Heartline

Heartline

5" X 7"

Watercolor & Ink

Our town has a river running through it. And, although we are not “townies”, living well outside its boundaries, we love and claim that river as ours it just the same. I’ve always loved rivers, streams, creeks, and cricks (as my mama would say). 

I could sit alongside any variation of moving water and just abide listening to its song for hours. I always wished I could live along a watercourse, but until I win the lotto, I’m happy to seek its companionship whenever I can; because when I’m in town for work, it’s just a little more than a stone’s throw away, calling out to me, some days louder than others. 

Though I take great joy in “river sitting”, it’s also the place I go when my heart hurts, or when life’s trials get to be a little more than I can bear. Our Animas has her moods too, and now approaches the time when she returns to blue green as the snowmelt wanes and the summer is well on. I think my favorite time is winter: when snow clouds gather, she is charcoal, but when the sky is clear, a deep blue black, dotted with rocks like bones, lit white with snow.

The day I painted this, I thought about how our river is the heart of our community, steadily reflecting this part of the world.

Unbounded Spring

And now, time for something completely different.

Unbounded Spring

5” X 7”

Watercolor and Ink on Paper

It’s been a while since I’ve painted abstracts. Yet it has been on my mind, one of those art swirls that slowly coalesce and then erupt in a frenzy of work. This is watercolor and ink—a technique I’ve used in the past, but not in this exact way. 

The technique was inspired an artist many years ago who came into our 4^th grade class to share her art. I was intrigued by the way she filled her paintings with lines and shapes. That was a long time ago, but suddenly the idea resurfaced again.

This piece was inspired by our amazing spring brought on by a wet winter. Even the old-timers say it was the most beautiful they remember. How appropriate that the summer monsoons have arrived and it is raining as I write this post…let the green continue!

Spring Inside

Spring Inside

8" X 10"
Watercolor on Paper

It was a long winter. Not complaining—it was beautiful and we needed the moisture. The gift it brought was the most lovely spring I’ve seen—everything incredibly lush and green, wildflowers everywhere. Every plant, every tree took in a big gulp and let out a sigh of relief.

In late winter, before the earth erupted in green, our dining room held a folding table jam-packed with our optimistic veggie starts. We dreamed of the garden bounty they would bring. Nestled among the tomatoes and peppers, was this delightful geranium bursting into bloom.

Early in the year, I started teaching watercolor classes. This painting began as a demonstration to show my students various watercolor techniques (wet into wet, wet over dry, washes, and layering). The blooms lasted and lasted, giving me a chance to finish the painting as it declared spring was on its way.

The garden starts didn’t fare as well. We had a killing frost two-thirds of the way through June that took out good part of the garden plants I’d lovingly planted the week before. That’s Mother Nature, though. You never know what she’s going to throw at you.

Missionary Ridge

Missionary Ridge

17” X 9”

Acrylic on a reclaimed cabinet door

There’s two feet of snow on the ground and more on the way (yay), but I was lost in this memory of our summer monsoon season as I painted this piece. 

We packed up a lunch and our fishing gear and headed out to explore Missionary Ridge, north of Durango. We were heading out to Henderson Lake, to try our luck fishing. It was another sweltering day, but as the road climbed, the air cooled, and we rolled down the windows and let it wash over us in joy.

It was early in the monsoon season, and we’d yet to get a decent rain, so as we watched the clouds billowing and building to the north (right where we were going!), we cheered them on, hoping for a downpour.

Clumped patches of wildflowers in brilliant pinks and purples spattered the grassy hills. Dense stands of deep green spruce alternated with swaths of tree skeletons left behind by the catastrophic fire that swept the ridge in 2002, burning more than 70,000 acres.

By the time we reached the lake, thunder rumbled steadily. The sky to the west was purple with swollen, angry clouds. “Come on, rain!” we said, breaking out our chairs and lunch in defiance. There’s no better way to guarantee rain than showing the weather gods you aren’t taking shelter when they growl at you.

The lake was serene and fringed with lush emerald vegetation, a happy sight, and much needed reprieve from the dry, pale tufts of last year’s grass and parched trees we had at home, just a few miles away. It had been a dry winter and our spring grasses barely made a showing before the heat came on hard and without mercy. 

Despite our taunts, the rain stayed to the west. We tossed a few lines into the mirror of a lake, but the fish took no interest in our offerings. We dawdled for a while longer and enjoyed watching the late afternoon light on the land as the clouds moved on, gifting us with a few spatters as we traveled back down the hill towards home.

Into the Weminuche

Into the Weminuche

20” X 16”

Acrylic on Canvas

It was the perfect afternoon—after a perfect anniversary weekend exploring Gunnison, Tin Cup, and Lake City, we were taking the backway into Creede. Miles from anywhere, we saw a sign for an overlook and decided that’s where we would stop for lunch. 

And what a view it was, looking into the Weminuche Wilderness. The light frosting of snow on the distant peaks contrasted with the autumn gold grasses in the valley below; the deep blue of the sky reflected in the water, a mosaic of ice patches the weakening November sun couldn’t melt during the ever-shortening days.

We bundled up and broke out the backpack stove to make tea and instant soup, grateful for the sun’s warmth.

This is one of those paintings that seemed to take forever…started long ago and set aside several times as I turned my attention to other paintings and other projects.

In early November, I had my first studio show here in Durango after a looooong hiatus. It’s amazing how much time it takes to prepare when you haven’t had a show for a while. Clint installed lights, while I framed and cleaned (paintings and house). 

Just one part of the house where paintings were hung. I had 42 framed pieces on display.

While in the process of inspecting and cleaning paintings as we hung them, I discovered pieces I had not signed, or varnished, or had horrible globs I had to fix. There were older less-favored paintings taken out of frames to make homes for new pieces. Whew—it was a lot of work!

 
 When “show day” came, we were ready and it was a great day. Plenty of people showed up (you always worry, you know) and they ate and drank, looked at art, and I even sold a few. Not bad for the first show in a new town where I had to build a mailing list from scratch. 

I could barely wait to get back to painting…and forced myself to finish “Into the Weminuche” before I allowed myself to start a new painting (well on the way to being finished, by the way).