Cold Studio, Warm Memories

Started another painting! I'm loving being in my studio day after day. I'm a happy lady.

So thankful for these full days to paint AND for my oil filled space heater! These mornings have been absolutely frigid! (I'm in California so that means it's probably 40°!) 

John Day Fossil Beds has 3 distinct and official sections to the park:
Painted Hills
Sheep Rock
Clarno Unit

Painted Hills. First, amazing. You most likely have never seen anything like it. Ever. It also happens to be the "easiest" or "closest" to visit. Quotes "" meaning 2+ hours from Bend rather than 3+ hours to get to Sheep Rock ;) Regardless, a lot of people go there. They may not make it all the way to Sheep Rock and Blue Basin, which is a real shame, but happily, that section does get a lot of visitors.

Truly, it's like another planet. Nothing to see but colored striations of reds and golds, some blue and purples, and a lot of orange red. Color. It's everywhere. And not just color.... Folds. Fingers. Jutts. Burps. All kinds of crazy formations, it's fantastic.

Sketching the scene. Pastel on Trekell wood panel. 18x24 

Roughing in shadows and color blocks.

Christmas Present to Myself...

Best Christmas present: a solid week of nothing but painting in my studio! 

Rarely do I have the opportunity to paint multiple days in a row. Well, unless it's the weekend and I have nothing else to do! Usually I paint, I run errands, I do some cooking, I hike, I garden... but not Christmas week this year. I painted!

Selfishly, unapologetically, I painted. All day, every day except Christmas Day. It was glorious!

I wanted to finish the Sheep Rock painting I'd started in November. This was such a fun painting. One of my favorite things I've realized is that when I'm painting these larger landscapes I absolutely remember standing outdoors, painting the scene en plein air. I remember if it was hot, if it was windy. I remember if someone came by, if I spoke to them. Painting these paintings in my studio is like creating a time portal. I love it.

Sheep Rock is so spectacular. It's rhythmic, heroic, and fittingly the 'icon' for the park. The Visitor's Center at John Day Fossil Beds looks out to this mountain. Visitors sit out with their lunches at picnic tables and admire its unique beauty. My last day at the park was spent painting this scene. I think it's amazing.

Sheep Rock. 18x24 oil on Trekell maple panel

(Someone told me they thought they could see a woman in a flowing dress in this painting. I think that is a beautiful, subliminal accident. Do you see it?)

Wild Horses

Today I stayed 'local.'

I was up very early so got a great start to the day and was scouting out the best view of Cathedral Rock and setting up by 8:45am. 

Pulled over into a few bends and turns but either the location wasn't safe, the shadows weren't great or they wouldn't be great soon... So I ended up painting in the same spot I painted the Cathedral Rock in watercolor when I first arrived. And I do love that view!

I'd like to paint the whole scene sometime but for now zoomed in to that ribbon of dark oranges, yellows, creams, peach and greens... It's just so showy and spectacular! It's Cathedral Rock!

A nice family, a mom with 5 boys, stopped by for a lengthy visit, which was really nice. Other than that, no visitors today. I kept hearing noises like someone walking on gravel behind me, so I'd turn around and then - no one. I finally realized it was miniature rock slides from the opposite side of the road ;)

My god it was hot! I thought I'd pass out so started packing things up before finishing... It's very close though!

I want to knock back a bit of the intensity and value on the orange capped rock but otherwise it came out really nice. 4.5 hours, pretty long for one Plein air painting. It's 11x14. I like that there is a layering in the rocks and a layering of foreground, center, middle and a few background masses. I am pleased with that.

Life is so interesting. I stopped at the Visitors Center to use the restroom and splash some water on my face and as I walked back to my car someone asked me "Are you Sara?" It was Megan, the Ranger from the park that I interviewed with via phone and that I corresponded with when I initially applied for this Residency. She had a vacation planned for the same two weeks of my Residency! Of course I was disappointed I wouldn't get to meet this person who had been so instrumental in my selection to work here.... 

So there she was, saying hi in the parking lot! Also, asking if I was coming over for dinner tonight ;) umm, yes. sure. Where? Was I supposed to know this?

Apparently word was sent and I would have learned about the dinner once I'd returned to Lands Inn. So after a much needed shower and short rest I met up with the girl who runs the Inn, Molly, and her Mom, Carol, and we drove down to Megan's to have dinner along with her friend Betsy, a Ranger from Glen Canyon in Southern Utah (another BEAUTIFUL park!)

Dinner was delicious and fun, and a great change to my routine out here. 

But a gift of gifts, a treat and somehow a spiritual experience, came from our drive back up the mountain. It's of course very dark, Molly's driving and around a curve, through some sage brush came running 3 wild horses!!! Amazing!! A little stocky; 2 larger and one smaller/younger. So cool!

Research, Scheduling and an Excursion

Pretty serious words for a Monday!

Started off the day saying farewell to the other guests. It's been so nice to have such interesting people around to visit with at night; sharing stories of our explorations and our lives.

After a round of hugs, it was back down the mountain to the Visitors Center to schedule the rest of my week with the Rangers and choose the day for my on-location walk-about with a Paleontologist. 

Next up was getting the addresses and hours for the different Indian Confederate Tribe centers where I will research the local Tribes of the John Day River area (which I learned today was originally called the Maha River.) 

While I've been painting, sketching, hiking, taking photographs and absorbing the unique geography of the area during my residency, my goal is to incorporate these things with some of my research into Native Tribal folklore and storytelling. I want to weave the landscape with the stories and create a series of paintings in my studio.

As part of my Residency, I have 4 months to submit 3 completed paintings to a panel from the NPS here at John Day Fossil. The panel will then select one as the FINAL piece. I'll then have an additional 2 months to make any changes to it, let it dry, have it varnished, framed and shipped! ( Come to think of it I may have already explained this in an earlier post! Oh well...)

I gathered up my schedule for the week, took a walk down to the river for a peek, then headed out for my EXCURSION! 

Yes. I, Sara. Drove. 3. Hours. To visit the Pendelton Woolen Mill in Pendelton, Oregon!! Gorgeous climbing drive up to 5075 ft surrounded by Ponderosa Pines then back down and across wheat colored grasslands and past weathered wind blown barns. 

I toured. I shopped. I drove down Main Street. Saw great, big old Craftsman Homes. I found a Starbucks! I got gas. I drove 3 hours back.

Well, 3 hours and 12 minutes thanks to a mandatory sunset photo and cow traffic on my last 5 miles up the gravel road

Mixing Things Up

Well it did finally rain.

I stayed up pretty late Wednesday night, sitting close to the wood burning stove, nice and toasty, reading a book on my Kindle and listening to the fire crack and the rain hitting the hangar.

What I didn't realize was that it was actually raining pretty good. I found THAT out when I went to my little apartment and heard a drip, squish, drip, squish... and saw a very wet bed. 

Not my bed THANKFULLY!!! but a twin bed down at the opposite end of the big room. Water dripping pretty steadily from the metal roof, hitting the edge of the bed and then squishing into an ever growing wet swath of carpet. It was 10pm. 

So I pushed the bed out of the way, grabbed a plastic garbage can and set it under the dripping.

The drip squish turned into a tap, tap, tap as water drops hit a plastic liner in the plastic can. So, so glad I packed ear plugs!!!

After capturing and releasing 3 good sized, near black moths who seemingly wanted to read my glowing book with me - I went to sleep.

Thursday morning was drizzling and grey so I set out to find a good spot to paint Cathedral Rock. The rain pumped up the colors, gorgeous, and kept me from setting up the oil paints. So I pulled out my watercolor pans and painted the view from the back of my car, and thoroughly enjoyed myself. Met a nice couple from Holland who stopped by to see what I was doing. 

I don't paint in water colors that often anymore, but just after today I'm reminded how much I love it. It was my first love! I'll have to not neglect it so much ;)

It continued to rain and was 56 degrees so I drove up to Foree, another section of the Park that has beautiful blue/green formations to hike around (ie: I needed to warm up!)

but as beautiful as it was I got frustrated and fixated on my stupid iPhone which wouldn't take anymore photos. I sat in the car seeing what I could delete and did this and did that but nothing. 

I drove back down to the Visitors Center and did some more deleting and checking what photos I'd already backed up etc etc and managed to make a little bit of room on the phone. Tomorrow I'll  drive to Dayville where there is a cafe with wifi and Pie ;) I'll back up photos to Dropbox and then delete the rest on the phone. So frustrating!! 

OK. Thankfully I made some room because the sky opened up and there was spectacular light! This is Sheep Rock right across from the Visitors Center...

Crisis postponed, I drove up to Blue Basin to hike. I only brought my sketchbook because it looked like it was going to open up and pour any moment. It's fantastic! Gorgeous! I'll go back and paint when it's not wet but wow wow wow! 

Look at that sky! Sketched though and met some nice folks curious about what I was doing and why I had Volunteer gear on :)

Tonight is game night. I'm here with 4 Geologists and the girl who is running the Inn, Molly, a few cats and the dog, Black. 

Tomorrow, more iPhone shenanigans and then hopefully blue skies and oil painting.

Clarno, the Furthest and the Oldest

I'd heard rain was on the way so planned on staying close and exploring Hwy 19 and the Sheep Rock section of John Day Fossil Beds.

As I drove up 19, I first came to an amazing layered and perfectly named  'Cathedral Rock.' No great pull-outs for roadside painting but I'll figure that out and be back!

The sky had tiny patches of blue, still mostly grey but no rain - so I decided to keep driving and head out to the furthest section of the park, it also happens to be the oldest Geologically; Clarno. (Approximately 53-40 million years ago.)

The weather held thankfully, and now I will have seen each section of the park and can more easily plan where to go for early morning light and for afternoon shadows. 

It took so long to get to Clarno! .. a bit over 2 hours. A beautiful winding road following the river, more mountainous and with great big pine trees... But it seemed to take forever. FOREVER!

Ahhh, but Clarno! So spectacular!

The palisades are enormous, you come around a bend and there they are!  Deep rusts and golden greens mixed with blues and mauves. Lovely.

Originally I wanted to go for a hike, just check out the area, but I had to get a quickish painting in, I mean - I'd come so far! It was fun to talk to visitors, not a lot of people out that way but nearly everyone I saw came over to say hello and see what I was doing. Of course I was decked out in my NPS Volunteer clothing, and people were curious about the Artist in Residence program :) I met people from Ohio, Germany, Portland, 'the Tri-Cities' (still not sure where that is) and Australia. 

I stayed as long as I dared because I knew I had a minimum 2 hours of driving to get back, I needed to get gas (station closes at 5), I wanted to get a good picture of the John Day River 

... and I didn't want to get back to Lands Inn in the dark because of all the deer!(Instead I had to maneuver around some annoyed cows.)

Just as I was closing the cow gate behind me, the rain began.

I will not go on a long drive tomorrow!

I'm now drinking a Deschutes Fresh Squeezed IPA (a fantastic local beer), eating scrambled eggs for dinner and visiting with Abby (the Geologist.) She just told me that tomorrow is game night and that a couple other Geologists from the park are coming up here for cards. Too funny.

Checking in and Checking it Out

It didn't take me long to grow accustomed to the sounds my home away from home makes: wind on corrugated metal, squawking hawks, cats fighting, moths throwing themselves against the windows and the pops and snaps of temperatures cooling. Snug under a heavy wool blanket and a down duvet, I slept.

Today I checked-in for my Residency. I drove to Sheep Rock where the visitors center is and met Rangers Bethany and Michelle.

I signed paperwork, received not only a hat and shirt to wear while painting in the park... I have a few hats, a few shirts and best of all a fleece vest. 

I toured the center; it has Paleontologists working in a lab which is viewable through large glass windows, a very impressive history center with mammal fossils and diorama murals with minerals and bones on display. 

I'm a bit obsessed about not running out of gas and locating the closest stations so I drove to the small town of Dayville to fill up the tank and then drove 1.5 hours to a section of the park called Painted Hills - stunning even in today's grey flat light.

Did a few very short walks through various points of interest and took an embarrassing number of photos.

It's supposed to rain tonight and tomorrow so I plan on scouting nearby locations and sketching... Painting I'm sure will be on Thursday!

5 Miles Down a Gravel Road

First though, 90 miles from 'town' THEN the dirt and gravel road up to my lodging. 

You'd think I was stocking a bomb shelter by looking at my cart at the last grocery store for 2.5 hours. Beans. Quinoa. Packages of Mandarin oranges, tuna and chicken. Cans of vegetarian baked beans, tomato soup and a jar of almond butter. Green bananas, 12 Fuji apples, 8 oranges. Seriously, a very funny cart. 

Smart though, because I am truly, really, removed from it all. 

I filled the tank in Pineville and the next stop was a tiny town called Mitchell, known for having a public restroom.

Finally, up and up the gravel road, through obviously recent burned hills, I turned in to Lands Inn, my new temporary home.

I have a lovely apartment inside an airport hangar. My room has antique toy airplanes and various wheels and metal signs hanging from the ceiling. I love it.

I learned how to work the solar, the on demand hot water and was introduced to a sweet old dog named Black and a menagerie of field cats. I checked out my studio (perfect!) The view from my room is so serene.

Three adorable A-frame cabins line up outside the hangar, and I met the Geologist who has been staying here during her internship at the Park where I have my residency. She lives in Redwood City. I kid you not. She brought her cat, Apricat. Yep. Amazingly it hangs around outside while she's away at the park and then is here when she returns. Impressive.

We had a great visit and shared a Shiraz  I brought from home. Such a small world.

I'm writing this tonight but know that there's no wifi out here, so hoping I can post this tomorrow from the visitors center when I check in with the Park Service.

I'm so happy.