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Tuesday, August 29, 2017

Eclipse

(Take Note: for those of you who have signed up to be notified by email of new postings to this blog, you have been receiving not just a notification, but an actual copy of the new blog posting as the email.  As this does not show the images of the paintings in the best possible light, you should click on the title of the latest blog posting at the top of the post, and not the title of the painting itself; this will open up the actual blog itself, and you may then enjoy the paintings at their best.)

Monday, August 21, 2017; west of Union Pass, Wind River Range, Wyoming.

Before I tell my eclipse story, I present one of the paintings I did while I was in England over the Winter. 

C1619
“Storm over Botany Bay”
(Isle of Thanet, Kent, England)
Oil Sketch on Pannelli Telati fine CottonPanel
5” x 7”


There was an eclipse of the Sun in 1999, and at that time I lived on the path of totality at Treyarnon Bay, Cornwall, England.  I planned for it.  I bought heavy duty neutral density filters, for my camera and a eclipse goggles for me; made sure I had batteries for my tape recorder as well as my microphone; made sure my watch was synchronized to Universal Time, which happens to be Greenwich Mean Time (Winter Time, not British Summer Time); went out to one of the bronze age round barrows between Porthcothan Bay and Bedruthan Steps (to be close to the Ancients, as well as closer to the centerline of totality), several hours early to set up.  As the morning progressed, people began to wander out to the sea-cliffs, singly and in small family groups or friends; I would not be alone while I made audio notes with my tape recorder.  The morning started out cloudless and beautiful, but as first contact approached, a band of cloud appeared overhead.  IT DID NOT MOVE, as expected, but remained overhead, blocking the Sun, while to both north and south, outside the path of totality, it remained cloudless!!!  The light began to dim, and get a bit weird, but still no Sun/Moon discs to be seen.  Finally it the darkness of totality rushed across the sea towards us and we were engulfed in darkness in the middle of the day.  There was sunlight down at St. Ives, 40 miles away to the south, and it was clear to the north up on High Cliff above Boscastle, and there were sunset colours on the horizon outside the circle of totality, but we were not treated to the ‘hole’ of the Moon surrounded by the Sun’s Corona.  Some teenage girls nearby screamed and shouted like they were at a rock concert when it went dark, but luckily other people nearby overwhelmed by the gravity of the moment shushed them, for which I was grateful.  After totality, when packing up, I was able to glimpse a few seconds of a crescent Sun through a thin section of cloud; I didn’t even need my eclipse goggles!  And that was it … the band of cloud remained until long after last contact. 

Not so for the Eclipse of 2017!  Again my base in Oregon was on the path of totality, but I am not in Oregon; I am in Wyoming a few miles west of Union Pass in the northern Wind River Range, on the forest roads and 20 miles from the nearest paved highway.  I arrived on Saturday, and the journey from Lincoln Portal, above Aspen, to here will be covered in another post.  Even up here on the desperate forest roads there were loads of campers in forest, in their tents, camper vans, and even camper trailers!  I thought perhaps I had left it too late, but the deeper I went the fewer there were, until I found a clearing on a forest road, off a forest road off a forest road, all to myself … nearest neighbors .75 miles away.  A great site to camp, but on eclipse day I moved back up the road 1.25 miles where I had a view of the Grand Tetons 45 miles away, and in the direction from which the Moon’s shadow would come.  Morning of the 21st; Eclipse Day!  A couple of puffy clouds and a few wisps of high cloud in the early morning, but these disappeared well before time.  I arrived and set up my astronomy app on my tablet ready with five minutes to go before first contact.  Using GPS, the app was able to show me the state of the impending eclipse in real time.  I took a couple of photos of the distant Tetons; they were visible, but almost lost in haze.

Tetons lost in haze, but you can detect their snowfields
above the more obvious mountains on the horizon.

I am at Latitude 43.50168°N & Longitude 109.96909°W.

All the following times are USA Mountain Summer Time which is 6 hours behind Greenwich Mean Time (or Universal Time).

10:19:09 - I detect first contact through my eclipse spectacles … a tiny bite out of the Sun-disc, as the Moon, begins its journey across the face of the Sun.

11:10 – by now the Sun is a fat crescent and the light on the landscape is noticeably wan.

11:22 – fourteen minutes to go getting dimmer, and it’s chillier, so I put on a fleece five minutes ago; a breeze has kicked up.

11:24 – put a bandana around my neck.

11:25 – a thinner crescent Sun.

11:30 – a thumbnail crescent; weird light … sunny, but dim … NOT like twilight!
11:31:14 – even dimmer, wierder light; can still see the Tetons.

11:32:16 – the crescent Sun is like the best, thinnest new Moon I have ever seen.

11:33 – very weird dim light ... perhaps unexplainable.

11:35-approximately – the Grand Tetons disappear! (Then during the eclipse they show up darkly silhouetted against the horizon sky).

The Tetons in the Moon’s shadow.

Moon’s shadow fast approaching.

Moon’s shadow almost here.


11:36:09 – Totality begins; took photos of Sun’s corona; probably could not so easily have done this without my new camera (Panasonic Lumix fz70).  I did not perceive the star Regulus with the naked eye (the corona was much brighter than I had expected), but it showed up in my first overexposed photos … I had to under expose by 2-1/2 f-stops to get a proper shot of the corona.  Venus was brightly visible off to the west of the Sun, but did not see Sirius or the stars of Orion; I suspect some were visible, but a nearby tree blocked the view in that direction, and I did not have time to make the few steps to see … there is only so much time available during totality, and boy, does it go so fast!  A lone cricket began to chirp, or perhaps it was a tree frog.

Totality … Sun’s Corona & the First Magnitude Star Regulus,
made out just below left.
11:39-approximately – Tetons back in the sunlight; overexposed in the photos.

Tetons back in Sunlight.

Totality almost over.
11:39:30 – totality ends.

11:48:00 – definitely warmer in temperature.

13:01:24 – last contact of the Moon’s disc observed (through the eclipse specs, of course); by this time I had moved back down to my campsite.

And those were my eclipse notes.  The next day while looking at the forest meadow, I am camped in, through my sunglasses, I realized that the light was similar to the early state of dimming of the light during the eclipse, perhaps as first noted at 11:10, in my notes above.  I wonder if more dense sunglasses would give a sense of the light, as it was even closer to totality?  Would the wierdness effect be present? 

Even here I was not alone.  There was a grouping of two or three trailers, about a hundred yards away on the edge of a grove of trees, which I suspect were all acquaintances.  They were not positioned to see the Moon’s shadow crossing the landscape from the Tetons.  Then there was a camper pickup truck down the road about 300 yards with a couple of people.  They were in a position to see the Tetons, if they so desired.  These neighbors were luckily in quiet awe of the event, with no pop concert shouting … I was grateful. 

All in all this was worth the 843 mile meandering trek north from central Colorado to see, especially since there are so many other landscapes seen and yet to see that were not in my original plans of travel.  It would have been nice to have had clear skies back in 1999, for the Cornish eclipse, so I could have had better knowledge for this one, but I guess this was my once in a lifetime eclipse experience; unforgettable!  If you ever have a chance to see a Solar Eclipse, by all means I highly recommend that you do so.  It gives you a sense of the mechanics of our little corner of the Universe unlike any other event.

For you tech-heads the pigments used in the painting at the top were:
Imprimatura: W&N Venetian Red
Drawing: W&N Ultramarine Deep
Painting: W&N Venetian Red, Cobalt & Ultramarine Deep Blues, also a touch of Cerulean.
Rublev: Blue Ridge Yellow Ochre, Italian Burnt Sienna, Lead White #1.

Monday, August 14, 2017

Into the Mountains

(Take Note: for those of you who have signed up to be notified by email of new postings to this blog, you have been receiving not just a notification, but an actual copy of the new blog posting as the email.  As this does not show the images of the paintings in the best possible light, you should click on the title of the latest blog posting at the top of the post, and not the title of the painting itself; this will open up the actual blog itself, and you may then enjoy the paintings at their best.)

Monday-Thursday, August 7-10, 2017; from Salida to Lincoln Portal near Aspen, Colorado.

C1631
“Late Afternoon in the Lincoln Creek Valley”
(Truro Peak)
Oil Sketch on Pannelli Telati fine CottonPanel
5” x 7”



C1632
“Colorado Mountain Morning”
(Truro Peak)
Oil Sketch on Pannelli Telati fine CottonPanel
5” x 7”



Yes … I have been in the mountains for over a month, at between seven and eight thousand feet, above Golden and also the mountain town of Salida; now I am seven rocky miles in from the nearest paved road, at 10580’, in a beautiful alpine valley, about ¾ mile beyond Grizzly Reservoir at Lincoln Portal.  There is a primitive campground at the reservoir itself, with about five sites, but I chose to advance a distance down the 4-wheel drive road, and found my present dispersed campsite.  It’s great, with a beautiful view looking south up the valley, to Truro Peak on the right, Grizzly Peak on the left and Larson Peak in the distance straight ahead.  There is a band of trees between me and the campground, small though it might be, and the three sites taken by fishermen.
 
The first to greet me as I took up residence, were a pair of Grey Jays, also known as Whisky Jacks or Camp Robbers; old friends these birds, as I see them Up North in Minnesota, as well as in the mountains of the Pacific Northwest.  Then as I was finishing supper the first night, a doe strolled passed my truck, grazing not more than fifteen feet away.  The next day, a chipmunk was busily scuttling around and between the rocks of the fire ring.  He seemed to be gnawing at one rock in particular; I can only assume that there were essential minerals there that he detected, or perhaps he was just sharpening his teeth.  All this was taking place within 3 to 8 feet from me, and he even ran over my boots once, while I stood silently by.  I managed to retreat a stride, retrieve my camera, and get a few shots of the bold little character.

I had left Salida late afternoon on the 7th, and stopped in Buena Vista, for Subway sandwich, using a coupon Dan had given me; good foresight as when I set up a dispersed camp above Twin Lakes, the weather only allowed me to heat water for my thermoses, in preparation for my nightly hot drink, and breakfast the next morning. Even then I heated the water in a light drizzle, before it set in heavier for a few hours.

The next day I got away as soon as I broke camp, intending to breakfast on the other side of Independence Pass on the way to Aspen.  It took me over an hour to climb up to the pass, as I kept stopping for photo-ops.  Breakfast was taken at the top of the pass, rather than somewhere down the other side.  Because of the continuing photo-ops, it took me six hours to make the forty miles over the pass to Aspen, from the previous night’s campsite, but of course a light lunch by a rushing stream was also included in that time.  Independence Pass is, as it turns out, is the highest paved road in North America at 12,052 feet.  Once I had been to my bank in Aspen, I retraced my steps back towards the pass for nine miles to the rough road to Lincoln Portal.  High clearance vehicles recommended, but 4-wheei drive was not necessary; beyond here though, the map shows it the road as 4-wheel drive, and it might be, but not for the mile or so I went beyond my chosen campsite … but it is rough. 

During the days following my arrival here, the doe has made another appearance, the chipmunk has made daily appearances at the fire ring, bringing a friend on occasion, a black squirrel has shown up, and once at night before I turned in, I spotted a red eye shining close to the ground, which turned out to be a grazing rabbit;  the Grey Jays make a daily visit, not staying for long.  The weather has been a mixture of sun and showers, with about 30 seconds of sleet at the start of one of them.  The showers have been unpredictable enough in their arrivals that I have found it expedient to do my paintings from the driver’s seat, with the door(s) open, closing them when they blow through.  And now as I am writing this paragraph, on my fourth night a coyote has just begun to yip and howl close by; at times it sounds not more than fifty yards away … noisy bugger!

During the week the odd vehicle has passed by my camp heading up the valley, but Friday evening brought quite a few, so I expect there are campsites up there.  I chose where I am for the view.  I wonder how many of these people have come out from Aspen, or further afield; a mixture, I suppose.  I have to admit that I didn’t expect the number of people to show up in the valley that did.  And they mostly all went away today (Sunday).  And tomorrow I head out as well.  I was surprised to hear the coyote howling in the middle of the afternoon today, what with all the traffic and the number of campers over the weekend, but perhaps he was expressing his resentment at the hordes.   I hope to get this posted on the blog on my way through Aspen, as  I have had no cell connection for the since my arrival on Tuesday.

Making my way down the seven miles of the Lincoln Creek Valley from my campsite beyond Grizzly Reservoir, sleet & hail began to fall so I pulled into one of the dispersed campsites within two miles of the main highway.  It lasted about fifteen minutes, with the size of the hail reaching about a quarter of an inch, but most less than that.  Luckily, there was no vehicular damage. 

For you tech-heads the pigments used were:
Imprimatura: W&N Venetian Red
Drawing: W&N Ultramarine Deep
Painting: W&N Venetian Red, Cobalt & Ultramarine Deep Blues, also a touch of Cerulean, Cadmiums Orange & Yellow Pale.
Rublev:Blue Ridge Yellow Ochre, Italian Burnt Sienna, Purple Ochre & Lead White #1.
M. Graham: Hansa Yellow

Tuesday, August 8, 2017

Great Sand Dunes National Park

(Take Note: for those of you who have signed up to be notified by email of new postings to this blog, you have been receiving not just a notification, but an actual copy of the new blog posting as the email.  As this does not show the images of the paintings in the best possible light, you should click on the title of the latest blog posting at the top of the post, and not the title of the painting itself; this will open up the actual blog itself, and you may then enjoy the paintings at their best.)

Thursday, July 27; beyond Twin Lakes in the Valley of the North Fork Lake Creek on the road towards Aspen.



Beaver Dam.

Harebell

More Wildflowers.
Further back down the valley towards Twin Lakes.














Tuesday August 1, 2017; Great Sand Dunes National Park.

The highest Dunes of Great Sand Dunes National Park rise to over 700 feet.  In a nutshell they are formed when the creeks wash sediment down from the Sangre de Cristo Mountains into the San Juan Valley, where it is picked up by the prevailing westerly winds and blown back against the mountains, thus forming the dunes.


Vista of the Sand Dunes & Mt. Herard.

Medano Creek & Mt. Herard.






South towards Carbonate Mtn. & Blanco Peak.

Approaching …

… shadows …

… across …

… the dunes.

Upwards towards High Dune & First Ridge

On the way back down.


The Sunlight …

… and cloud shadows …

… were astonishingly …

… beautiful.

Back down to Medano Creek.

Next we crossed over to the west side of the San Juan Valley to Russell Lakes Bird Sanctuary.  The distant thunderclouds were interesting and made up for the fact that the birds were keeping their distance out on the lakes. 







Many thanks to Dan & Lee for my lovely visit.  

And now I’m caught up on my postings and tomorrow (which will be a couple days in the past by the time this is posted), I head out drifting north to the Wind River Range in Wyoming for the eclipse of the Sun in two weeks time.  From here on my postings will be a bit more intermittent, as I have discovered that I can have 4 bars of cell reception, but no internet connection ... I never had experienced that before, until I was crossing Nebraska!  Who knew ... probably the whole World, except for me!!  Next posting should get back see a small Oil  sketch, study or Painting, getting back to the purpose of this blog ... "Not Quite a Painting a Day."

Thank you again Dan & Lee, in Salida, and Martin, above Golden, for making my eastern Rocky Mountain sojourn so enjoyable.

Monday, August 7, 2017

Salida & Forays Therefrom

(Take Note: for those of you who have signed up to be notified by email of new postings to this blog, you have been receiving not just a notification, but an actual copy of the new blog posting as the email.  As this does not show the images of the paintings in the best possible light, you should click on the title of the latest blog posting at the top of the post, and not the title of the painting itself; this will open up the actual blog itself, and you may then enjoy the paintings at their best.)

July 9-August 7, 2017; In Salida.

As I have said, I visited Salida during my time above Golden, and on July 26th I returned to resume my visit with Dan & Lee.  I fully intended to stop along the way and take photos, but the weather was inclement (exciting though!), and I was running late.  I was shown an extremely good time, and although I spent a certain amount of time doing paperwork (does it ever cease?), several forays were undertaken in Salida, and further afield.  The photographs will tell the story.


Frantz Lake on the outskirts of Salida.

A Cormorant on the lake …

… probably a Double-crested.

Another view of Frantz Lake
with the beginnings of the Collegiate Range beyond.

Another lake a short distance from Frantz Lake
and next to the Arkansas River,
with Salida Hill beyond
the cone shaped hill in the center).

This lake … 

… has trout.




Another day …
… a hike …

… was taken  …
… into Browns Canyon …

… to the North …

… of Salida;

… the Arkansas River …

… flows through it;

… and there are …


… wildflowers …

… here too;


… these red ones are some sort of Penstemon.
These two Bambis really wanted to come
and have supper in Dan & Lee’s yard.

“Awww … Please?
 (incidentally, Salida is riddled with deer).

Mt. Princeton, with the “Chalk Cliffs”
displayed at the base;
these are not actual chalk,
but I believe a form of shale.

A storm near Buena Vista, 22 miles north of Salida.

The Castles on forest road 307,
off of US285, east of Buena Vista.

Twin Lakes …

… north of Buena Vista …

… on the way to Leadville.

The next post completes my picture-log of my Salida sojourn.