I find myself craving the open road and wanting to travel and paint, to go to a spot and submerse myself in the study of my surroundings. It's always inspiring and I seem to get a lot of satisfying work done. This all adds to my sense of well being. Creativity and being productive are great ways to feel good about myself and this will probably always be an important part of human life.

I like to paint these small 6x8 studies of my surroundings and by camping in relative luxury (I have a truck camper which has all the amenities), I can get close to the source and I don't have to move, once set up. This recent trip to the southern Sierra Nevada mountains with Jean LeGassick was great and coming home I felt refreshed, renewed and optimistic again after over a year obsessing about Covid 19.

The campsite had views in all directions and finding shade and shelter from the wind using our campers, helped us do a lot of work. Also we could spur each other on to get busy!

It's nice to come home with rough sketches and work on them a bit. They become a travelogue of visual memories.

I love just sitting there in the campsite using "artist eyes" and staring at the patterns in salt bushes or huge boulders, or shadows on mountains. You begin to see more selectively and with more objective eyes. Working small also allows bold blobs of paint to make their appearance without getting fussy. I use these small ones as colors notes and ideas for possible larger works. Sometimes, they're the finished product on their own, just to enjoy.

This painting was begun in 2019 and I brought it with me on this trip to try to figure out how to finish it. I got many new ideas and immediately knew what I had to do to make it work. The colors of the distant Inyo Mountains became the focus of the painting so I knew the color needed to be right on. I hope we can now all get back to traveling and painting our favorite spots and getting inspiration from Mother Nature. Check out the video for a view of all the paintings in a pile.