Yellowstone National Park

Tales From The Field: Baby Marmots In Yellowstone National Park

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In June of 2005, I spent some time in Yellowstone National Park, doing what most visitors do….driving around wildlife spotting. On this day I’d gotten going fairly early in the morning so when I pulled into the parking area at Sheepeater’s Cliff, I had it all to myself, at least as far as other humans.

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I got out of the car with my camera and had started to walk towards the basalt cliff formation when I saw movement. A yellow-bellied marmot! I hadn’t seen one in the park before, much less been able to get good photos. And not just one, but three! A mother with her kits. All I had to do was slowly sit down and watch the show. Here are some of my favorite shots from that special morning.

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The youngsters started to play and they were a riot! I was in plain sight but they just carried on as if I wasn’t there.

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They heard something and ran back up to mom.

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But almost immediately started up again.

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Back to the ground for a wrestling match.

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Ouch!

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Payback.

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Back up onto the rocks and a little tidying up.

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This is when you mentally say “Thank you” to your model.

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Back down to the ground and time for some King of the Rock.

Then I heard a car pull in behind me. Fair enough. Heard a door close and footsteps. And some guy walks straight past me towards the marmots with a dinky point and shoot camera. And in an instant they were all gone into the rocks, leaving the guy standing there apparently too dumb or uninformed to realize what he’d done. Needless to say I was pretty irritated at him for interrupting and scaring them off because he couldn’t keep his distance and didn’t take a cue from what I was doing.  But at least I’d already gotten a bunch of great photos.

The rule of thumb in watching any wild animal is that if you do anything to alter its behavior you’re too close. Period. Non-negotiable. We can come and go as we please. The places where people see wildlife are the only homes they have and it and they need to be respected. I understand the temptation to want to get close, but anyone who has done any amount of animal watching knows about “the one step too many”. Please don’t take it.

The reward for patience and stillness…

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Sketches And Watercolors From My Trip To Wyoming

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Pronghorn from taxidermy mount
Pronghorn; water soluble colored pencils from taxidermy mount

I’m back home now from my two week trip to Wyoming, where I spent three great days in Yellowstone National Park, a day and a half in Jackson Hole and five days at the Susan K. Black Foundation Workshop (SKB).

I painted and sketched along the way and at the workshop, trying out a variety of combinations of paper and water media. Here’s an album of some of my pieces, all done on location:

Goose Lake sunset
Goose Lake sunset, done is about 15 minutes; watercolor
Goose Lake
Goose Lake mountain and sunset; watercolor
Bison
Bison; pencil and watercolor
Bison in the Lamar Valley, Yellowstone
Bison in the Lamar Valley, Yellowstone; watercolor
Yellowstone trees; watercolor
Yellowstone trees; watercolor

Since I don’t really paint North American wildlife anymore, I found it liberating to not worry about getting “the shot”, although I ended up with lots of great photos, but instead to focus on sketching the live bison.

Bison sketches; Sakura Micron .01 pen
Bison sketches; Sakura Micron .01 pen
Cottonwoods and a snowy morning, the Lamar Valley, Yellowstone
Cottonwoods and a snowy morning, the Lamar Valley, Yellowstone; watercolor

The third day I was in Yellowstone it snowed in the morning. I drove out to the Lamar Valley and set up my watercolors on the passenger seat of our VW Eurovan camper, then just looked out the windows to do these three studies.

Lamar Valley snow and bison; watercolor
Lamar Valley snow and bison; watercolor

There’s a huge mountainous cliff on the east side of the park that is known as a place to spot mountain goats. And, sure enough, I spotted this nanny and kid with my binoculars. I got out my spotting scope (a Leica Televid) and managed these two quick pen sketches before she and the youngster got up and moved off out of sight.  Then it was back to bison.

Mountain goat nanny and kid; bison; Sakura Micron .01 pen
Mountain goat nanny and kid; bison; Sakura Micron .01 pen

One of the locations at the SKB workshop was a ranch that has been in the same family for over 100 years. Hope to be able to go there again next year.

Cottonwoods, Finley Ranch; watercolor
Cottonwoods, Finley Ranch; watercolor
Cattle skulls
Cattle skulls, Finley Ranch; Precise V5 pen and Koi water brush

Next week I’ll share photos and stories from the workshop.

3 Great Days at Yellowstone National Park Last Week

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Saw a lot of these huge bull bison in the park
Saw a lot of these huge bull bison in the park.

I’m now in Dubois, Wyoming at the Susan K. Black Foundation Workshop and having a inspiring time, chatting, networking and painting with old and new friends and colleagues. I’ll be posting more about that next week, but this time I’d thought I’d share some of the photos I took at Yellowstone National Park last week, starting with the big guy at the top. I never get tired of seeing these huge bulls.

One of the famous Yellowstone "bison jams".
One of the famous Yellowstone “bison jams”. Back-ups can be very long, but the animals have the right of way.
The third day I was there a snowstorm came through I was in the area known at "Little America", just to the west of the Lamar Valley, when, right next to a pullout in a hollow was this small group of bison, hunkered down and waiting it out.
The third day I was there a snowstorm came through I was in the area known at “Little America”, just to the west of the Lamar Valley, when, right next to a pullout in a hollow was this small group of bison, hunkered down and waiting it out.
Young bison calf born very late, but I've been told even these little ones are tough enough to survive the winters.
Young bison calf born very late, but I’ve been told even these little ones are tough enough to survive the winters.
The Lamar Valley is known as the "Serengeti of North America" because it's where you can see scenes like this....a very big herd of bison moving through
The Lamar Valley is known as the “Serengeti of North America” because it’s where you can see scenes like this….a very big herd of bison moving through with pronghorn antelope closer to where I was. And a single male pronghorn closer yet.
Yellowstone scenery.
Yellowstone scenery.
On my way out of the park, I spotted this pair of trumpeter swans floating on the misty river.
On my way out of the park, I spotted this pair of trumpeter swans floating on the misty river.

 

Four New Paintings!

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Here are four more new paintings to go with the two I posted last week. I had a problem with the background in the last one and thought I’d show how it was and how I changed it.

Heading Down For Breakfast 8x10" oil on canvasboard (price on request)
Heading Down For Breakfast 8x10" oil on canvasboard (price on request)

Here is one of the takhi (Przewalski’s horse) that I saw when I was at the Khomiin Tal reintroduction site in western Mongolia in September of 2006. It was first light a group of horses were coming down out of the hills to graze.

Mongol Horse #4; Afternoon Graze 9x12" oil on canvasboard
Mongol Horse #4; Afternoon Graze 9x12" oil on canvasboard (price on request)

This was a harem stallion that I saw at Ikh Nartiin Chuluu last fall. He was also the model for Mongol Horse #2. It amazes me that, given the extreme environment that they are exposed to year in and year out, that these tough small horses grow such long manes and tails. But they do.

Top O' The Morning 10x8" oil on canvasboard (price on request)
Top O' The Morning 10x8" oil on canvasboard (price on request)

I saw this Rocky Mountain bighorn lamb with his mother near Tower Campground in Yellowstone National Park a couple of years ago. They were by the side of the road, which lacked interest as a setting, to say the least. So I moved him.

Catching the Morning Light 9x12" oil on canvasboard (price on request)
Catching the Morning Light 9x12" oil on canvasboard (price on request)

This argali ram, along with five others, gave me an eyeful on my first morning at Baga Gazriin Chuluu Nature Reserve in Mongolia in July. I wanted to work on capturing the quality of light without worrying about painting too many animals, so decided to start with a small painting. I had one idea for the rocks as you’ll see below but, on further review, something wasn’t working. Time to get out the scraper. What do you think was wrong? Answer below the second image.

First version
First version
Detail of scraped out area
Detail of scraped out area

There were a couple of problems. One, in getting into the grooviness of painting the rocks, I completely lost track of my light source. The rocks are in full light, but are on the same plane as the ram. Buzzz. Second, I tried to use what I knew to design the rocks more or less from memory, which resulted in a boring, distracting (what an awful combination!) set of shapes. I went back to the rocks that were in the original photos and saw that they were much less rounded, which provided a needed contrast with the curves of the ram.

Available Next Week on EBay- Small, Affordable, Original Oil Paintings!

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Like many artists, I’m trying to figure out what my sales options are given the current economic climate. I’m also interested in seeing if I can sell art directly on the internet. And, a few months ago, I was showing some friends some of the small studies I do to work on various aspects of painting and one encouraged me to try selling them. Taking this all together, I have decided to offer a “new line” of small oils that I am calling “Studio Studies”, because, well, that’s what they are.

As anyone who paints most days a week knows, they do stack up after awhile and I have a few dozen that I’ve decided I’m willing to find new homes for.

I plan to start offering them a few at a time on EBay, starting next week. Here’s a small preview, starting with one that I photographed in progress, so it’s a short step-by-step demo of how I do these mostly 6″x8″ studies that usually take less than two hours. The idea is to quickly capture a light effect, so detail isn’t relevant. This should look familiar to anyone who has taken Scott Christensen’s Ten Day Plein Air Intensive, because that’s who I learned this approach from and I really like it.

STEP-BY-STEP 8″X 6″ STUDY (from last Friday’s post)-

An image I shot up on Dunraven Pass in Yellowstone National Park at first light. What I was working on the was the color temperature shifts from shadow to light.

Photo reference
Photo reference
Initial lay-in
Initial lay-in
Starting with darkest darks
Starting with darkest darks and basic shapes
Adding light and medium tones
Adding light and medium tones; notice brushwork to create trees
Dawn on Dunraven Pass; 8"x 6"
Dawn on Dunraven Pass; 8"x 6"

Here’s a couple more. First a demo that I did in about an hour at the Marin Art Festival of a small kangaroo which I photographed at a zoo.

Little Kangaroo- 8"x10"
Little Kangaroo- 8"x10"

And a landscape a few minutes from our house looking east from Clam Beach to the bluff. It was summer and the foxgloves were blooming. They’re not a native, but they look like they belong here in Humboldt County.

Clam Beach Bluff; 6"x8"
Clam Beach Bluff; 6"x8"

Finally, since I strongly believe that artists should help and support each other, here, from Alison Stanfield, who runs ArtBizCoach, is some solid advice on “Community”. Thanks, Alison! (Hope it’s readable. Let me know if it’s not.)

community

ART THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

The artistic mind is one that takes years to develop. Painting never gets easier. Struggle is not something that one goes looking for. It will find you. Just give it time.

Scott Christensen, The Nature of Light