An Incident with a Cow

Not an accident thankfully, but definitely an "incident."

Heading out this morning for the '5 mile drive down a gravel road' I first have to park, get out of the car, open a gate, drive through the gate, park the car, get out of the car and close the gate. You are picturing this, right? Every day- coming or going- this is the routine.

Today, I drove up to the gate and there, on the other side were cows. Maybe 8 or 11? Big cows. Waiting. Staring. Chewing.

What to do?! 

I parked as close as I could to the gate and decided to push the gate out towards the cows. I shoo'd them. They stared. They chewed. I got into my car, I said 'STAY!' to the cows. I pulled through the gate. I got out of my car. I went to close the gate. The cows stared. They chewed. ALL BUT ONE.

ONE made a run for it. ONE cow trotted past my car and into the Lands Inn property. Oh no! I called out to the cow. I asked it to come here, this way, no no, come back... It stared. It chewed.

Now the grass IS better on this other side of the fence because there IS grass on this side. The cow would not come to me. And I was NOT going to it! I couldn't go back to tell anyone because I was certain the other cows would all then make a go of coming in... So, I drove away. The group of cows looking concerned and more likely jealous that their buddy was locked on the other side...  and had plenty of food to munch away on!!

I had to drive about 45 minutes until I found a few bars of Verizon so I could call and report (confess) the cow incident to the Inn. There was probably a better way to handle a small herd blocking the gate and I'm sure I did it all wrong :(

Moo'ving on...

Today I drove to Clarno, the furthest section of the park, to hike, meet with Josh the Ranger/Paleontologist, and do some painting or sketching.

It's a pretty drive along the John Day River and it takes about 2.25 hours. (With the cow incident I was now about 45 minutes behind schedule.)

But Clarno is heroic! It's regal! It's huge!

I hiked up to the base of the palisades and completed two different trails. On the first, a couple I passed said to me, "umm, there's a rattle snake up there on the rock so watch out." Uhh, whaa- yikes!

It is not easy looking up at these towering pillars of rocks and at the same time watching every step and scoping out every single rock for a rattle snake!! Sheesh. Never did see a snake but I did see fossils ;) Leaves on rocks from about 40 million years ago which is pretty awesome!

After the second trail I stopped at the Ranger outpost to say hi to Josh. He talked to me about the park and what he does... But no there was no digging today :(

So, cow incident and near rattle snake sighting and extreme heat fatigue all prodding away at my nerves, I gathered up my lunch from my car and sat at a covered picnic bench where I sketched the Clarno Palisades and nibbled on string cheese, V8 and mandarin oranges sealed in a plastic cup :)

Very relaxing. Just what I needed.

On the return drive I stopped off in Kimberly which is well known for its orchards. I picked up a few Golden Delicious and some Ambrosia Apples (very good and super crisp!)

I stopped too at Foree for one last shot of those blue green formations...

Finally, I made my way back up the 5 mile gravel road and was relieved to see not a single cow. Safely inside MY side of the gate I unloaded the apples and made up a quick dinner so I could catch a little of the sunset.  Beautiful.

Small World and Sketches

It's Friday, it's here so fast!

It's also sunny, blue and warm! (85 this afternoon) I drove back out to Foree this morning and hiked up to the 'Ring of Fire' - a steep but not too far trail up to an overlook with a sweeping view of layered rocks. 

The formations here are so unique, I started a painting but quickly realized I was making up some of the forms, not really understanding what was actually in front of me. I'm not a realist painter, don't even want to be, but I do want to understand what I'm seeing so I can push and exaggerate from something "real." 

So I walked to another viewpoint and sketched...

The formations are a lot like folds of fabric, triangles spilling down to triangles and fluid forms like curtains. The blue greens are a Celadonite (sp?) a type of low temperature Mica. Very beautiful.

As I was out at the end of the trail I saw a guy walking towards me with a huge backpack with a strange green contraption coming out of it... A Google trail camera.

So bizarre. Also, the guy was from San Jose :) His girlfriend was with him too, she is also an artist... Such a small world.

I met a lot of people today, I think because it is Friday and it was the first sunny warm day in about a week. I'm expecting it to be 'busy' this weekend here in the park, we'll see.

I'll stay close again... Which only means somewhere within 45-60 minutes of driving, as nothing is CLOSE and even if I see something stunning, I can only paint THE PARK.

We have two new campers tonight up at Lands Inn, the woman is a book artist :)

I love how random and small life can be and the interesting things you learn about someone when you don't have your face in your phone and strike up a conversation with strangers. Today I met a couple who live on a boat in Mexico,  a BLM Ranger/security patrol guy who lives in Pahrump, Nevada and a Photographer from Idaho.

Where I'm staying is very beautiful and pretty remote. No wifi. No internet. No cell service. Off the grid, solar and propane. Coyotes yapping. Cats running around. Somehow big moths get in my room every night... So my bedtime ritual is to catch and release the moths, write the blog, catch some more moths and go to sleep about 9! I post the days blog the next morning, when I stop by the visitors center :)

So goodnight! (Or good morning!)

Sketches for layouts

It's one thing to sketch out an idea for a painting and then if you are an illustrator you have the added confines of space, layout, overlays of text or graphics.

I always start with a very rough sketch of what I'm picturing in my head. This is simply a communication between my imagined painting and my hand. I only need to quickly let a rough image flow from my head to my hand and paper and then I can move on to a more refined sketch.

Left sketch is the initial pouring of my idea to paper and then on the right I've refined it more and placed it on a thumbnail template of the most limiting conditions of the layout... which for this project was the product pouch. Very tiny.