Exploring Between the Cowbells

Every day or so, I have to take a break from cowbells and painting to stretch my legs and get some fresh air.  Well, I might have to reclassify the air quality, as we found each trip north of Ely that we took to be increasingly smokey.  There is a wild fire burning at Goshute Cave that has of last report consumed 6500 acres of forest and is only 10% contained.  That is just a couple mountains over from where we spent our days exploring. 

We found a wonderful little mountain pass near the ghost town of Cherry Creek called Egan Creek.  A very interesting drive littered with remnants of long past mining activity and whose only current residents are a number of open range cows.  I had to of course stop and take pictures of the cows.  They were so curious and all still had their horns.  There was a particular roan colored cow and her calf that I really loved to see.   I may just have to paint her.




As we drove around, we came across a giant pile of slate.  You could see where they were mining it from both sides of the road and had pushed all the little pieces into huge piles to get them out of their way.





I picked up a number of pieces and brought them back to the camper to try painting on them.  Here are 2 pieces I have finished so far. I think I will attach a hook to the back and put a varnish coat on them and see if they will sell as small wall art.  What do you think?  I love creating art on this sort of surface.  It is always a challenge to incorporate the natural beauty of the stone into the art.  Really, I think I’m just a rockhound at heart.


I will leave you with just couple more interesting photos I was able to take with my phone.  We were treated by a group of wild horses as we drove up Telegraph Pole Canyon Road, antelope and deer and the Fort Pierce Cemetery.  All of this is also part of the historic Pony Express Route of 1860.  I LOVE Nevada history!

Draw Where You Live

The other evening, I was inspired greatly while watching several YouTube videos on the subject of plien air painting.  Both of the artists featured in these videos are extremely successful and skilled artists. They are  Lori McNee and Jim McVicker.  I have signed up to take an online webinar with Lori McNee on the "Secrets of Social Media" and am very much looking forward to all that she has to share on that topic since I love blogging and FaceBook.

The video that Lori had filmed showed her painting a river scene that is just a couple miles from her home in Idaho.  She is there quickly catching the colors and lighting with her paints.    You can really see the scene unfolding as she works.  Right in the middle of her filming session, a moose comes wondering up the river like he wants to be a part of the painting.  I have experienced the thrill of seeing wildlife up close and seeing a moose while camping in the Big Horn Mountains of Wyoming was certainly a thrill.  I was immediately jealous of her ability to be surround my such amazing scenery with such a minimal effort."A Day in the Life of Lori McNee"

The video on Jim McVickers is actually a documentary on him as an artist.  It showed him traveling all over the rugged Northern California countryside painting from a variety of landscapes.  He never uses a reference photo but rather will return to the same location several days in a row or even up to a year later to capture the same lighting conditions.  The film showed several pieces as he started with just sketching roughly in paint and then immediately blocking in the canvas with vibrant colors.  The painting rapidly took shape as the camera man captured Jim working.  Jim McVicker "A Way of Seeing"

Being thoroughly inspired, I was determined to have a positive plein air experience of my own when yesterday when we decided to head out to the desert to do some 4x4 exploring.  I usually paint in acrylics but the air is so dry here that I struggle the whole time trying to keep my paints wet enough to even get it applied to the canvas so I packed my sketching box that includes my travel watercolor kit.    

With our lunch packed and some folding chairs thrown into the back of our old Toyota 4 Runner, my husband and I headed out to the hills.  The day was absolutely amazing.  We had an overcast sky and pleasant mild temperatures.  Usually the afternoon sun wears me out but there was a perfect blanket of clouds that allowed plenty of light but not the glare and radiation that you usually experience whenever you are out in the Southern Nevada desert.  

We did some exploring of some roads out near the area of Coyote Springs and while the scenery wasn't breathtaking and the wildlife we saw wasn't anything as impressive as having a moose walk past there was still something satisfying about sketching in nature.  I did see a couple lizards and a fuzzy tarantula spider that I guess can count as wildlife.  Now that it has finally cooled off enough here I will be heading out more often with my watercolor and pens to practice some plein air of my own.

My plein air sketch of some driftwood I found in the wash

Impressive desert wildlife

I always want to know what is at the end of every road I see.  Well this was the end of the road.

In my adventures that day we had to pass through a barbed wire fence.  My shirt didn't quite make it as you can see.

Road Maps

I have always loved to take a desert road that heads off to some unknown destination just to see what interesting things are just over the next hill.  Nevada has thousands of miles of just such dirt roads.  Some are no more than a wash but they are still reflected as little blue dashes heading somewhere.  I love looking at the topographical map of Nevada.  You know the huge map book that has Nevada divided up into 71 or 72 separate squares.  The map that 1" equals 4 miles. This weekend was just such a Nevada adventure.

Page 65 on my map book followed state highway 375 that runs through Rachel, also know as the extraterrestrial highway and the closest public highway to the infamous area 51.  I wanted to see the site on the map called Tempiute, which I presumed was a ghost town or some past mining effort. The road that headed up into the mountains was a solid line road rather than blue dashes.  The key stated this was a MAJOR ROAD.  The only problem is that in Nevada there are very few road signs, so when I saw the mileage marker that said that the town of Rachel was 20 miles I knew I must be close to my turn off.  I use a real exact and precise measuring tool when exploring... the size of my index finger and middle finger together looks pretty close to one inch to me, so when I measured 5 of these finger lengths from the Rachel back down the line that represents highway 375, I knew that this must be the right road.  So because we are true Nevada explorers...we took it. 

It was a great road heading into the mountains.  We found great places to bring the trailer in the future and go camping.  Just shortly after we got on the road, we passed by a truck that appeared to be driven by a local rancher, complete with a cow pony tied up in the bed of his truck.  We waved as we passed by. We had a wonderful picnic lunch and so about 3:00 in the afternoon we decided to pack it up and continue on.  We headed up further into the mountains, all the time I'm following along our trail on my trusted map.  Completely isolated from anyone we are surprised to find that we are being followed by the same rancher we had passed hours earlier. 

Brad prefers technology so he always brings along some sort of electronic contraption to fight and be frustrated over. No matter what the item is, it never fits properly in the dashboard holder and is always flying out and falling on the floor at the worst moments. This time he brought his hand held Garmin GPS thing that has the 3 x 3 inch screen that I can never figure out.  As we are driving, Brad keeps mentioning that the road we are on is called the Cold Springs Road and that there is a road up a head called the Mail Summit Road..all the valley and mountain names that he keeps blurting out are no where to be found on my map.  As it gets closer to 5:00 I'm getting pretty frustrated because I'm not exactly sure where we are or where to go to get back to the highway.  True explorers would never want to turn around and travel a road they had just been over.  Where is the thrill of discovery in that?

At about 5:30 I decide to flip the page over to page 66 in my map book.  Boy was I shocked to find Cold Springs Road.  I'm so lost that I'm not even on the right page and now I can see we are heading off into the vast emptiness of the Nevada core.  Well at least now that I know what page I'm on I can develop a plan to get us back to some pavement.  We chose to take the Mail Summit Road to Highway 318 just North of Hiko.  We travel 15-20 miles when low and behold we meet a truck on a especially curvy portion of the road.  Would you believe that it is the same rancher that we had seen twice before is now traveling the opposite direction.  He has lost the horse and added a trailer.  Amazing that we would run across this man 3 times in our travels that day.

We breathed a sigh of relief when the highway came into sight.  While I don't like not knowing where I am exactly, I can't help but compare that same lost feeling to so many lives.  We had all the right tools at our disposal.  Detailed maps and electronic gadgets but we weren't using them correctly.  We have the same tool available in the Bible.  In there we have a detailed road map for our lives.  We can learn how to handle our finances, our relationships and how to live a life full of peace and joy.  It all depends on how you use the tool.  Are you guilty like I am so often of just picking it up on my way out the door to go to church or do you really depend on it and study your road map?  Is it part of your life or an object taking up room on the shelf?    I'm going to commit to reading my Father's map book on a regular basis so that I won't get lost when I have a trial or a temptation come my way.  What about you?

Desert Exploring

Awesome old windmill

Nevada is OPEN RANGE country

I wanted to show you some of my own unique Nevada artwork.  Painting scenes from this wonderful state is something very special.  You can check these out in close detail along with many of my other works at my website at julietownsendstudio.com.  Leave me a comment below to let me know what you think.

Here are just a few:

A painting  I did of a ruin at Clifford  off Highway 6 between Tonopah and Warm Springs 

This is very near one of our favorite camping spots in Nevada.  We love to exploring this area and painting the ruins and desert scenery is something I love.  Check out more information and photos of Clifford by following this link:  Clifford Ghost Town

I call this piece "Casting out the Darkeness"

 There is absolutely something special about the sunrise and sunset in the desert.  I'm not sure what it is, but they are more beautiful than almost any place I have been.  I hope I captured this sunrise with this colorful piece.

"Doorway to the Past" is a piece meant to make you consider the strength of those that tried to make Nevada home.