Happy New Year

 

Just a fun painting I did recently. Snowy Owl on black canvas.  8 X 10. oil painting.  I still have 2 more black canvases that I picked up on sale. Have to decide what to put on them.  I found many photos that are copyright free on Pixabay.com.  I picked this one because I liked the expression.  I feel that the owl is talking to me "Hoo R U?"

Happy new year to all. I hope that 2021 is a better year than 2020. I don't know when the vaccine for the Covid virus will be available to us, but we plan on taking it.  We are still hoping to be able to travel again next year.

Last painting of 2020. Not quite finished. I couldn't figure out how to make the black horse look more like a horse. "Cold day at the ranch", 8 X 10, oil painting. Painted from my photo taken at this place. I went there to paint, but it was too cold. I just did a few sketches, then painted from my photos back in my warm studio.

Another Summer Month

Doe and fawn at Municipal Park in downtown Boise, Idaho. I went there to paint with the plein air painters group.  I was surprised to see deer in an urban park, but I guess it is near enough to various rivers and the foothills for them to wander around. They were used to the children and did not run away even when kids came fairly close. This park is also a nature center and a good place for kids to learn about nature.

There were fish in the pond, but I didn't come to go fishing. I made such a mess with my last oil plein air painting that I decided to just sketch with watercolors.  I took photos of the last few outings and will go back to them later to make more paintings.  Here are a few:

This is my setup with my new Sienna pochade box.  This is a little better than my last box as it has a side panel to hold brushes and water, but it does not have a carry handle which I find strange. The professional plein air easels and tripods that the other artists use are very expensive and I wasn't sure I would continue with this kind of painting.  I really prefer to paint in my nice air conditioned studio.  I'm still getting used to the hot summers in Idaho.  We have been here 3 years now and I'm starting to enjoy going around looking at stuff.

The art group also did a trip to a lavender farm in the next town. I just did some sketching at that one, but plan on doing some actual paintings from my studies and photos.

Alaska Trip

 מַה-גָּדְלוּ מַעֲשֶׂיךָ יְהוָה; מְאֹד, עָמְקוּ מַחְשְׁבֹתֶיךָ.

We returned from a 13 day trip to Alaska. I am having a hard time deciding which photos to display. The first 6 days were land tour, the last 7 on cruise ship.  I definitely preferred the land part. I probably will not go on a cruise again.  I did like the small harbor type boat we took in the Kenai Fjords. That's where I saw this family of orcas. The Hebrew verse is from Psalm 92, verse 6. When I attended the Sabbath morning prayers, that is what I thought about this trip. English translation: "How great are Thy works, O Lord! Thy thoughts are very deep."

Our first view of mountains on our way from Anchorage to Denali National Park.  This is a view through the bus window.

We enjoyed our visit to the Alaskan sled dogs, learned about how they are raised and how they race in the Iditarod. We got to play with the puppies too.  These sled dogs are not the same as the Siberian Huskies which are also used in Alaska during the winter and are much bigger and heavier.  They are bred for stamina, not pretty colors.

This was one of the stops on the tour of Denali National Park. The park is huge and we only saw a little bit on our 8 hour bus tour.  We did see a grizzly mom and her cubs, a moose, some small ground squirrels and birds. The highlight was when we were almost out of the park and had to stop for a lone caribou that was taking her time walking along the road. I didn't get a photo of that one through the bus window.

We took the train from Denali to Talkeetna. Saw more beautiful scenery along the way. I learned new words "Taiga" and "Braided Rivers". Taiga is the Russian word for the boreal forest.  The braided rivers were interesting and had gravel islands from the glacial silt.  We had seen beautiful lakes in Alberta years ago with green and blue colors from the glacial silt there.  The rivers we saw on this trip were a different shade of green, not as bright.  We did not actually get to see Denali mountain since it was behind clouds.  We did see the base of it though.

We visited a conservation area. The animals have some kind of injury and once they are healthy, they are released back into the wild. I watched a staff member bottle feed an orphan musk ox. He drank the milk very quickly. They feed the baby every 4 hours.

We had a harbor boat tour of the Kenai Fjords. According to the guides, these are tidewater glaciers and are not shrinking. (I'm not sure of that, but they certainly were big). This is the area where I saw the orcas. It was really beautiful there.  I have more photos from the cruise part of the trip, but I have to select which ones to pick out. I'll do that later this month.

I bought some large canvases a couple of months ago. Now I have to decide which scene to paint.  We saw so many beautiful mountains, it is a hard decision.