Jefferson Park Adventure

This past weekend my Father came up for our annual backpacking adventure, this was actually the first trip we have made in the past few years due to the triplets being born and my dad breaking his hip. We headed over to Jefferson Park with our good friend Les. Jefferson Park is located on the north slope of Mt. Jefferson (Oregon's second largest peak)it is a large basin containing huge meadows and beautiful alpine lakes full of brookies and cutthroats. We left the trail head about 11am Saturday morning and did not arrive at our camp spot till about 6pm, it was a about a 6 mile trek with a 3000ft elevation gain coupled with full packs it was quite the test for my Dad's new titanium hip, and Les' new heart stint they both held up great. The next day we fished in Russel Lake all morning catching 8 nice Brook trout with a black elk hair caddis. We then took a 4 mile day hike up to Park Ridge Butte about 1000' above the Basin (7100' elevation) with awesome views of the mountain and the lakes below. After a nice nap that evening we hit the lake again and this time fishing the exact same spot and fly I caught 3 beautiful Cutthroats 9-12", trophies for a high mountain cascade lake like this and they made a great dinner along with the Brook trout Dad caught with his deadly "bubble and fly" rig. The next day after eating Oatmeal with freshly picked huckleberries,we sadly had to pack up and head home. It was much quicker heading down the trail than coming up altough it was tough on the knees. On the way home we stopped at a small diner for an Buffalo hamburger that was one of the best tasting things I have ever had after eating dehidrated food for 3 days.

This was a very memorable trip with my father and Les. Of all the hiking and fishing I have done in Oregon I can safely say that this is the best scenery I have experienced in so far Oregon, it was pretty amazing. Now that my legs have recovered I can't wait to get back to Jefferson Park.

First Painting of the year - Colorful Harbor

This is another exercise in painting loose and with limited amount of detail. The focus in this painting is in the horizontal band created by the boats and awnings. I tried to keep the buildings loose and let the watercolors do their thing, after painting I added some pencil and white conte crayon line work.

Italian Mountain Village

It has been almost a year since I have posted anything, being a father of triplets does not bode well for free time to paint or fish. But with a week off from work and having some help from my sister who is visiting I decided to bring out the watercolors and through down some paint.

For inspiration i like to look at John Lovett's blog Splashing Paint, he is a great artist and sometimes has tutorials on his blog. The painting above was a tutorial on how to suggest detail something i struggle with I have a tendency to try to paint all the detail. The painting is not nearly as good as Lovett's but not bad considering how little painting i have been doing lately.

Italian Streetscapes

Here are a couple of paintings I did with my new "graham" watercolors, for my sister who has an affinity for Italian travel. I am too poor to go there myself but it looks nice in the photos.

Landscapes and Streetscapes are a new subject for me that I would like to improve upon. The Canal painting was done rather quickly and has a looser quality I like how the water and the building turned out, the bridge and the boats need some work.
I spent quite a bit more time on Italian Village painting, not to mention it was a complicated perspective tofigure out and draw (still not very acurate). Moving foreward with streetscapes I am going to focus on minimal detail and focus on tones and shapes and let the watercolors do their thing, this seems to be a common theme in the watercolor artist I admire.

Places I like - Oregon

I decided to bring out the water colors and experiment with some quick landscapes, in between feeding babies.
here are a few of the places that are close to my heart here in oregon

Haystack Rock Cannon Beach

Mt Jefferson From Pacific Crest Trail

Columbia River Gorge Goat farm

The Smartest Animals in the world

While I have been on FMLA I have been staying busy feeding and changing diapers on the triplets. But also have managed to watch a number of documentaries; documentaries about animals. Two stand out in my mind one about Crows and one about elephants. The one about crows confirmed what I already knew- Crows are the smartest animal in the world (along with elephants and chimps), this made me happy since I am a huge crow proponent, and feel that they are misunderstood. Two interesting facts are that crows can recognize people faces and associate them with events, they can also make tools to solve simple problems, this already makes them smarter than a lot of people.
I also learned some new things about elephants: they are smart too, maybe not as smart as crows but they can pass knowledge down from generation to generation which is cool.

Here are two paintings that celebrate the brains of the animal world....thank you crows and elephants you make the world a much brighter place.


"Wise old Elephant"

Trout Illustrated going International

My pectorial paintings caught the fancy of Italian Blog author "Captain Rusty Hook" (Mattia),

check out the great piece he did on my art even if you don't read Italian.

Next week Paris.

Thanks Mattia!

His blog also has some sweet home made lures, music of the day, photography and other cool stuff check it out:

http://capitanrustyhook.blogspot.com/search/label/Fishing%20Art