A New Attraction: Birds on Long and Skinny Paper

I am still on the bird kick. After a week long Salmon River rafting trip, I came home with the big birds on my mind.  We saw bald eagles (both mature and immature), golden eagles and osprey daily. Their flight over my head burned into my art brain and I could hardly wait to put them on paper. Again with a nod to Japanese wood prints, I split my full sheet of watercolor paper in half the long and skinny way. This provides a unique and elegant look in my mind which suits the subject matter well. 

Osprey Above Me (working title)
Transparent Watercolor
30" x 11"

Here's a photo taken on the trip. I think you can see what inspired the landscape part of the painting.

Since getting home, I also finished #4 of the Western Tanager pieces. I have received a lot of positive comments on these and have considered making prints, something I rarely do. Please let me know what you think about the print idea. I guess I'm asking if you might purchase one. 

So for now, I am focusing on the birds that I see with my own eyes and in my own environment. It is important to me to tell an authentic story, even with something so common as a bird. 

How We Roll--A Summer Camp/Raft Trip Part I

On June 30 we headed out on a 5-day camping trip with our son-in-law, his three children and a fourth grandchild. We were pulling a trailer with all our camp gear plus 3 rafts and equipment for our raft trip down the Middle Fork of the Salmon River. Our son-in-law was pulling his pop-up trailer behind his minivan. Our caravan was quite a sight I'm sure--suburbia meets the Blue River hill-billies.

Mike had planned our trip by renting cabins around Oregon on our way to Idaho using recreation.gov. So these cabins vary in sizes and upkeep. Most have housed Forest Service folks in the past, and some are on high elevations providing wonderful vistas.

The cabins vary in appearance from "creepy" to "adorable" to quote the granddaughters. Creepy included bugs, spiders, and deserted barns full of various animal turds. Adorable included cottontail bunnies, baby birds in a visible nest, and a great creek to play in.

Creepy 

Adorable (inspite of name--Murderer's Creek)

We were traveling during perhaps the hottest week of the summer. At the end of a day sitting in a car, to arrive at a new cabin/campsite, when the temperature was 106 degrees, Hannah wasn't the only one who felt like having a fit. But after a good night's sleep and a cool morning, all of us felt refreshed and ready for the next day's adventure.

The great thing about a trip like this is that the grandchildren get a different view of of the world. We covered a lot of territory and saw some of the most rural parts of our state. We saw desert, forest, mountains, lakes and rivers. We saw wildlife: elk, deer, antelope, cottontails, bald eagles, sandhill cranes, and one marmot. I know they will remember this trip for all they saw and did on this vacation including meeting this precious foal in the ghost town of Granite, Oregon.

We crossed the border of Idaho on July 3 and picked up my daughter, Rachel, at the Boise Airport. With another 2 nights of camping, we ended up at Boundary Creek (at nearly 6000 ft. elevation) where we launched on our Middle Fork raft trip, taking 11 year old Angelica with us. The Carter family saw us off, and then after pulling the pop-up trailer up and down the mountains of Oregon and Idaho, went home to trade in the minivan for a 4-wheel drive!

A Smokey Salmon River Raft Trip

Our 10 day trip started out smokey. We knew ahead of time that we were headed for forest fires on the Salmon River, but because it is a trip requiring permits, we had to go on the dates we'd requested in January.

 

On our way into our launch site, we passed a large fire fighter camp, with tents galore.

 

As we began our trip, the sun shone through the smoke filled sky as a red to orange orb. It felt as though we were on a foreign planet.

 

Early in the trip, I tried to capture the atmosphere in a small sketch.

 

The air was so full of smoke, we wore damp handkerchiefs to filter out some of the smoke going into our lungs. Here is my bandit oarsman . . .

 

and his masked passengers--me with our granddaughter, Angelica.

 

We floated through the active fire. Here are 2 of our 5 raft, one kayak, 16 people party passing by burning trees.

 

The smoke created beautiful colors in the water,

 

and mystical landscapes reminding me of Chinese paintings.

 

We saw many eagles on this trip, both bald and goldens. The smoke seemed to confuse some animals as we saw bats flying during the daytime and insects were more predominant than other trips. A small black deer fly was extremely aggravating on the first half of the trip. They were in abundance, and bit non-stop on the lower legs and feet whenever a person stopped moving. They also were unwelcome passengers on our rafts. 

 

All along the wild and scenic section of the Salmon, we saw evidence of mountain sheep (pellets), with occasional sightings.

 

Eventually, we moved past the fire and a storm front blew the smoke out of the canyon.

 

We were able to focus on the amazing Salmon River rock formations . . .

 

and exciting white water rapids.

 

Can you spot the kayak in there? Look for a blue front tip and a red helmet.

 

I found time to do another sketch of a creek running into the Salmon. This time the colors were bold, not subdued by smoke.

 

Our granddaughter learned to maneuver a raft, starting on the small raft our great-niece, Emily, and friend, Liesl, rowed down the river.

 

Angelica also liked raft hopping--here she is on the Big Boy raft with our great-nephew, Daniel, and friend, Kevin.

The "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" raft.

 

All good things must come to an end, and here we are approaching take-out. It was a fine trip--all rafts and the kayak came through the rapids "messy-side" up (upright). Stay tuned for the upcoming Rogue River post.