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My oldest son lives in Arizona, and every time I make a trip down to visit, I always dedicate part of my day for taking photos of the cactus and vegetation. The images sit in my painting folder, and when I'm at loose ends for a painting, I go back and look through the images. Sometimes an image will appeal to me, and sometimes not. So, I happened on a cactus image I liked, but didn't want to do it realistic, wanted something more out there. As with all my watercolors, I take time to draw the composition, then get to work painting. I was pretty much flying by the seat of my pants on this one--it is scary choosing a pigment and going for it, not knowing exactly what you will get. Got this one mostly right.

This bike was sitting in one of my favorite junkyards. I don't think I did the whole thing justice and have this feeling I need another try at this subject. I have the painting in my livingroom and as I walk by it on a daily basis, I see new and different things that can be improved. It's time is coming.

I take a week every summer to go camping and fishing with my brother. We usually head for western Colorado--that is where we grew up. Besides the fishing, I always take time to hike around the immediate area, camera in hand. This painting is from a photo I took near Buckhorn Lake in the San Juan Mountains. If you have never visited southwest Colorado and the San Juan Mountains, you need to put that on your agenda. You won't regret it.

The aspen tree continues to attract my attention. I wonder how many ways there are to present such a dynamic subject matter. I've taken liberties here--these are not your everyday aspen, they are my idea of the many emotions I feel when I'm out in the woods hiking and fly fishing. These trees are more than trunks and leaves, they stand for what is good about nature and this world.

When I started this watercolor journey some 40 odd years ago, my first guide was a book titled "Ways With Watercolor," by Ted Kautzky. The book is now out of print. Kautzky could paint--and even though his subjects ranged all over the place, his seascapes always struck me as something extraordinary. Last summer, I got a chance to travel to the Oregon coast, and took a number of photos for paintings. This painting is a collage of all the photos I took--and everything I read from Kautzky over the last 40 years about surf--seascape paintings.

I like old junkyards--some nice geometric things--square corners and structure. Flowers, on the other hand are wild, round, and filled with subtle value and color. They are not my strong suit--that is for sure. I do a few flower paintings every year just to keep myself humble. When I go to watercolor shows and see all those cool flower paintings, I'm in awe. Maybe one of these days I will do a flower painting that is worth something.

I kind of get caught up with specific things in my paintings--cars, trucks, tennis shoes. I've been on that jag for a few months now, and needed to get away from the specific. My friend Millie Carree had an image from her grandparents' homestead and allowed me to use the image for painting. It was just what I was looking for--something more general.

This watercolor journey is indeed an interesting proposition. About halfway through this painting I was hating it. Yet, at this point in my watercolor journey, I've learned to relax during the middle portions of a painting. It is kind of like running a marathon, you just have to keep on slogging along, trying to make the best out of whatever pain you are experiencing. You can't make reliable judgments with little information--and a painting in the mid-phases is certainly limited information. I think it takes some years of painting to understand the evolving nature of a painting. You have to be patient and wait for things to develop.

Over the years, I've spent a lot of time in the Colorado mountains, hiking, camping, and fishing. It doesn't take long for the Aspen tree to attract your attention. Their light color against the forest green seems to reach out and grab your attention. I could probably spend the next few years with Aspen paintings, and never get close to what I feel when I see a lush stand of Aspen on a mountain side. Yet, the Aspen forests are more important than just painting subjects. They are the first trees to grow in a burned out area. Each fall they shed their leaves and make the soil fertile. Those soils nourish small plants which, in turn, provide forage to many animals. They are special--in fact, the second largest living thing in the world is an Aspen grove in the Wasatch Mountains of Utah, with a recorded 41,000 trees off of one root stock! Pretty amazing!

Since the first aspen painting in this series was a horizontal presentation, I decided to do a vertical presentation with this painting. On this painting, I masked the aspen trees and painted in the the background folliage and the foreground grass/brush. Finally, I painted the tree slowly adding washes to build form and texture the trees.

Mostly I just make paintings and sell them if someone is of the mind, but occasionally I take on a commission. That was the case for this painting--a real estate group wanted an aspen painting for their office complex. This is of a photo taken on the property they were developing--and a nice property it is. Yet, the recession of 2008 took its toll, and the real estate company is no more--I don't know where the painting ended up.

I've spent many hours on mountain roads of western Colorado. I can't say this painting is of any particular road, it is just dredged out of my memories. It is funny about memories--they come and go, but the things you experience when young seem so fresh and meaningful. This particular road could be one that I traveled down with my parents on the way to fish or hunt. We fished on Grand Mesa--north of Delta, Colorado and we hunted to the southwest--the Uncompagrhe Plateau. It was a wonderful time in my life.

This last summer (2001) saw me off on the annual fly-fishing trip with my sons and nephew. I'm probably not as dedicated about the fishing as I should be. For some reason, I spend a lot of time looking at the scenery--comtemplating future paintings. This particular painting gave me another shot at rushing water, and I think I'm still searching a bit. The water wasn't terrible and generally feels right, but it wasn't what I was looking for. Fortunately, I have many more years to practice.

It is now the Fall of 2000, and I have set for myself the goal of painting a credible mountain stream by the Spring. Water has always intrigued me--whether it is moving or still, and it has a nature that is captured best with the watercolor medium. This particular effort seems a step in the right direction, but I think I should have build more white water into the composition.

This last summer (summer 1998) I made a number of trips to one of my favorite fly fishing spots. The trip always took me by this old tanker truck and finally one morning I stopped and took some photos. These truck/car paintings don't happen overnight, and I suppose most of the paintings take somewhere around 20 hours to complete.

Having grown up in Colorado where there are 52 peaks over 14,000 feet, and mountain streams galore, it feels like they are in my blood. I've not really worked with this subject matter much, but it has been on my mind over the years. I think this next winter will be dedicated to more of these paintings.

This is from a photo taken in the San Juan Mountain range of Colorado. If you have never been there, you ought to put that on your agenda for something to do in your life time. I suggest a trip during the fall when the aspens and oak brush are changing colors--avoid the winter. I can never do just to these scenic vistas, but I keep trying.

I keep trying to decide which part of the year is my favorite--they all have their flavor, and I love them all. Autumn seems to be the season that goes out with a bang--not a whimper--just a blast of color. The Aspen trees in Colorado are magnificent--with the great vistas from mountain to mountain, you can see immense patches of yellow flowing in all directions. Each Aspen grove is its own entity--biological clones from tree to tree, so each grove will turn color at a slightly different time, adding to the color riot. This painting is from a photo taken by my friend Matt Patyk, and he was nice enough to let me use his image for the painting.

Mountain streams are just amazing. They are like a perpetual machine--just keep rolling downhill until they meet their big brothers. They tumble over big rocks, small rocks, logs, and host all manner of aquatic bugs. The water is well oxygenated because of the turbulance, and the aquatic life likes that-the fish like it also. After I'm gone from this life, my ashes are going to be spread near a high mountain stream.