Big Sur

I've been painting this coast for a long time. 

I remembered some lines of poetry I wrote in 1996 here:

http://gregorybottspoetry.blogspot.com/2011/08/big-sur.html

I like the juxtaposition of the old and new site paintings and what they generate in the studio.

Coal Oil Point Reserve

West Campus Reserve

I taught out here in the 80's. It is where my relationship with the landscape began. My friend Hank Pitcher has been painting this for 40 years and has a beautiful show up now in town.

Santa Barbara

Walt Whitman in the poem "Facing Pacific Shores," he looks at the Pacific Ocean and asks writes, "and why is it yet unfound?" By the way Walt never saw the Pacific Ocean.

Sierras and Deep Springs College

I taught at Deep Springs College in 1995. This is a great entry into California. The Sierras loom up like nothing else right from the Owens Valley Floor to the 14,000 foot Mt Whitney.

Deep Springs is a great place reading Melville and Nietzsche in the Desert, they also cowboy through their stay herding cows into the mountains and delivering calves on freezing cold starlit evenings. To say the least a romantic place! In the literary sense.

Zion National Park

It's really hard to paint here. No where to get off the road. Everyone has a certain behavior in motion and if they see me painting they all stop like they saw a bear -- I knew a spot that no onecould see me,  I painted there before. It's really hot and I found a spot of shade with the view.

The moon was just setting behind the mountains at around noon.

North Rim, Grand Canyon, AZ

From Monument Valley all of a sudden one is at 8,500 ft at the North Rim of the Grand Canyon.

Last evening there was a monumental lightning storm, I was ready to die. Never experienced anything like it continuous flashes and thunder for an hour louder and brighter than I've ever seen.

This morning it was in the 50's. Had my down jacket on.

Two more in Monument Valley

 Last evening and this morning.

New Mexico to Arizona

Approach to Monument Valley. I painted a bit off the road to avoid all the French and German tourists driving RV's like-- well I dont know what.

Goosenecks is maybe a better place to stay as they have removed the campground from Monument Valley and put up an awful hotel.

One wonders what anyone thinks?

Always wanted to paint this. I was on a river trip 10 years ago and we arrived to this monument from our entry in Bluff Utah. A great rip which I painted the river and petroglyphs.

This classic view is now the dump. It used to be the best campground in America. Now they have built a Mall like hotel and taken out the facilities for the camping? Who knows?

Off to California

via Monument Valley and Grand Canyon.