Flip Side

Stream bed in the Rockies

You know sometimes when you look back over 10 years or so and you are surprised with how things were at the time, how things have changed and what's endured. This isn't really about archery so much as where I've been and last week, was near that spot again.  I was out in Boulder for work stuff last week and was able to carve out some time to drive up to the Park and get in some Nature, with a capital N.  The light is different there - not all chock full of smog and fog like back East. The shadows are deeper and more serious.

A few years ago, I got all-up serious about painting and took a couple of week long classes from John Fawcett in Clark, CO, spitting distance from Wyoming. John and his lovely wife Elizabeth live up on a ranch with a view to kill by and to paint by as well. His Western art career is well documented and he teaches as well as he paints.

The couple of plein air classes I've been lucky to take there were in September where it frosts overnight and you're sunburnt by 3. Those were fun days, as you spent most of the day soaking in how to get the shadow behind and in front of a front knee proper, the correct nappy ear attitude and taking turns as horse handler, which is basically getting slobbered on while keeping the pony du jour occupied and reasonably still. You had to work fast and loose and keep your watercolors wet in the dry air. After some lecture and critique, we'd head out for a good ranch steak and beer. Yeah, it was a rough trip all around.

Me measuring hip ratio while John pony wrangles this sleepy horse.
Yeahh, it's an old pic of me.

...and just look at that gorgeous hip study there!

I guess I am surprised mostly by how much I've let this go and how much I do miss it some days. I'm also surprised by how much I like the stuff I created. One of these days, maybe they'll get some light and frames on them.