Outside of Sedona - and Heading Home

Outside of Sedona

Oil on canvas, 10x10

Yes, I am headed home. Home! 

While part of me is sad that this trip is over, more of me is just missing home so deeply, I can taste it. Missing my husband, missing our dogs, missing my friends, missing my house and my studio and my beautiful little town. 

But I have had adventures, and wonderful pleasures, and I have seen amazing things and met wonderful, fascinating people. It has been the trip of a lifetime. 

This is one of the paintings I haven't posted yet - and there are a few more, which I will post once I reach Wachapreague. These are long, long driving days, with iffy internet connections at night... But lI'll get all the remaining paintings up on our Facebook page, on the blog, and on the California Calling page on the Jacobson Arts website. 

Meantime, I loved going through Colorado, which I haven't seen since I skied there as a kid. It was thrilling to see antelope, and huge, craggy snow-covered mountains, and to drive along at 7,000 feet, close, close, close to the clouds. 

It was not quite as wonderful to drive during a gale (60-mph gusts!) through Kansas, watching 18-wheelers sway and tip so dramatically, I got scared and got off the road early. 

But today, the wind was gone, and Kansas, with its rolling hills (yes, hills!) and huge, open spaces invited my mind to wander, and think, and imagine and dream. I loved Missouri, with beautiful farms and lots of good-looking cows. And Illinois, I saw in the evening dusk, warmed and sweetened by a soft, gentle sunset. 

 

Halfway through Missouri today, the land began to look like the East. Along the highway, deciduous trees grew, their wintry branches just starting to turn red at the tips. Houses were made of wood, with barns and horses and plowed fields. Lawns were grass, not gravel and cactus. It is the landscape I grew up with, the landscape I know. I've been away from it for two months, and it looks different and somehow new again. 

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Winter caught up to me in Colorado, with a blizzarding snowstorm that blew in on an amazing wind. The gale lasted long after the snow stopped falling - if you can call a horizontal path "falling." 

Can you imagine going to school out here? I think I was in Pecos Valley, NM. 

Here's me with hair as red as when I was a kid.

A farm in New Mexico, demanding to be painted. 

And yes, more dinos! These are outside of Santa Fe. 

Gorgeous sunrise in Colorado.

And crossing into Colorado. 

I am somehow not surprised that there are no services in Bovina. Bet there are lots of cows, though. 

Colorado mountains in the bright morning light. 

Wouldn't you take your dog here to be groomed? I know I would! 

I had a pretty good show in Albuquerque. The best part was meeting Juanita and Bill Williams, who had the booth across the aisle from me. We became fast friends, and I feel lucky to have met them.

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Dog of the Day

This stuffed dog was near a booth at the Rio Grande show in Albuquerque, and it looked so real, it startled me nearly every time I saw it. 

Afternoon in Madera Canyon

Afternoon in Madera Canyon
Oil on canvas, 10x10

I had never really thought of Arizona as being mountainous. When I had a picture of the state in my head, it was a picture of a flat place, with red rocks and sagebrush and cactis - not amazing, craggy mountains with ragged rocks and bald tops. 

So I have learned a lot. There are plenty of those big, flat open spaces - but at least down here, in southern Arizona, the mountains dominate. And they are gorgeous. 

They capture the light and shadows in wonderful, moving ways, and it is a challenge to paint them - especially on a small canvas! But I like a challenge, and have set out to try to get the feeling of mountains, their bulk and their presence, in my paintings, and especially into these smaller paintings. 

Madera Canyon is a mountainous area just north of here. I imagine it would be pretty spectacular for hiking, as it overlooks more mountains, and to the west, a broad, flat expanse covered with that beautiful yellow grass. 

I painted off the main road on a quite cul-de-sac with no cars whipping by, honking, spewing dust. When I drove up, two deer in the grass bounded away. The rest of the time, I painted undisturbed in the beautiful, warm Arizona afternoon. 

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Madera Canyon is a gorgeous place, with mountains and beautiful yellow grass and great long views. 

When I pulled in to paint, I saw two deer running across the field. 

Ocotillo, the long wavy plants here, get bright red blossoms at their tips in the spring. 

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Dad and I visited a friend of his who lives in the mountains. She's an excellent painter, and her studio looks over parts of her beautiful garden. 

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Dogs of the Day

George (left) and Zack are best of friends. They came to Tubac with their humans, Cynthia and Kevin. Zack and George were such great dogs that they deserve to be the Dogs of the Day.