Wild, Wonderful, Wyoming

While Mr. Bechtel and Granny were at Scout Camp, and while Golden Delicious and I were at the Art Clinic, the Spy Twins were having their own adventure in Wyoming and Nebraska.

They wanted to go to the Ricky Quinn clinic and Ricky offered to not charge them as much if they came out a week early and worked for him.  That was great except there was no one to go with them. Mr. Bechtel was in Dallas and then needed for Leadership at camp, and I am nooooo good at pulling trailers.  Finally we decided to just let them go.

They did great.  The suburban broke down in Rock Springs and the trailer lights quit working.  They fixed everything and managed to pull into Rawlins at about one in the morning.  They camped at the fairgrounds.  Pepper rubbed every bit of hair off the top part of his tail and now looks like a dinosaur, and they limped into North Platte the next afternoon.

They worked hard the next week building fence for Ricky.  And then the next week was the clinic.

Mr. Bechtel and I wanted to go see them and help with the drive home.  So we rented a car and drove over.  I think I was slightly delusional because I was so happy to be with Mr. Bechtel on a long drive after not seeing him for so long.  Everything in Wyoming looked beautiful to me.....!!???

Even the old, sad, abandoned gas stations had sort of a romantic appeal...

And I love trains, and Wyoming is definitely train country.  Everything was lovely, perfect.  I told Mr. Bechtel all about how I wanted a little house in a secluded little valley with a stream running through it, and how I would tend my little garden and he and the boys could run cows and we would all live happily ever after.

We stayed in Laramie, where the evening was 70 and calm and serene, which only added to the surreal feeling, since Laramie is never like that.

And then on the way home with the boys everything was gray and brown and desert and ugly and the dream vanished.  I think I imagined the whole thing.

Clinic Wrap Up

I think the thing that meant the most to me at the clinic, was just being able to watch a professional work.  To see how Charles approached a drawing, how he mixed his colors, how he chose to portray things - It was all super interesting.

This is Sharon Dayton, Charles' father.  He posed for us the last morning.  He is eighty and writing a musical play.  I was so intrigued by this that the night of the cook out I couldn't help asking more about it.  The musical is called, Saturday Night.  It is set in a small town in the 1950's.  It is of course a romance, and so delightful!  I was thrilled listening to all the plots twists and turns - except he won't tell me whether the hero gets back together with the girl in the end.  And they NEED TO. Let's hope there is a happy ending and it is not a cautionary tale.  Hate those natural consequences!

Every evening Golden Delicious and I would go for a drive.  So beautiful.

 And one more, very important, final thing.  Cokeville was the home of Minerva Tiechert.  Charles' grand father was actually the model for her Christ in the Red Robe.  We went on a tour of the church house.  There are 2 amazing originals on each side of the choir seats in the chapel.  It was marvelous to get to know more about her life in the community and see some of her art that I'd never seen before.  

The End.

Painting Aspen Trees

This was my favorite morning.  We went up the canyon again to paint whatever we wanted.  Golden and I found this lovely little view, complete with an old log to sit on.  Once again Golden drew a perfect drawing and then got stuck on the colors.  I spent long periods of time holding a paint brush up against the horizon, measuring angles, trying to look thoughtful and like I knew what I was doing.

Charles came over and helped me with the bottoms of the aspen trees.  And when I came home the boys said, "this one's pretty good mom.  You did a good job on the trees."  and I smiled.  Actually, I confessed, but I still like the aspen trees and they are part of my painting now!

I took a close up so if I ever get brave to finish this picture, I will know what they really look like.  Don't forget the purple!

And here's Cheryl.  Hi!  Looking good!

And Lue.  Hey Lue!

And the guys being stoic and not posing.

The Buckaroo Models

One afternoon two cowboys showed up to look at the Dayton's pasture.  Charles talked them into doing a little posing for us.  Knowing how the Spy Twins would have reacted to something like this, I thought these guys were troopers.  

This is Kelly.  Looking dangerously handsome.

Look at the awesome shapes on Kelly's hat (this is the kind of thing people at art clinics discuss)

I thought this was a great still life set up. (this is Nick- you just can't see his face...wait, Nick doesn't seem like the right name.. I can't remember, we'll just call him Nick for now.)

and the chinks...

So one of Charles' favorite things to paint is horses in rabbit brush when it's blooming.  He talked Nick into taking one of his horses out to the back 40 for another little photo session.  The horse was not pleased.  Nick in very quiet cowboy fashion suggested running home to get his own saddle horse. That seemed like it would take too long, so he was a very good sport.  Kelly leaned up against an old car in the field and laughed at him like any good cowboy does when another one is having trouble with foreigners... all of their humor was so like the Spy Twins that Golden and I were immediately homesick.

 Here Nick is politely saying, "you guys might want to move out of the way."

 And here you can see that rabbit brush in bloom and a shiny bay horse really are a synergistic combination!

 Good job, Nick.. Nate?  Looking good.

Day 2

This is Liz, she is Charles' daughter.  She posed for everyone the next morning.  I drew her.  She looked like a slightly movable stick figure.  

Golden Delicious started despairing over colors.  "Ahh!  I hate colors!  I hate paints!  I can't do this!"  She was doing fine.  It was just a bit unnerving to have everyone else (much, much more expert than us) saying things like, "OOH!  I just love the green highlights the grass is throwing onto her shirt!"  and we squint and squint until our eyes are watering and fail to see anything.  Or to have Charles say, "Now in this section, the colors are much warmer.  So be sure to notice the purple tints."  purple tints??  More squinting, more eye watering searching for the elusive warm purple tints.

At lunch, Golden and I would make our little salami sandwiches, grab our ginger ale and sneak upstairs to the loft where we would regain strength to try again in the afternoon.  I would do this by reading the Frank Tenney Johnson book, and JoAnne would escape into some novel.

The cabin was adorable.  After thinking that we would be camping in the back of the suburban, it was pure heaven to have such a nice spot. 

Everyone was super nice.  I liked them all.  They were friendly, encouraging and mellow.  

oh, and Jim had a "Longmire for Sherriff" bumper sticker, which was very funny because we were in Wyoming.

 That evening Charles did a demo on sage brush.  It was fascinating.  He also drew in a background and lots of other stuff.  It is so intriguing to see these impossible things look easy.

Art Clinic Day 1

I had such a marvelous time at the art clinic.  It was like stepping out of my reality into a completely new world.  Golden Delicious and I were late, of course.  We had to get everyone else on the road in Idaho Falls, finish packing up at 5 am, when my brain is very fuzzy, and then nurse the old suburban over to Cokeville, Wyoming.

The clinic was at the Dayton Family Ranch, aka Cottonwood Ranch.  It was beautiful.  We drove down a long, long lane and then stopped at an enormous puddle in the road.  Was it safe?  I tiptoed up to it.  We would try it.  No problem.  Then came another even bigger puddle.  Was it safe?  It tiptoed up to it too.  By this time Charles had sent his teenage son to rescue us, which was highly embarrassing and disruptive to everyone else who was obediently on time and trying to paint a horse.

We quickly unloaded our supplies and tried to act like we knew what we were doing.

We had one easel to share, and at the last minute I threw in the music stand.  The music stand worked great.  It is now covered with oil paint, but it was a life saver.

I sat down on my bench and saw this:

I stared at it forever.  I have no drawing skills whatsoever.  I didn't even know where to begin.  Golden Delicious, meanwhile, is just jumping in and accurately drawing something.

All my attempts were so horrid, I erased them all.  Charles took pity on me and did a little drawing 101 on how to measure, etc.  Very helpful.

 That afternoon we drove up the canyon to a series of waterfalls that were absolutely gorgeous.  So amazing!  It was also about 1,000 degrees and GD and I wanted to chuck the paints and leap into the water and cool off.

Charles traded me his easel and he used the music stand - you can see it works quite well, even for a professional :)  (also I should note here that the Spy Twins HATE GD's hat... "Golden if you ever want to get a date with anyone get rid of that hat..." etc)  It is a  hilarious hat though, and came in very handy during the week. 

I loved being up in the canyon.  After trying to draw a horse, it was heavenly and I thoroughly enjoyed every second.

Home From Scout Camp

This year was Granny Smith's first adventure at Scout Camp.  He arrived home tired, dirty, and very happy.  Mr. Bechtel went with him and they had a great time together.

(Just don't mention Environmental Science... Granny had to report on camp in sacrament mtg. and he said, "well, all I can say is that after one day of e science I was ready to go out and burn some tires...")

I tried to melt into my seat as the congregation howled with laughter.  Gracious.