HAPPY HOLIDAYS from AJO ARIZONA!

Wishing you all the most wonderful Holiday, however you celebrate, surrounded by those you hold dear.

LIVIN' OFF the GRID

Greetings from the desert just south of Quartzsite AZ. The last 10 days we've parked on free BLM land, livin' 'off the grid'. It's been a great opportunity to check out our systems for 'boondocking', that is relying on our solar, generators, fresh water storage, and MiFi & satellite internet. The solitude has been most welcome after spending most of our time in RV parks -- we have NO neighbors visible from our trailer! The sights from here are low mountains on 3 sides, and desert vegetation including sagauro and other cactus, and incredible sunrises and sunsets.

Every day we've taken long hikes in the desert, and in the gold-mining foothills to the west. Evenings have been cozy, reading [no TV for Jamie!], and enjoying our propane furnace & the heat it puts out. It's been chilly the past couple days, lows in the low-30s and highs in the 50s (my apologies to those of you who are living in the icebox!). Right now, at 5:00 pm I'm sitting outside with a glass of wine and doing my last little computer work before stowing my laptop for the journey to Ajo AZ tomorrow.

Happy Thanksgiving from Big River California!

Here's some pics from the funky RV park we landed in late yesterday, on the California side of the Colorado River between Parker and Quartzsite Arizona.  Really tight spaces, not real nice, and the view out our 'office' window is certainly not like the delightful ones we've had most places!  However, it's a nice warm climate and right on the river.

We drove down to Quartzsite today and checked out the free BLM camp areas; they're wonderful and not at all crowded.  We move tomorrow morning and will grill our Thanksgiving dinner in the desert.

TWO BROTHERS TOTEM

Just finished this piece; it's the totem in the town of Jasper in Jasper National Park, Alberta Canada.
Here is a story that is associated with Two Brothers:

Long ago, two brothers from Haida Gwaii were possessed by a curiosity to see the mountains. They made the journey over the water to the mainland and then travelled inland for days until they came to the Rockies. Curiosity sated, one brother returned home, but the other brother decided to stay in the mountains.

Years passed, and the brother who had returned wondered about his brother who had stayed behind in the mountains. Deciding to look for him, the man journeyed back to the place where they had last been together, and there, in the exact spot where they had stood, was a house.

The man called out "Anyone home?" and a woman's voice answered, "Yes, come in."

The mountain brother had died, but standing there was his daughter, the Island brother's niece.

It's so much fun to have paintings of places we've visited & things we've seen, and it's wonderful to have some paintings that fit in the limited wall space in our 5th wheel!

AWESOME SUNSET

View from our trailer last night around 7:00 pm.

EXPLORING ZION

We're very close to Zion National Park and have enjoyed exploring places the 'tourists' don't generally see. In Zion, it's permissible to hike off-trail in many areas, most particularly the slick-rock and washes and that's what we prefer!  We've hiked some incredible places on the eastern side of the Park and along the Kolob Terrace on the western edge.  We also took a weekday to explore the main canyon along the Virgin River.  November is perfect, with highs in the 70s most days, trees are just now turning color -- it's much like Colorado in late September. 

These are a sampling of the mind-boggling scenery; I hope to produce a nice series of paintings to remember our great month in the Zion sun. 

RVart

People have asked about my trapezoidal-shaped paintings which are mounted on the slopes of our 5th-wheel walls.  RVs tend to have lots of storage, and ours has lots of window, therefore not much wall space for art.  The space above the living/dining area and the entertainment center/desk are slide-outs and the ceiling is sloped toward the back of the trailer.  Seemed like a great place for paintings and I like the idea of pieces shaped to match the slopes.  I'm calling these 'RVart'.
Here's the two I've done so far:

ANOTHER PAINTING DONE!

Yesterday I finished my painting "Talking Heads". It was inspired by the incredible hoodoo rock formations atop one of our favorite canyon rims, above Grand Gulch in south-central Utah. I trimmed it to fit the sloped wall above our entertainment center in the 5th wheel; we can enjoy it in the evenings when we're lounging in our favorite chairs with a good book. We both absolutely LOVE it.  It's so good to be back at my art . . .

PIP Progress

Found some time to work on my 'Talking Heads' PIP (Painting In Progress) yesterday and thought you'd like to see the progression.  With luck, I'll finish it today (but need to catch up on laundry, grocery shop, get ready to spend the weekend hiking).

I NEED YOUR HELP!

Here are 5 photos of narrow/slot canyons I'd like to paint for our trailer. The finished piece will be 20" h X 10"w. I'll paint the one that has the most votes, so vote/comment for your favorite (numbers at bottom of images). Voting ends when I'm ready to start on another painting. :-)

#1

#2

#3

#4

#5

NEW PIP!

I started on a new painting, this is of the delightful hoodoo rock formations on the canyon rim where we love to camp above Grand Gulch in SE Utah.  This piece will be trimmed to a trapezoidal shape and be mounted below the slanted ceiling of our 5th wheel, across the room from our favorite 'easy' chairs.  It will be titled 'Talking Heads'.

I've wanted to paint these formations for several years, in vibrant desert colors, and slightly stylized.  So far it's tons of fun and I'm happy with how it's going.  What do you think?

The photos are my reference, aka 'inspiration'.

COMPLETED PAINTING!

Just did a couple little 'final touches' to this watercolor of cliffs in Capitol Reef National Park.  It's fairly long and it's a trapezoid shape: 30" x 10" x 8".  It's going above our dining table where the ceiling of the trailer is sloped.  Can't wait to get it affixed to the wall!  It feels so good to be painting again, and there's so much subject matter everywhere we go! 

ROAD RASH: ZION NATIONAL PARK

Does this disgust you?  Yes, it's TP -- in the bushes at a pull-out along the road through Zion National Park.  We spotted this, along with a number of other piles of discarded wipe, when hiking in the Park last weekend. 
LADIES: when ya gotta go, ya gotta go.  But PLEASE carry a small zip bag (and hand sanitizer) along with your TP or tissues and take your wipe home with you.  It takes years for it to disintegrate in this arid climate, and it's just not fun for anyone to stumble on to anywhere!  Gents, this goes for you too -- leave only footprints!  Anything else is 'crappy', no pun intended.

GOOD MORNING FROM HURRICANE UTAH!

We witnessed this beautiful scene of the sun and clouds on the mountain cliffs in the distance, as see from our 'office' window in our trailer.  The sunsplashed cliffs are far to the northwest; they also have a dusting of snow.  At the bottom you can see the near cliffs, which are a lovely golden-red. 
How sweet it is to have a new beautiful view every time we move to a new location! 

We're loving Hurricane; it's a small town with all the services we need and the weather is pretty darn nice.  We did have a cold front move through, brought day-time highs down to the 60s and lows in the 40s.  But the sun is shining here and a huge high front is settling in with much warmer temperatures in the forecast.

ENJOYING THE MEMORY

Found time to finish the painting of cloud-shrouded mountains, meandering stream, and blooming fireweed along the road between Lake Louise and Jasper in the Canadian Rockies.  It was such a lovely scene and I'm so lucky to be able to paint it and mount it on the wall in our trailer!

Another PIP (Painting in Progress)

When we were in the Canadian Rockies this summer, driving from Banff to Jasper, the mountains were shrouded in clouds and just incredible! I finally started a painting of a scene where we stopped for the view. The pictures are my PIP (painting in progress) and the reference photo. I'll post more when as the painting progresses.

LAST MORNING VISUAL

The morning we left Bluff Utah to head to Hurricane UT we were treated to the Hunter's Moon setting over the cliffs to the west, just at daybreak. What a delightful lasting memory of our visit to the Bluff area!

MOVIN' ON . . .

Arrived in Hurricane Utah late Sunday Oct. 20th. I already miss the SE Utah Canyon Country and am sorry to be gone from there. However, we need to spend a little time in a 'center of commerce' and get some things done, so here we are! We're in a big RV park with lots of old people. Luckily we have a spot on the edge of the park with a view of the hills out our back window & no trailers within 'pass the grey poupon' distance! 

 

Really good news is there's a fine local grocery 1/2 block away and they have wonderful fresh produce -- something we've sorely missed in the tiny little towns where we've been the past 5-6 weeks. We had a huge salad for lunch and dinner tonight is tofu with snow peas, bok choy, crimini mushrooms, sweet red pepper, fresh ginger, and bean sprouts.  I cannot wait to throw that together!

 

I finished my painting of the cliffs in Capitol Reef National Park the other day and will take photos and post soon; I'm about to start on a smaller piece from the Canadian Rockies, south of Jasper — feeling wonderful to be back at my painting after a very long dry spell.

SLICKROCK FRICTION-CLIMB

Yesterday we climbed the back side of Comb Ridge.  The Ridge is a tremendous monocline extending over 80 miles  north to south, from west of Blanding to southwest of Bluff; a monocline is drastically uptilted ridge.  The climb was steep, and about 2 miles to the ridge where we could look down on Comb Wash and Valley [with Cedar Mesa in the background] on one side and Butler Wash Valley on the other side.  It was quite a hike but well worth it!

Jamie at the edge of Comb Ridge, looking over the Comb Wash Valley; Cedar Mesa is just visible in the far background.

Me at same spot as Jamie above,  but the view is Butler Wash valley.

Me again, this time overlooking Comb Wash & Cedar Mesa.

This shot overlooking Comb Ridge valley was taken from the edge of the monocline; it's a sheer drop-off of at least 700 feet, probably more.

 In this shot I angled my camera to align with the angle of the rock face along the ridge.

This is the edge of Comb Ridge, at the lower end.  Notice the background appears hazy; that's the pollution from the power plant at Page Arizona.

Looking down on Comb Wash valley, with the sand 4wd road winding through -- an interesting drive!

Another view of the Comb Wash basin: