6:40 PM: a walk up the creek is always enlivening. the water levels are slowly subsiding as is the danger of flooding. on the way back down we discussed the sketch portion of developing a project. mikela is working on that right now for our educational product, and as i shared some thoughts, i realized that this very blog is a kind of sketch for a possible future book. and that it makes me pay more attention to everything going on around me as potential material for tomorrow's post and tomorrow's painting.
mosquito season is just kicking in, and with all the standing water from record precipitation, it will likely be intense. here in crestone, it usually begins winding down at the end of july. but there's no spraying here, thank god, so in a bad season there are clouds of them
DETAIL: parade 43, 12x56" day 1, 3:15 PM
3:28 PM update: the painting in it's current state, at the end of my work day. i'll resume work in the morning. a moment in time on the rio grande. a son's adventure with his dad. he will remember.
and now, after i clean my brushes, we'll walk up the creek and see if it has risen even more.
1:16 PM update: this is the current state of parade 43. as i said yesterday, i could never have imagined such a rich source of imagery would emerge from our day at the alamosa summerfest on the rio. but it did. and there are more paintings that will emerge in this vein. now, back to work.....
by the way, while eating brunch i perused a book on the great american painter thomas eakins, (1844-1916) who said to his father:
in a big picture you can see........what kind of people there are and what they are doing and why they are doing it. the sentiments run beyond words. if a man makes a hot day he makes it like a hot day he once saw or is seeing; if a sweet face, a face he once saw or which he imagines from old memories or parts of memories and his knowledge, and he combines and combines, never creates-but at the very first combination, no man, and least of all himself, could ever disentangle the feelings that animated him just then...........