Soward Ranch paint out

We (Coni, David, Cindy and I) went  one day early and stayed above Creede at Santa Maria as the paint out was to start at 8:00  the next morning on Saturday- this is the view of Britol mountain from the west - coming down from Santa Maria at 7 in the morning- on our way to the paint out.

David, Cindy and Coni posing for me with a nice view in the background.  I will post my paintings from the paint out tomorrow-- I still have not had a chance to take pictures of the artwork yet.

After participating in the Headwaters Trust plein air event, I headed to Santa Maria, a private trout club at the base of Bristol Mountain. Jim and my son Jason had already headed up earlier and so took off at about 3:00 and watched the sky stay completely brown with dust all the way there. It was rather depressing- like a huge fire was burning close by. I got settled in to the fishing trailer and the guys were nowhere to be seen- I thought "could they be fishing in this horrible wind?" Yes they were..

Good thing because Jason woke up with the stomach flu at about 12:30 that night and plans kind of changed.. No more fishing for the guys and I stayed up on the mountain a little longer so that I could at least get one painting done. Since this area is above Creede- it wasn't even close to budding out anywhere so I had a difficult time finding anywhere that was very inspiring.

I finally settled on a group of Aspen in an area out of the wind- oh yeah - the wind was blowing by then..

I painted the above 8x10 and drove home and went through my bout with the stomach flu the next day..