While I spent the majority of the day at Smith Rock painting….
I did a few more things.
I saw climbers (I don’t understand this hobby…)
I saw a pair of peregrine falcons chase off a red tail hawk.
I saw various animals while painting.
I visited a nearby Alpaca farm while waiting for the awards to be announced.
I saw an osprey with a great nest along the way.
My friend Jayne played bagpipes at the awards.
And I met a pair of schipperkes (but only one posed).
In short, I took 250 photos this day.
So Friday I left work and drove over to Redmond.
I made pretty good time, though there was an accident along the highway that held traffic up for a while. Fortunately, a little parade of geese passed by to keep us entertained.
Once passing over the mountains, the landscape shifted to agriculture in a big way.
Once I found my AirBNB stay, I headed over to Smith Rock to scope out the next day’s painting. Along the way I admired various wildlife.
But Smith Rock was the superstar of the evening.
Still, I ask you. Would you climb this thing at night?
All told, I took 236 photos this day.
This weekend I ran away from home to Redmond, in eastern Oregon. As usual (at least for me) where I was going was a different place than I thought, but the great news is that I found it okay and got settled on Friday night in time to go exploring (more about this in tomorrow’s post).
Saturday dawned and I headed out bright and early to greet it. The rules of this painting competition gave all the painters from 8am-1pm to start, finish, and frame their painting. After turning in the painting, the paintings were judged, award winners selected, and the top 25 finished paintings selected to go to a show at the Redmond Airport.
One of the things I was excited about on this journey was the opportunity to see nesting Golden Eagles. While I did see several of their ten nests (only one is occupied each year, the others are territorial markers), of course no Golden Eagles showed up to pose for me. Just so you know, each nest is about the size of a mattress.
I selected my painting view for the day, hoping to see the elusive eagles. I wore my hiking boots (good choice), lots of water (another point), and even dragged out my shade tent (worth it, even thought it was a very pleasant day). On the demerit side, I left my paper at the stamping station to set all this up (they don’t stamp until 8:00am so no one gets a head start) and someone inadvertently walked off with it. So, in spite of getting up early and diligently setting up, I still didn’t get started painting for 45 minutes after the start.
With some effort, I shook it off and began work on four pieces. It’s typical of me to work on multiple pieces at once, though most painters will concentrate on one (or two) pieces. My fellow WSO-ers Jayne Ferlisch and Kim Smith worked on one full sheet piece for their painting. I worked on four quarter sheets. And felt like getting one up and framed was pretty good.
Below I have arranged each one as a progression so you can see my process.
I blocked out this piece first. I added the vultures toward the end to add interested to the big open area.
This is the second piece I blocked out. I think I got a little more handle on the composition at this point.
One of the notable things about the early morning is that there were no clouds. Then airplanes started going over, adding a little interest. It was amazing watching how fast those clouds moved, though. I was trying to capture that.
When painting en plein air (outdoors) the light changes very rapidly. With this piece I was trying to re-concentrate on the rocks and the shadows.
So, which one do you think I ended up choosing to enter in the show?
Strata
And I’m delighted to report…
That ribbon means that my painting made the top 25 and is selected to go into the show.
Fellow WSO-ers Jayne and Kim also made it into the show, with Kim even winning third place with her full-sheet piece.
Kim Smith’s third place entry.
Proving that you should always read the directions for these things, however, I soon found out that to actually BE in the show, I would have to retrieve my painting and turn it to the Redmond Airport on Monday. Luckily the AWESOME Jayne (who not only paints, but plays bagpipes (how awesome is she)) saved my bacon and offered to take my painting.
This is a great event and I’m already thinking about doing it next year.
P.S. More over the next three days about what I saw and pictures I took while on this little break.
Today’s post will be mostly pictures.
I sold three small pieces and one large piece: “Roan on a Stroll.” The new owner of “Roan” saw it and liked it, but walked away, then came back. That’s the kind of reaction that makes and artist feel good about a new home for a piece.
“Roan on a Stroll” – 2009
In the down town I worked today on making some cards with various materials I had around.
I took a couple of strolls around Jodi’s gorgeous place.
Yesterday I went along on a pair of site visits for my job. The idea was to see what was going on in the field so I could understand my new job a little better.
The first stop of the day was at a pair of sites along middle Crabtree Creek. The South Santiam Watershed Council is working on phase one restoration project, and they have a new grant in for phase two, which would restore 32 more acres and do some creek enhancement through wood placement. The visit was to look at the site and ask questions about the projects, including lessons learned.
Of course, I don’t know enough to really ask questions, but it was fascinating listening to the conversations between BLM, Forest Service, OWEB, and various biologists about the details of the project.
It was also very interesting hearing about the politics of getting landowners involved in the project. Most landowners in this area are farmers, and taking a couple of acres out of production can be a big deal for them. This landowner was a larger farmer who was interested in improving his brand by going completely organic. They had bad experiences with the Federal government in the past, but were willing to try again with smaller government.
After this stop, we traveled along the south Santiam to an area called Soda Fork Creek where the South Santiam Watershed Council was proposing a second grant. They took us to Soda Fork to show a similar, very successful project; they had tipped trees into the stream to create better Winter Steelhead habitat.
Before and after this site, the stream was just bedrock, but here gravel and twigs had built up around the tipped trees. The scientists explained that this is the kind of habitat that winter stealhead like. I also heard a lot about how the fish in this area were important “genetic heritage” fish. Basically they hadn’t been contaminated by farmed fish and were one of the few remaining pure strains.
After viewing the goal, we went up the creek to look at a place called Moose Creek where they wanted to do something similar.
It will be interesting to see if these two projects get funded and how they turn out.
Along the way I saw lots of pretty birds, flowers, and livestock. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did!
This week has been a big goose egg as far as artistic endeavers go. I wasn’t feeling well for most of it, and though I did go to critique group on Thursday, I still haven’t taken their suggestions, so I have nothing to show you there.
This (three day) weekend I have been hard at work on a variety of household projects that needed to be done, but have no blog merit.
So the best I can give you is my pictures from unloading my camera where I recorded various hikes this week.
A fun story about this hike. I was a little ways into my hike and two ladies came along with big binoculars. They appeared to be bird watchers so I asked them if they had seen anything interesting. They rattled off a few species, but they hadn’t seen the GHO. So I showed them some good spots, and my owl actually cooperated by showing up for them.
Turned out they were from the Audubon society doing a little scouting for future trips for their volunteers.
Today I arrived at my carpool’s meeting spot and stood for a few minutes waiting for the van to arrive. As I was reading my book, I kept hearing little bird noises.
Of course, birds are ubiquitous this time of year. Between nesting starlings and swallows, if you stand in one spot more than 30 seconds, you hear baby birds.
The van pulled up and I took two steps forward.
A mama duck and her ducklings were parading around the sidewalk.
Collective “awwww”.
A few seconds later I looked up.
The rest of her brood was on top of the concrete planter.
Maybe I should mention at this point that all this is taking place in downtown Salem, steps away from the capitol building.
Worry started to set in. Even if the babies jumped down to reunite with mama, how would they get to Mill Creek (about 1.5 blocks away)?
Just then a woman came out of the building caring a box. She reported that this happened “every year.” The duck nested on top of the planter, in the shrubs.
She and her coworkers reached in to collect the little brood. Then with the box of ducklings in their arms, they made their way down the sidewalk, mama duck following, toward Mill Creek.
Really big collective “awwwwww.”
P.S. I don’t care if someone reports this was environmentally wrong or bad for wildlife or whatever.
“Awwwwwww.”
Today I drove down to Cottage Grove for an event through the Coast Fork Willamette Watershed Council called Bikes to Blooms. I originally saw this event on Facebook and thought it looked like fun, so I marked my calendar and called down to make a reservation.
First let me say that I had a good time, but the day did not go as expected.
I left early hoping to get down there in plenty of time for the 10-12 event that was labeled a wildlife area tour.
i had printed out directions and really thought I knew where I was going.
I got to where I thought the event was at 8:45. At 10:30 I found where the event actually was.
I’m not going to say any more.
Having missed the event I really wanted to do, I tried to go with the flow and went on a short guided hike and then a 12 mile ride around the reservoir. From here on out, it’s about the pictures.
