Disaster Day .. Well, not quite

On the Rocks, pastel, 9 x 12 inches

"This area between Silver City and Deming, New Mexico, is very unusual and beautiful. Huge boulders were flung into the air by a volcano near Albuquerque and landed in a clump approximately a mile in diameter. You can explore, like a maze, just winding your way between the rocks. It is pleasant for picnicing or hiking as you can find cool shaded areas in which to excape the heat of the sun.

This was painted early morning to capture the light. Painted the summer of 2006 with wild flowers and green in the usually dry New Mexico desert. This is one of Jo's favorite paintings for the year." (Quoted from my web page from last year)

Our excursion this morning ran into difficulties. We drove about 35 miles to the City of Rocks. Gene was going to bike back toward Silver City and I was going to paint for a couple of hours and pick him up. When he went to unload his bike the front tire was flat. No problem, just change tubes, air it up and go. He got the old tube out and went to put in his spare and it had the wrong valve. The good thing was that he found out the tube was wrong now and not when he is a million miles from nowhere with no cell phone signal. There are lots of those locations in the mountains. He has been riding about a year with that spare tube! False security! We then load up and go back to Silver City with a stop in Bayard for gasoline as it was $3.09.9 a gallon and has been about $3.29.9 in Silver City. Back in town and the gas had gone down here, too. But only at the Chevron and Exxon stations. Interesting. Anyhow, buy a new tube and to the house to change and go try golfing. Arrived at the golf course that we like so much and there was a tournament in progress. Back to the house to fix the tire, do some e-mail, snack and back to golf. It looked like rain with thunderstorms to the west with much lightening. We decided to try nine holes. The storms went around us, about 5 different ones and we ended up playing 18 holes. Nice afternoon with clouds and beautiful cool weather.


I sketched #1 for Scavenger Hunt 48, the edge of a pond. This sketch is at hole #16. I should have taken a photo, it is a beautiful green. Another day for that. 10 minutes


I sketched #2, tree bark with a knothole of sorts, when we got home. This plum tree hangs over the deck. It is old and has many trunks. 15 minutes

These sketches are in my little Strathmore Sketch (recycled) sketchbook, 3.5 x 5 inches. It has pretty good paper. I really don't like Strathmore pastel paper, it is just awful. It has a deep grid and does not hold any pastel to speak of. I sketched with a regular Pilot ball point pen. They don't leak and are very nice every day pens.

We had dinner, left over Chinese from yesterday. Very good from a fast food place, served cafeteria style. They serve in styrofoam containers as they hope you take it out. We asked to order from the menu and they served us in hard plastic plates. Then we had to ask for a to-go box. They thought we were weird. It was very good, though. No wine there, not even Chinese tea. But, we had white wine with it tonight. Then sat on the deck with wine and coffee. The neighbor had some very eclectic music going, Irish folk songs, Enya, some big band, some Native American, Andean, soft rock and more. It was floating out their window and very enjoyable. Gene put up the bird feeders and some hummingbird feeders so we watched the hummers. One of the items on the Scavenger Hunt is a bird feeder. So I am ready.

Maybe the bike/paint excursion will work tomorrow.