Dodge Kansas stock yard “Dodge, Queen of Cowtowns”

I drove the whole way out here to Pueblo CO. through some of the most beautiful parts of the country and this is the first overlook I came to.

The first day when I left VA Beach it was misty and rainy most of the way through VA. Traffic moved fast on 64. When I got to the place where 64 runs along with 81 in the mountains the road was dry but it stayed cloudy until I got through West Virginia. It’s so beautiful up there in the Blue Ridge Mts. and it really looked blue gray in the gray clouds with some clouds covering the tops of the mountains and making the ridge line look fuzzy.  It’s a whole different atmosphere than the beach. I couldn’t stop to take a photo. There’s no place to pull off safely. 64 is an amazing drive but you have to pay attention to the road because it twists and turns so much for an interstate. It goes up and down hill, I mean way up then way down. I kept my car between the lines and looked around as much as I could. I don’t think a photo could do it justice because there’s nothing like actually driving through it and being surrounded on all sides by the Blue Ridge mountains.

After West VA, Kentucky seems boring from 64. I know it’s another beautiful state but you have to get off the interstate to see the beauty and I wanted to keep driving. I made it as far as Shelbyville KY. I said I wasn’t going to drive for more than 8 hours but I didn’t want to stop. I didn’t run into any traffic jams. I drove more like 10 hours every day. I’m not tired.

The 2nd day, I hauled ass right through the rest of KY then southern Indiana, Illinois and Missouri. IN and IL were both beautiful from the interstate. MO is boring from 70. I made it past Louisville with no problem. Twice I wanted to stop for gas and got lost off the exit and drove for a few miles through corn because there’s no place to turn around. No big deal, I’m lost a lot of the time.

I got through ST Louis with no problem on 70. Traffic was heavy. ST Louis doesn’t look so good from the road.

When I got close to Kansas City there was a detour off 70 onto 270. 70 was closed. The detour ran you through the city and funneled you back onto 70. I was on the interstate for 2 whole days trying to get west fast. When I wanted to get off the road last night to find a motel I came to an unmanned toll booth that wanted me to insert a ticket but I didn’t have a ticket! The gate was down, cars were backing up behind me. I was STUCK! at the freakin toll booth! Why don’t they let you use EZ pass there! I used it on the other tolls! So. there was a call button and a voice asked me how long I drove on 70. I said, long time. She said from Kansas City? I said yes. Then a $2.50 toll showed up on the screen and I paid it with my credit card. I was in Lawrence KS.

I’m blaming my lack of a ticket for the turnpike on the construction at Kansas City, MO. Yeah, MO, you need to fix that. I rarely have a scary thing happen to me on my drives, but that made me a little nervous so I didn’t want to drive the interstate today.

Here’s another view of the stockyard. It’s huge. Those tiny gray dots in my photo are cows. Today I found my way to rte 50 which I remembered from a previous drive. It was so beautiful all the way through Kansas and I had the open road all to myself for long stretches. It’s mostly flat and straight so easy to drive and look around. The fields go on forever to the horizon. I saw a lot of cattle, farms with fields of grain for the cows, I saw a lot of cows out grazing in their beautiful fields. I saw a bunch of smaller stock yards. I saw amber waves of grain out there! Once again a camera wouldn’t do it justice because with the wind blowing over the fields the tops of the grasses blow like a wave.  Just like these shots aren’t showing the stockyard well, those are cows waiting to be killed. They will be in your grocery stores this week.

I saw around 1000 wind turbines that go on for miles as you get close to Dodge.

And I saw oil rigs in fields pumping and lots of grain elevators all the length of rte 50. I was on the flat plane most of the day.

Now I’m in Pueblo and I will probably stop driving so much and do more sight seeing.

Driving is a zen thing. A photo can’t give you the feeling of freedom you experience by driving. You see some beautiful bridge coming up and next thing you’re going across it trying to glance down over the side. Or, you see the road up a few miles ahead snaking around some beautiful mountain and a few minutes later there you are.

There’s no place to stop and take a picture, you have to enjoy it that minute and try to remember it because then it’s gone and you’re looking at the next thing.

I think I’ll be able to stop driving all day and do some sketching now that I made it to CO.

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funny plein air pix

Do you think this art has a meaning?  Sometimes I look for meaning in art and there is really no meaning. Could he be making fun of plein air artists that don’t “copy” nature?  Anyway, thanks for the laughs, Hank Schmidt in der Beek and Fabian Schubert.

 

See the entire post here.

 

Artist Hank Schmidt in der Beek and photographer Fabian Schubert

Isn’t this guy genius?

Artist Hank Schmidt in der Beek and photographer Fabian Schubert

Eastern Redbud / charcoal chalk and pastel / with photos

Here’s a strappy young redbud for you, appropriately planted in the childrens garden. It looks like it had a growth spurt last year but didn’t fill in yet.

I filled in the background with pastel on this study because I had some smears that wouldn’t erase all the way, and also to make the light on the tree show up more on the light paper.

It’s fun to spot these redbuds when you’re driving. They’re out there by the side of the road all wild and crazy. They don’t get very big but they’re bright and cheery when they bloom. Then when the flowers are down they blend back into the underbrush and you can’t see them again until next spring.

Some other trees of interest are in the photos below.

This tree has roots that have been formed into a circular bench all the way around  for people to sit on or kids to climb on. I wonder how they got the roots to take that shape.

Can you see in this photo how they criss-crossed the stems of these crepe myrtles to make xs? I like the window pane effect of it. And some of the trees look like they merged together into one at the places where the stems cross. Isn’t that a cool thing to do with crepe myrtles?

Korean Rhododendron / pastel

Loving a rhododendron. This week it’s the rhododendron. Next week it will be a red bud tree. I’m fickle like that.

It caught my eye because the flowers seemed to float over these  graceful stems. The flowers were so bright with the dark green evergreens behind them. And the branches crossed to make odd shaped window frames with lines of sunlight and shadows.

The day I found it I tried to sketch the branches in my sketchbook. My sketch didn’t work but I wanted to try to draw it larger, because I find it more difficult to draw small. When I went back with this larger piece of sanded pastel paper the next day I sketched the branches with charcoal again and it looked better. I blobbed in violet to save places for my flowers and picked some colors for my background.

I simplified the background a lot. There’s more of these bushes, more trees of different kinds, more plants on the ground, a path, etc. All I wanted to see was the dark green behind my flowers and dried leaves on the ground with shadows, and a line of lighter green grass behind my rhododendron. Even though I simplified the background, it was still time consuming because I like to build up layers of pastel until the paper won’t hold any more color. I do an underdrawing and blend it down into the paper. Then I can put heavy coats of pastel on top of that. It takes a lot of time but a pastel can have a solid look if you fill in the tooth of the paper.

I was in the garden working on this 4 times for and hour or 2 each time, but then I worked on it for hours at home on 3 or 4 different days. So, over 20 hours in it, I guess.My hand was getting tired by the end.

The reason I’m excited about this drawing is because I didn’t know if it was working till the end when I drew the branches. To me, it looks feminine and strong. ( and I didn’t have to draw a vagina! ) hahahah ( sorry for mocking feminist art )

I hope you get the feeling of fresh spring air blowing through the branches and moving the flowers.

Path Through Sand Dunes / blue pastel, charcoal and chalk on orange paper

Let me tell you about a very strange encounter I had with dogs on the beach.

Dogs really love me. I don’t know why. I like dogs but I’m not trying to find dog friends. I can’t even count all the times dogs have run hundreds of yards ahead of their masters just to meet me. I always ignore them and continue walking. I don’t look at them or talk to them or pet them. They put their wet noses on my hand and go back to their owners. I guess dogs can tell I’m not afraid of them, but I think it’s bad manners of the owners to let their dogs run up to strangers on the beach, or anywhere.

The other day I pulled into a parking spot for the beach and saw a bunch of people with big breed dogs at the entrance to the beach. They were just milling around. There were a couple kids no taller than the dogs and the dogs weren’t barking or jumping. I thought it must be a meeting of the big dog club. A couple of the dogs were big enough for the kids to ride. If I had a dog that big I’d make him a harness and train him to lug my stuff.

I decided to walk through the dogs and people to get to the beach. As I went down the cement steps two of the dogs went with me. One x large black dog and another brown dog of retriever size followed me onto the sand. It was real windy so I put down my water bottle to zip up my coat. The dogs stood beside me on the sand and a man was calling the black dog named Zeus, but Zeus didn’t go to his owner. I still didn’t look at the dogs and I called up to the man, “He’s mine now!” The man said, “You can have him!” So, I turned toward the beach not looking at these two dogs who were walking beside me. The people stayed at the top of the stairs and yelled for their dogs and for me to wait. This is funny because I ignored the dogs and the people yelling and walked down to the water with the dogs following me. When I got to the water I turned around and sent the dogs back to their owners. I walked on alone for a little while, but it was too windy. I guess that’s why the other people didn’t go down on the beach after their dogs.

Does that seem weird to you?

I wonder why there isn’t a leash law around here. If you swear on the beach you can get fined $100, but people don’t train or leash their dogs. Some of those dogs are smarter than their masters. It would only be fair if I walked off with their dog and held it for ransom. Right? I could catch one every day.

Live Oak on sand dune / charcoal and chalk

This tree is so twisted, when I stopped drawing it I thought it looked a little crazy. Does it look crazy to you too, or is it just me? (anthropomorphizing trees again)  When I got home and taped it to the wall, I said to myself, this looks like a neural network. OH NO! This is the INSIDE OF MY BRAIN!! No wonder I thought it looked a little crazy. hahahahah (insane laughter)

This is my interpretation of the tree, close, but not exactly what it looks like. A bunch of them were clumped together so I tried to draw only one. A lady stopped and talked with me for a while. I asked her if this is a live oak and she told me it’s a live sea oak. I’ll look for photos later to verify that. Or tell me if you know for sure about the name of the tree.

There’s some real pretty views from the boardwalk overlooks on the dunes. You can see a long gray blur of these trees all blending together stretching down the beach behind the dunes. I’ll draw the long view another time. They look soft from far away.

 

My New Dog Bites / pastel / after Roaring Dog / with photos

It’s a Chinese lantern in the Lanterns Asia exhibit at Norfolk Botanical Garden. This was fun to sketch at the garden between rain showers and fun to finish in bright colors on a rainy day at home. It’s good practice for your plein air artist to draw subjects other than landscapes sometimes. And it rains a lot around here.

That black sanded Mi-Teintes  paper is great because it holds so many layers of pastel. And the black adds drama to your subject. If you want to convey a mood, black paper could instantly make your subject scary or sad or elegant. I like to blend my 1st layer in with a blending stump and then put 2 more thick layers of pastel on top of that. 

This is Roaring Dog lit up at night.

Here’s what the plaque says, “The Roaring Dog is a Chinese legend of the Erlang god which specialized in assisting the Erlang hunting and beheading a mythical demon. It fought against Sin Wukong in the journey to the Westlands assisted the Erlang god many times in fighting against other gods in the legend of Deification.”

When I was sketching it the tram went past and I heard the tour guide tell the passengers that the Chinese like dogs to look like lions. I thought how much fun it would be to make paper mache armor for a little dog and take it to the dog park and scare the big dogs! hahahaha

This is the size dog I have in mind for custom made armor. He’s showing off his new leonine hair cut and learning to drive. wait, no, scratch the driving part.

Pine Tree on Sand Dune / charcoal and chalk

Life isn’t easy if you’re a pine tree on a sand dune. If a sensitive person saw this tree from far away, they might think it was dying, it looks so sad. It doesn’t have a lot of needles and the ones on top are an orange brown.

But when you get closer, you see how it’s filling in the leeward dip in the dunes with greener branches. It looks like the branches came back down to the dune and rerooted, which I heard some trees can do on sand. I didn’t test it for roots because I didn’t want to mess with it.

Then you notice it’s kind of graceful in the way it leans and twists. Is that how it is in the life of a human too? Can a hard life give a soul some kind of stark graceful beauty not seen in the lives of those that had it easy?

That’s my zen question for today. The beach makes me feel all zen. Can you feel the refreshingly cool breeze coming off the bay in my sketch?

Seaweed / charcoal and chalk

I found this sad and slightly gross thing on the beach. I went there hoping to sketch waves but the tide was out and the waves were very small so I gave up on that idea for today.

The seaweed caught my eye and it seemed appropriate for a gray day like today. I arranged it on the sand and sat on the side of a sand dune with less wind to sketch it.

I just wanted to be on the beach a little while.

This is a sketch I did yesterday. The waves were small then too, but today it’s practically calm. I need to sketch waves again before I start the painting I’m planning of the beach in fog. If it’s foggy the waves will be small, especially if the tide’s going out. I can give up on painting large breaking waves with sunlight showing through the curl here. I get the feeling this spot never gets waves like that. If it’s stormy the waves could be bigger but the sun wouldn’t shine through. I’ll find large waves another time.

I’m excited about my plan for this painting because I want to tape my paintbrushes onto yard sticks and stand back from my canvas to paint, like Matisse. And also, it will be a challenge because I want to try to represent fog. With less waves and less contrast, it’ll be mostly gray. I want to use warm and cool glazes close to the same value to make my grays brighter, and I also hope I can get a foggy atmosphere into the painting. It could take a few tries. The better I work out my plan before I start, the better my chances the painting will work.

Ocean Waves / charcoal and chalk

I’ve been hanging around on the beach sketching. Here’s the plan for my next big project. I’m going to use a technique of Matisse. I’ve always loved his work and recently read an article that reminded me of a fun project I tried in high school.

A few days ago when I went to the beach it was so foggy I could hardly see the waves 50 ft. away. Looking in this direction I could see the fence all blurry in the fog. Looking the other direction down the beach nothing was visible except gray mist. It was eerie. It was soft and muted. That atmosphere was inspiring. So now I want to try to represent fog. I want to make a real smooth painting using glazes. That last painting I finished of the Port Authority was fun working on a larger canvas and trying to get a panoramic view. So, I’m going to try to do the beach in the fog next, and do it big. It will be mostly gray, but I enjoy mixing my grays. I think they look pearly.

The thing about Matisse is that he sometimes put his paint brushes on a long stick so he could stand way back from his canvas. I did that long ago and it was fun. Also it’s good to stand back from your canvas so you can see it better. Now, I don’t know if I’ll be able to make a smooth painting if I tape my paintbrushes to yardsticks but I’ll try. It will eliminate the detail from the painting, so it will look more Impressionistic, but I’ll still use my glazes since getting the values right will help get the illusion of fog. I know I won’t get it right on the first try. Impressionists don’t use glazes, so I don’t know how they would represent fog. My painting won’t look anything like a Matisse either.

I can’t start a project like this without a solid plan for the waves, even though they will be covered with fog. I still need more practice drawing waves. I can’t go by a photo because of a teacher I had in art school. ( I’ll update my about page soon and tell that story since it had a big influence on me. ) That means, I’ll be going to the beach a few more times to sketch. And I’ll need to do a smaller paint rough before I start on a big canvas. This could take months because I’ll have to wait for foggy weather. We should have more fog soon, but not all the time, so I’ll also start on another painting and have two in progress, the fog and the swamp.