High Sierra UFO

Check out this crazy cloud that went floating by when I was up at almost 11,000 ft in the sierras.  I've never seen anything like it.

It looked like 3 of 4 layered disks, but it also had these funky dark holes punched through it.  Very weird.

Anyone know what this type of cloud might be called?

Some More From The Sierra Trip

Here are a few more images from my  recent Sierra trip.  This first one was a quick stream study I did as we were hiking in:

"Sierra Stream Mini", 6x6, Pastel

For this painting I setup just along the trail, and then of course our mule train with all our gear caught up with me and wanted to pass.  I cleared out what I though was enough room, but that last mule in the lineup must have been really curious.  He swung over towards me and his pack whacked my pastel box.  Luckily I saw him coming and I jumped forward and grabbed my box before the impact.  I kept things mostly intact.  My box got scrambled and required some cleanup, but only one stick was broken.  That could have been a disastrous way to start the trip!

Then the next morning I woke at daybreak and painting this view.  What a place to wake up and have my first morning cup of coffee! I think the view woke me more than the caffeine.

"Sierra Morning Glow", 8x16, Pastel

Artists on the trip

Bill put together this list of pointers to everyone's website.  Thought I'd duplicated it here if you're interested in seeing more work from the trip:

• Daniel Aldana
• Sharon Calahan
• Bill Cone 
• Michele de Braganca
• Paul Kratter
• Terry Miura 
• Ernesto Nemesio
• Bob Watters
• Jim Wodark

High Sierra Painting Trip

I just returned from a week in the mountains.  A group of us (10 artists in all) packed into Chicken Foot and Gem lakes off the Rock Creek trail in the eastern sierras.  This was a trip designed to let us focus on painting, so we had mules bring in the bulk of our supplies and a cook for the duration to keep us well feed.  

I had fantastic time and the days quickly flew by.  Each day went something like this:

-          Wake at dawn (or earlier)

-          Grab of cup of coffee head off to do a morning painting

-          Breakfast at 8:30 or so

-          Pack up a lunch for the day

-          Head off to some more distant lakes or views and spend the late morning and afternoon painting

-          Return for dinner

-          Hang around drinking wine and swapping stories and tried to stay awake until 9pm (without much luck)

I don’t have time for a long post (I’ve got a big backlog of framing to get to for a Sept 10^th show), but Terry Miura is posting a fabulous day-by-day account of the trip that you can read about here:

    http://terrymiura.blogspot.com/2011/08/sierra-pack-trip.html

 OK - I'm going to get back to framing now ...