show me, Lord, my life’s end and the number of my days;
    let me know how fleeting is my life.

You have made my days a mere handbreadth; 

the span of my years is as nothing before you.
Each man's life is but a breath

Man is a mere phantom as he goes to and fro: 

He bustles about, but only in vain;

He heaps up wealth, not knowing who will get it.

But now, Lord, what do I look for?

My hope is in you.

The real-time nature illustration that unfolded before me and these short readings were a reminder of the transience of life. We can place so much importance on the activities we busy ourselves with, and yet forget to turn to our creator who gives us the very breath of life.

Painting Pinnacles

Painting the peak—working with a palette knife.

Pinnacles National Park is a group of rock spires and crags that rise out of the Gabilan Mountains in central California. Tectonic plate movements and the subsequent erosion of of the rocks caused these monolithic forms.

I camped on the eastern side of the park and on the Friday morning with backpack, canvas and painting paraphernalia, I hiked the gradual ascent up the Condor Gulch trail. About a mile along the trail I found this view of Hawkins Peak framed by some raggedy pines.

On the first day of painting the weather was slightly overcast, which lent a brooding atmosphere to the scene. On the second day, in which I resolved the painting, the sky was a more typical Californian clear blue sky. Fortunately I had pretty much laid down the sense of light I was after on the first day, so the second day was more about refining the details. Below you can see the stages as I worked on the painting.

I met some interesting folks on the trail, including some mountain climbers, a park volunteer and a photographer. But the grand finale to the painting trip at the end of the second day was the sight and sound of the california condors as they flew over the gulch which is so aptly named in their honor.

The painting in process

 

Blocking in the composition.

 

Adding the color masses.

Refining the forms.

The final painting—Hawkins Peak from Condor Gulch.

Painting Hope in the New Year

 

The view across Hope Valley to Stevens Peak.

The summer that I had visited Hope Valley I was taken by the wide alpine meadow, cradled among the mountains and bisected by its boulder strewn creek—it had a very pastoral feel. Here I was again, now in the New Year experiencing a very different valley. 

The sky was a crisp blue, with the sunlight bouncing off a carpet of snow. As I dropped down into the valley I was taken by the view of the mountains to the south and how they were veiled by a screen of trees in the foreground. A tracery of bare metallic aspens with a  strong vertical emphasis and the wave like forms of the pine branches complemented the blue shadowy mass of the mountain in the distance.

Early stages.

 

Mid-way along.

The final painting.

Snow, Ice and Sunlight—Painting the American River

The interplay of sunlight and ice on the American River.

The Saturday after New Year's Day I headed east on Highway 50 and pulled over 6 miles west of Kyburz to paint the South Fork of the American River. A layer of frost covered the ground, much of the river was frozen, and overlaid on the ice was the remains of the first of the season's snowfall. The early afternoon sun caused the bank on the north side of the river and its trees to glow with light, bringing into sharp contrast the cool ice-bound river and the deep shadows of the cliffs above it on the river's southern side.

I scrambled down the bank, found a secluded spot overlooking the river and set myself up to paint. I worked swiftly with a palette knife, gradually building up thick swathes of paint. The blade enables me to apply paint quickly and to manipulate it on the canvas to create form and movement.

The light that had so inspired me began to shift and the illuminated branches soon became enveloped in the encroaching late afternoon shadows. I wrapped up around dusk, pretty pleased with my afternoon's work. Then off I drove up the mountain to Strawberry, for dinner at the lodge that was once a stop on the Pony Express. 

At work on the river bank.

Early stages of the painting.

A snapshot of the final painting.

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