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pastel of a road winding around a mountain in New Mexico

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What a sissy I’m turning out to be! It was all I could do to take pictures of the scenery while we were driving up to see the Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument in New Mexico. Seriously had to put my meditation practice to the test! Steve was driving carefully and slowly, too. It’s just that my brain can’t see anything but the drop off, darn it.

Oh well. Home now! Safe and sound. And I can paint it and enjoy it in retrospect, right?

Here’s a link to the Youtube video of the painting process on this one. Enjoy!

This painting is available in my ebay store. Listings start at $4.99, go for 7 days and include free shipping.

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Sunset over Sumner Lake

So Steve and I had been kind of racing to get to this place. It was the only state park within striking distance of where we’d started earlier in the day. It had water, a real rarity in New Mexico, and when I’d called earlier to find about about availability the ranger on the phone told me there were a few full hookup sites still available.

Of course, by the time we rolled in, the full hookup sites were all gone, so we moseyed down to the boat launch on the lake to see if there was anything down there. Ended up talking to this grit who was there with his two grandsons. It turned out that all along the lake was open camping, meaning if you could fit your unit in there, you could camp there. We ended up on a little bluff over the water, not too far away from this guy, but far enough that if they wanted to get rowdy, we’d never hear it.

Then we went and sat on a big flat rock by the water with a couple of beers and watched the sun go down. We found that by holding our bottles just so into the wind they “sang” for us. We amused ourselves for quite a while this way, until my hat blew off my head and Steve had to go rescue it. Lovely.

This painting is available in my ebay store. Listings start at $4.99, go for 7 days and include free shipping.

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In the Valley

pastel painting of a road through a landscape, cottonwood trees, mountains

In the Valley

We were driving through New Mexico and had just reached the foothills of some mountains and then we were in this valley. The trees had just started to bud out, there was grass coming up, the morning sun was throwing shadows across the road, and I thought, “This is so pretty.” I could almost imagine living here.

Traveling with a camper is different from traveling between motel rooms. For one, it’s a lot cheaper to bring your own bedroom/kitchen combo along with you. Steve and I were interested in “dispersed camping” which is camping in Bureau of Land Management land or in National Forests wherever you can find a level spot to park your camper, basically.

When you camp like this, your scenery is definitely upgraded. No parking lots, no expressways. You look out your camper door in the morning and you might see a jackrabbit, or some birds, or deer. You definitely won’t see housekeeping staff out there.

I could do it some more, except I’d really like to be able to park somewhere and just be for a few days. Since we were on our way to Steve’s brother’s place in Tucson, we had to pack up and go every day. It’d be nice to just hang out and explore for a while. Sigh. Next time.

This painting is available in my ebay store. Listings start at $4.99, go for 7 days and include free shipping.

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Turning Out Austin

“Turning Out Austin” is a painting about my niece Nathalie’s horse, a rescued thoroughbred and a sweet looking boy. Nathalie’s friend Pam is currently taking good care of Austin. I spent the last week with Steve camped behind Pam’s house in Tucson, AZ. This painting is based on a photo I took of Pam and Austin one morning last week. He was hungry! Pam was turning him out into a bigger paddock to have his breakfast and he just couldn’t wait to start eating!

It was lovely to hang out with Pam and her horses. I’ll have to paint some more of them soon!

More trip paintings to come

I’ll be posting more daily paintings from my recent camping trip out west, so stay tuned!

This painting is available on ebay.

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Sound of Small Waves

Today, while walking the dogs I noticed that the waves from Round Lake were lapping along the shore and it was so beautiful I took a movie of it. And then I painted it, of course. You can’t hear the waves by looking at the painting. Or maybe you can.