Trying to find a groove again

After a very long break from painting, I have made an attempt to get my toe back in the pool. Trying to be a little more deliberate and thinking about what I want to say. I keep finding myself going back to the trees and this time I am done fighting it. They are what speaks to me and that is what I enjoy painting. A little to thine own self be true I guess.

Standing Naked in an Approaching Monsoon

18 x 24 oil on Alky Primed Canvas.

One of the finds I came across on the summer trip to St. George, Zion and Bryce Canyon. The weather was pretty wild the whole time we were there. It was a real active monsoon season this year and it made for some interesting drama. I took and unbelievable amount of photos and this was one of those that aked to be painted.

Mayhew Lodge Ruins

18 x 24 oil on Alkyd Primed Canvas

Haven't painted anything new in a while. I have been busy studying and reworking some old paintings that just missed the mark. I have had this in the to be painted file for a while. I was instantly fascinate with the architecture and mystery of the place. It is located on the west fork trail just outside of Sedona. It is my understanding that the place burned down in the early 80's an a number of movies were filmed here. I liked the quarkiness of the oddshaped openings.

Grand Pinyon

24 x 30 oil on alkyd primed canvas. Click on photo for larger image.

I don't know if anyone else has ever had a painting that will just not lay down, but this was my experience with this one. I started this piece back in March and could not for the life of me have it look anything but contrived. This canvas has been on and off the easel countless times and set aside in utter frustration. Just because I am stubborn, I refused to give up. I fiugured the reason why it was not working was because there was something missing in my painting toolkit that I needed to learn. I imagined it to be important enough that I was willing to contimue to dust off and make another run at the canvas until I had something that was working. It remains to be seen if what I learned from this experience will affect my work. It is no Curt Walters by any stretch of the imagination, but at least I don't feel completely defeated.

What did I learn? Values and temperature are the only way a scene like this can be even remotely believable. Pretty simple tools, but the canyon will bring to light any weakness in this department.

Pinion Pine and Couple of HooDoos

20 x 24 oil alkyd primed canvas.

On our way back from the Paint the Parks exhibit in St. George, my wife and I spent a couple of days in Bryce Canyon National Park. One evening prior to turning in I went for a short hike along the rim trail to watch the sun go down. I was quite literally stunned to watch the display unfold. There were some great old trees along the trail that gave evidence that this canyon is continuing to evolve. The ground would erode away and leave these old pines with the feeling that they had been constructed on stilts. This tree in particular caught my attention, but the setting and the background left plenty to be desired. I also wanted to include a couple of hoodoos to give it a more honest sense of place. That ended up being a challenging element to fit in because of the strong graphic nature of those rock formations. This painting is put together from about four difference reference photos with a good bit of it made up. I am still deciding if I am done picking at it.

Zion Juniper

18 x 24 oil on alkyd primed canvas. Click on image for larger view.

I haven't had much time to do any painting as of late. I had a commission that I have had on the easel for the last month with alot of interruptions. I was asked to speak at the St. George Art Museum for their art conversations because of the paintings that I have on tour with Paint the Parks. This year I was awarded the distinction of a signature member of their organization. When I looked at the map, I saw that the city of St. George was just outside of Zion National Park. I got a chance on the way back to spend a couple of days hiking Zion and a couple of days hiking Bryce Canyon. I saw a bunch of trees that caught my attention and this is the first chance I have had to make a painting from any of the reference. This is a Utah Juniper. I have been fascinated with these old trees and the evident struggle for life in their trunk structure. I came back with a little over 500 photos, and I am still combing through them to see what I want to say about these places.

Bristlecone Memorial

Born 306 AD - Died 2005 AD

I had the privilege of visiting two amazing National Parks this last month as a part of an extended visit to the St. George Art Museum for their Tuesday night Art conversations where I was honored by being asked to speak. On the way back from the talk, my wife and I camped in Zion and Bryce. When we sat through the presentations at the visitors centers, I couldn't help noticing the small mention of a nation of people dislocated from a place of such pristine beauty.

When we arrived in Bryce Canyon National Park and were planning the hikes we were going to go on during our stay there, I happened to notice a hike called the "Bristlecone Pine Loop". I have been fascinated by these amazing pines since my first discovery of them. The same thing happened to Robert Schuman when he discovered these amazing trees in a remote location of the California's White Mountains. In the toughest of growing conditions, the poorest soil and harshest weather, these little pines make their home. They almost seem to laugh in the face of adversity as they defy the odds and hang on. They will let half of the tree die off and keep a thin strip of living bark alive that connects the needles to the roots. Old Methusalaf in Schuman's Grove has survived to the ripe old age of over 4700 years old. The parks department has had the foresight to not tell visitors there which tree is the oldest, because even though it can survive everything that nature can throw at them, they are no match for the thoughtlessness of human nature. At the very end of the loop on one of the most exposed points stood a naked bristlecone, stripped of her life giving needles. I happened to notice that there was a forestry service plaque not far from this relatively young pine. I noticed in the picture on the plaque that there was a sizeable mass of dark green pine needles, which this tree happens to keep on the tree for up to 25 years as a way of conserving its limited resources. I made mention to my wife of my discovery and thought this was a recent death. I couldn't let the idea rest and set out to find the answer to the riddle of this ancients death. I found a Ranger in one of the visitor centers and inquired about whether or not he knew what happened. He said that this old tree had died whithin the last three years. It had been core sampled and verified to be over 1,700 years old but couldn't survive the thoughtless mob of visitors. He tired to soften the disrespect of this old pine by saying "The poor old tree was basically loved to death."


"Treat the earth well: it was not given to you by your parents, it was loaned to you by your children. We do not inherit the Earth from our Ancestors, we borrow it from our Children."
Ancient Indian Proverb