Next, I'm making arrangements with my friend Phil Wagner; oil painter, poet and renaissance man, to paint in Arches National Park at 10 A.M. When I finally arrive this is what I see on the side of the road (photo to the left). Phil has framed and attached make-shift wooden legs to a 32" x 40" piece of plywood, constructing a tabletop-like paint surface for his newest (and largest) plein air painting. Looking very-much like a giant robot spider, I'm waiting for it to start walking around at anytime now.
Phil paints a bright base coat of yellow paint which immediately gets the visitors attention and the cars start pulling over.
I setup my small plein air kit close to him, it looks like a pack of cigarettes next to his rig. During the day we stop and talk to the park visitors, honestly, we posed for probably 10 photos and were captured many more times by the folks in cars who were too busy to talk.
We paint until 3 P.M. at which time Robin Straub, Phil's wife and another great plein air painter arrives to load the contraption into her 4-Runner.
Afterwards I drove out to Wolfe Ranch and hiked to the Delicate Arch Overlook. It's a short hike with the addition of a slickrock rim that rises to the east and adds an additional 1/4 mile to a point that most visitors wont ever see. I stayed on the rocks for probably another 2 hours.
It was warm and peaceful, nearly poetic in-nature.
I saw the first lizard of the year.
I saw Indian Paintbrush blooming.
I took the time to talk to some friendly looking cactus,
and I watched as silent forms of tiny people raced back and forth under the Delicate Arch, so far away that I couldn't hear their chattering.........something of Ed Abbey in all of this.
No comments:
Post a Comment