We are definitely getting a jump on camping season and making up for all the weekends we didn’t go out last year. Last weekend was our first campout in Colorado for the year and the weekend before that we were back on the Chama River.
April 23rd – 25th | Chama River
Waiting on Dad to grab some firewood. So boring
There were a lot more people on the river than when we were last there in March. We ended up in a different spot that had a pretty popular beach. When we weren’t exploring, we were watching all the boaters going by.
April 30th – May 2nd | Colorado Camping
Last weekend we were a little closer to home, just over Wolf Creek Pass. We were lucky to find the traffic on the main road light this early in the season and more dispersed than when we visited here in July 2019.
Puppy highlights included our hike, which ended up in playing with a 2yr old Bernese we met, a few little patches of snow left at about 9K ft, and plenty of drainages, seeps and creeks to splash the paws in.
The new harness got a good break-in and after a short nap, Juni learned how to play frisbee. Or at least how to chase and chomp the frisbee. Besides outgrowing her little pink harness, it looks like all of her baby teeth have fallen out.
The next morning after coffee around the campfire and taking our time to pack-up, we bounced over to Del Norte for a few pizzas and beers before heading back to Pagosa.
The new year brought a sad parting with our 15yo husky-malamute, Pakak, the pup, the last of our original pack of seven dogs. The house sat quiet and empty for about a week while we allowed ourselves some time. Having spent the last 18 years with a family of four husky-malamutes, we knew we wanted another husky or malamute, a sled dog, a northern breed. We also wanted another rescue dog, so we started looking around our local humane societies and Colorado based breed specific rescues.
Pakak on the Chama River, September 2020
We had every intent of adopting a slightly older dog. We were open to about 2-5 year olds, thinking they may have tougher times finding homes. Through Taysia Blue Husky Rescue, we ended up on the puppy list and within about a week of that, we were notified about and jumped on the opportunity to adopt Juniper.
Her name with her foster family was Olive. She was the only girl in a litter of five named after taco toppings: Pico, Guac, Salsa and Queso. We still had to wait two weeks for her to be old enough to pick up over a weekend haul to Kansas City, at the beginning of February, traversing precarious highways, in snow and freezing fog.
Juniper and her littermates, photos courtesy of Taysia Blue and their foster family
It was so worth it, and she’s been the perfect match. She sleeps in the car yet is adventurous. She loves all the people we meet. We need more experiences with dogs. She was introduced to other dogs in her foster family. The few she’s met around town, she has mostly ignored. She has slept through the night and been the easiest pup we’ve ever had to house-train. To celebrate a month with Juniper and four months since her birthday, we took advantage of a small spring-like window in the weather to camp on the Chama River.
I’ve written about this camping spot before and painted it. We usually seem to visit over shoulder seasons. When we’re lucky there are boaters to watch. This weekend our only nearby neighbors were geese and cows, although we did hear owls and coyotes.
Friday, March 5th
Playing in the snow in the driveway in the morning while Dad hooks up the trailer.
By the afternoon, we were soaking up the sun.
Saturday, March 6th
Evenings are for gathering around the campfire.
Sunday, March 7th
River walks and afternoon climbing. Mud puppy!
Monday, March 8th
A girl could get used to this.
Tuesday, March 9th
Wednesday, March 10th
CHOMP!
Juni turned 4 months old today, and we all celebrated with blueberry pancakes.
Thursday, March 11th
Friday, March 12th
Squeezed in one more nap in Mom’s lap and a few more stick chomps under the rabbit brush before we had to pack up and head home.
I can’t say I’m a complete novice when it comes to watercolor.
I used a simple Crayola set to create this logo for a client…
…and layered washes of color under the colored pencils in this poster for Habitat for Humanity’s Recycled Arts Show.
When my grandfather passed, I created this scene as part of a card for my mom.
Using photoshop to ‘photocopy’ this photo my husband took, I turned it into outlines, printed and re-applied the color using watercolor.
Like knitting and crochet, watercolor may be one of those talents that has somehow been transmitted to me from my ancestors even though I never saw how they executed the skill or viewed much of their handicraft. Grandpa practiced watercolor. Or it could just be something that can be learned with careful observation and practice.
I’ve been working in colored pencil and feel like it has taught me some valuable skills about shading and the use of white space, but I wanted to move into paint.
Paint is naturally more fluid. I feel like the pigments could be more vibrant than pencil, and it just flows, laying down the color much faster. I used to own some acrylics, and have played with enamels, but watercolor has been calling.
Some of my old acrylic paintings from 20+ years ago.
A flower pot decorated in enamel paints, inspired by the seashells we picked up on a visit to Florida in 2017.
The first thing I did was sit down and research recommendations on supplies. There is so much out there! I didn’t know where to start. As I found artists whose artwork I admired, Winsor & Newton was frequently mentioned. Anticipating that I would want a small kit that I could easily take with me, I wanted to keep it all small and compact. For less than $50 on Amazon, I purchased the following:
Winsor & Newton (W&N) Cotman Water Color Paint Sketchers’ Pocket Box
W&N Cotman short handle brush 7pack of assorted styles
W&N Professional Watercolor paper journal, cold pressed 140lb. 5×7
I also bought some masking fluid, but I haven’t used it yet.
Added since my initial order:
some fun washi masking tape for holding down the paper while I paint on a clipboard
Staedtler Pigment Liners, set of 6 in assorted sizes – I thought I wanted a pen that was waterproof, but I have yet to use these with my paints. So far I’ve been sketching very lightly in pencil and using the paint to outline. I’ve been using the pens with my tangling practice.
Since then, I’ve signed up for a watercolor class at my local studio that starts in May. There’s a material list for the class and per the instructor’s recommendation, I bought them all through Cheap Joe’s Art Supplies. So now I have tubes of paint, a palette, and a big block of watercolor paper. My favorite brushes so far are the no. 6 round Princeton Neptune I bought for the class and the no 1 round from the W&N pack for detail.
I’d been reading many artist recommendations and saw that a repetitive theme is to buy larger paper and cut it down to the size you want. I don’t plan on doing that with this block. I would like to try something large before the class but haven’t decided what yet. I like the small sketchbook size because it doesn’t take too long to complete something. Surprisingly, I’ve still been able to achieve a high level of detail, yet I know when I scale up it will open up a whole new world and style. I will probably order another sketchpad for the portability.
Camping on the Chama, featured at the beginning of this post, was my first piece with just my initial W&N supplies. For these succulents—the latest completed artwork, I used some of my new tubes of paint with the palette and new brush and the W&N pans. Here’s a little peek into the process:
I started sketching from an image I found on the internet (left). Concerned with scale and transferring it to the watercolor paper, I decided to use tracing paper to copy more precisely and transfer the outlines.A printout of a photograph from the internet (left). My final watercolor (right).Work in progress. More for next time…
As I mentioned when I launched my new theme, I’d like to get better about using this as a real blog about me and not just talking about my business anymore. I’d also like to get better about posting regularly. So while there’s a lot of technical and business stuff I need to expand on (and am working on), here’s one of those posts that is a little more personal and fun…
The weather is warming up around here and that means more campouts! My husband and I met through Scouting, and the outdoors have always been a focus of our relationship. While we haven’t backpacked in a very long time, we still spend most of our Summer weekends either in a tent or in a Volkswagen.
This was the first trip with our new awning for the bus.
And we don’t even limit it to Summer…the last two years we’ve met up with other VW enthusiasts and camped in the snow/cold in February & March. This year we were able to take our first campout at the end of March. Our destination was the Chama River, Forest Road 151.
There’s a monastery at the end of the road that we have yet to visit. Even this trip, we skipped it as we had 3 of our 5 dogs with us and it was getting late as we looked for a camping spot. We didn’t stop at our usual camp ground because there was already somebody parked there, and we were looking for solitude…which we found on this little stretch of the river.
It was wonderful to get away for two nights. This is also what we’re calling our ‘shakedown’ trip. We’re getting ready for a week-long jaunt into the canyon country of south/central/eastern Utah this month to celebrate our 15 year anniversary at the end of the year—it’s a year-long celebration with a couple of extended trips and music festivals planned throughout the season.
My first attempt at biscuits in the dutch oven was a tasty success!
We’ve decided that the secret to a long life is recharging your batteries in the outdoors—at least that’s what our 14 year-old Golden, Denver, thinks. Every time we think he’s on his last legs, we take him for a trip and are amazed at how he bounces back.
Snoozing Golden Retriever
Pakak loved the proximity to the river.
Our first afternoon, we happened to spot a coyote running down the main road so we made sure all the dogs slept with us, which was a little cramped and very dirty from Pakak’s muddy paws; but when you’ve lived with as many dogs for as long as we have, mud’s nothin’ new.
There was one night after dinner, when we all strolled the river bank. Denver even went for a little bit of a beach run! I think the ‘shakedown’ was a success, and we’re ready for our next adventure. Hope to have some photos and stories to share from our canyon trip soon…
