Into the Woods #2

I admit to being a fair-weather soldier when it comes to camping. On the beach the mood can quickly turn desolate and grey. The color of the sea turns muddy brown. Gone are the hues of green and blue. A cold wind doesn't help much either.


But grudgingly the sun breaks through. A misty sort of half light seeps into the woods.


Amazingly there might be a hot summery clear blue sky just one mile inland. The coastal fog is infuriatingly impossible to outguess. It's there and then it's gone.


Even on a hot day, the old growth forest is dark and cool. I love how spotlights of sun will fall on just one plant... lighting it up like a star. The constant rain of tiny cedar needles keeps the forest floor soft and fragrant.


And of course camping wouldn't be half so fun without the campfire. It's sort of a living archetypal spirit that can be summoned forth. Such a marvel that modern life has lost. Staring for hours into the glowing embers and fragrant smoke... one sees memories... dreams... and forgetting.

A Magical Land #1

The departure... fraught with anxieties and 1,000 missing things.


The arrival... or the return should I say to a magical land.


The clouds parted... the stars aligned... the sun actually appeared... to astonish as it will.


Mystical forms appear out of Nature's amazement. Mysteries lie hidden by the shores.


The meeting of the wild forests & ocean.
Nature will not be outdone!

The World's 1st Starbucks

This is the world's first Starbucks. Who'd a guessed that funky little coffee bean store in Pike Place Market would take over the world?


It hasn't changed one little bit since it first opened.


It still has street musicians out busking for bucks on the sidewalk too...

Pike Place Market

We continue our tourist outing to Seattle's Pike Place Market. It's Seattle's version of Disneyland. Great views abound... high over the waterfront.

*Note the dramatic steep hillside upon which downtown Seattle is built. Scientists have recently discovered this is actually an earthquake escarpment, sitting directly over a fault line.


100 years old, the Market is a crowded jumble of shops with everything for sale. All overlooking the blue waters of Elliott Bay.


Fish... very fresh. Some still alive, in fact.


Flowers... 1,000's of bouquets. 1,000's of tourists as well.


And even Art! The painter was on hand, working on his next painting. I thought the paintings were darn good... if just a bit hurried.

In fact there are 100's of quaint & odd little shops that cover three or four levels... and onto Post Alley and beyond. You name it... and it's probably for sale somewhere around about.

Whistler's Mother

My cat poses as Whister's Mother...

Why?

She has nothing else on her schedule!

It's Snowing in July...

It was 97 degrees the day I painted my snowflake!

Summertime...

And the living' is easy...


Shorts & barefoot...



And the temperature's high....

Got all the way up to 97 degrees yesterday!
But thankfully the 'onshore flow' off the Pacific has returned today.

More Sculpture...

This was my favorite piece. Richard Serra. Cool to walk around in... nice shadows.



And the Claes Oldenburg adds a touch of comic relief. I'll bet no one under 30 even knows what a typewriter eraser is anymore.


And then there's this fellow. He's sure to gain a local nickname, to go along with the 'Hammering Man'. I'll let the public decide on an apt title.

Seattle Art Museum Sculpture Park

Being presented with the perfect summer weekend, I felt obliged to grab my camera and become a tourist for the day. I hadn't been to the new Seattle Art Museum Sculpture Park. No cost for admission... I was completely out of excuses.


Two Seattle landmarks... the Space Needle and the Calder stabile that's been around town for decades...


Trains run right through the Seattle Sculpture Park. That thingy in the foreground is artwork... not part of the railroad. The Park is right on the waterfront, which is nice.


A main thoroughfare runs right underneath. They like building things over highways in this town.


The aluminum tree was nice. There aren't nearly enough trees downtown.

More touristy snaps to come...

Waterfall in the Woods

I decided that thinking about painting & art in general is best done with one's paint brush... and not with one's brain.

This is a very profound realization for me, and hopefully it will spare me many hours of useless cogitation in future. The act of painting is 100 times more rewarding than most hours spent thinking about painting.



Here's some fun little 'ghost' paintings I did over the weekend. I remain very pleased with them... even the next day after they've dried. Even upstairs in the bright light of day.

Very quick to paint... but the paint does most of the talking. Done with rags and cheap bristle brushes. Thus sparing the artist the labor of the details. And it's more of a feeling than actual ideas that goes into them.



I have to admit, that even I was shocked by the scatterbrained process by which they were conceived. Usually I find inspiration mysterious... but these were delightfully put together from the oddest bits and pieces.

Albert Pinkham Ryder was always one of my favorite painters...

Here's where I'd rather be....

Sooner or later I'll get there though...


Sand... Sea... Sky... what could be simpler?


Art is fine for whiling away cloudy days... but it's hard to match this.

Summery Gloryousness

Here we have it... Nature in all it's summery gloryiousness... or is it Gloryitude?

My goodness what a productive weekend!

The list of chores accomplished would leave me astonished... car chores, house chores, basement chores, outside chores, cat chores, shopping chores, cleaning chores, organizing chores, upstairs chores & downstairs chores.

I even saw an Osprey being chased by an Eagle!