Seattle & Vicinity

This is the lower facade of the Pioneer Building in downtown Seattle.  It's part of Pioneer Square, a designated historic district that was on the cusp of being torn down at the end of the 1960s.  The district has distinctive Romanesque architectural features, notice all the round edges in the windows.  If you ever have a chance when you're in Seattle, the 1.5 Underground Tour of Seattle around Pioneer Square is well worth your time because it explains how downtown Seattle was built, and literally filled in and up during the turn of the 20th century.

Another great side trip if you plan to come out to the Pacific Northwest is to take one of the Washington State Ferries out to one of the many islands in Puget Sound.  I stayed with family friends Mike and Darden out on Bainbridge Island - thanks so much for a great time! 

Seattle has two harbors, one is salt water right along the downtown.  This is where you get on the ferry to the islands and the Port of Seattle for the large container ships are located.  To the northeast of downtown there is Lake Washington which is home to many recreation vessels/marinas.  Also, many fishing businesses for the northwest have base operations and shipyards in Lake Washington.  Above is the locks that are operated by the Army Corp. of Engineers.  They're open to the public during the daylight hours and they're great to watch the comings and goings of the recreation and commercial boats.  There is also a salmon run along the western side of the canal setup.  There are specially designed window below grade where you can watch the salmon swim up the fish ladder and into the lake!

The view from Hurricane Ridge at Olympic National Park.  The park, almost two hours drive from Seattle, has something for everyone including temperate rain forests full of pine and beautiful mountain vistas.  If you just have a short visit, drive up Hurricane Ridge Road to the visitor center and enjoy the view looking east and south across the high elevations and small glaciers.

The Mountains Around Salt Lake City

Bringham Young, one of the leading figures in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, must have only seen a very small part of the mountains when he brought his people into the valley that would become Salt Lake City.  I drove through one of the canyons on I-80 into Salt Lake, and I thought I had seen it all. (The highway just kept going down and down and down...)  Then, I visited some of the local ski resorts, Alta,  up one of the other canyons that opens up into the valley and it was amazing!  You go from 95 F degrees  in the valley to a cool almost damp 65 F degrees in the mountains.  The watercolor sketch you see above is probably at about 10,000 feet and the clouds were literally riding up the mountains along the ridge and small lake from where I was sitting.

I had a great few days in Salt Lake City staying with my great friends from RISD Max and Laura.  They love hiking and getting outdoors and it was great to get up in the mountains where it was cooler.

The view above is from one of the hills on Antelope Island which sits about five miles off the shore in the Great Salt Lake and is connected to the mainland via a causeway.  The island is about 30 miles or so north of Salt Lake City, and it's a state park.  Most importantly it has a sandy beach so I could go "swimming" in the Great Salt Lake.  Yes it sounds more romantic than it is, you basically go in the, float around for ten minutes, then get back out and take a shower - but it's off the bucket list!

Hello from Rawlins, Wyoming

 Watercolor sketch of Mirror Lake in Medicine Bow National Forest.

I spent this week with my extended family in Rawlins right off Interstate 80 in southeastern Wyoming.  My grandmother's brother on my Mom's side, Leonard Page, lives out here with his wife Jo Ann.  They did a great job showing me around and helping me understand the history and extremes of Wyoming.  As you can see from the photos below, the terrain is extremely varied.  Rawlins is located in one of several valleys along the Rocky Mountain Chain and is pretty close to the Continental Divide.  The famed Oregon Trail crossed through these valleys during the 1800s.

Before the discovery of oil and natural gas in the hills of southern Wyoming, agriculture and herding were the primary industry.  Carbon County had one of the largest wool productions in the United States and even the world.  The sheep feasted on  thirty-nine types of sagebrush that you can make out in the greener portions of the above photo.  The division of the land into private ranches and claims for mineral rights killed the nomadic lifestyle of the sheep herders.

Yes talk about wide open spaces!

Medicine Bow National Forest is located southeast of Rawlins.  The tallest peaks in these mountains reach about 12,000 feet.  If you click on the photo to make it larger you can still see some patches of dirty snow in the upper peaks.  The snow pack allows for plenty of freshwater lakes and streams.  On the day I visited the mountains were a comfortable 70 degrees while down in the valley it was closer to 95.

On first glance you would think these are deciduous trees in winter, but in fact they're conifers that have been devastated by the Pine Beetle.  The western conifer forests are reeling from their exploding population and the mild winters have only helped their numbers expand.  The beetles attack trees from the inside out and by the time the tree is in visible distress the beetles have moved on.  So far there's been little that can be done, but there are some species of pine, the Colorado Blue Spruce that appear to be resistant to the beetle.

More from South Dakota

I had a great time in Badlands National Park!  For someone from the East Coast, if feels like I was walking on the moon through the buttes and pinnacles of clay and volcanic stone.  Many of these deposits, up to 38 million years old, used to be underwater and they're currently eroding at about one inch per year.  I think the photo above does a good job of really capturing how the South Dakota prairie just falls into these canyons.  The name Badlands originally came from French fur trappers in the early 1800s.  They called the area, les mauvaises terres a traverser - bad lands to cross.

Watercolor Sketch of Spearfish Falls in the Northern Black Hills.

The Black Hills are located in western South Dakota just west of Rapid City.  They're a geographic anomaly and are in no way connected to the Rocky Mountains.  The hills rise thousands of feet above the plain and include such famous monuments as Mount Rushmore and the Crazy Horse Memorial (still in progress).  To stay cool (another 100 degree day out here) I opted to go into the northern Black Hills to Spearfish for a scenic drive through sharp craggy pine filled hills.  The waterfall you see above is about 100 feet tall; the mist added some needed humidity to the dry air.

Buffalo herd in Custer State Park.

On the advice of one of my colleagues, Victor, at work, I took a bus tour of the Black Hills with the Fort Hayes Chuckwagon Tours company.  This proved to be a great investment because I could have someone else drive me around for a change.  The nine hour tour visited all the historic sites of the area like Rushmore and Crazy Horse Memorial, and they also visited some of the state parks, including Custer State Park which has it's own Buffalo herd!  As it turns out the Custer herd is the "seed group" for many other buffalo across the country.  The animals didn't pay us much attention as we paused on our trip.  Recall, the buffalo or more properly called bison were hunted to near extinction by white settlers as they moved west.  Today there continues to be efforts made to restore and reintroduce herds in the west.

I'm sure we call can think of some people who should visit this.

The Black Hills is as you can imagine, a tourist and vacation destination, and I just had to pull over and take a picture of this billboard while driving through. (No I didn't go, although I'm sure some of you may be wondering if this would have been a great stop over for me!)



Do You Like Corn?

On my way out to Badlands National Park, it was recommended by one of my teaching peers, Carolyn, that I had to go see Corn Palace.  In the middle of the rolling South Dakota prairie there is this town called Mitchell, and it has a convention center that is literally covered in ears of corn.  Dubbed, "America's Largest Bird Feeder" by the locals, all the designs are made out of 240,000 ears of corn and some wheat mixed in.  The only thing not covered in corn in this picture are the domes on top of the building. The current building has a basketball court inside and large auditorium for concerts.  Each year the Corn Palace is re-designed with a theme, this is the 2012 design behind me recognizing youth activities.  This design will be disassembled in August in preparation for the next harvest.

Another quick watercolor painting of the prairie falling down into the valley surrounding the Missouri River.  Look closely for the farm house in the center of the picture to try to get an idea of the scale of the rolling hills.  This is just up the river from Chamberlin, SD.

Badlands

I've been traveling through Badlands National Park in western South Dakota.  Here's my watercolor sketch of just a small portion of the prairie falling into the sandstone.  More about South Dakota to come!

First Week Recap

The view of downtown Minneapolis from across Lake Calhoun, one of the numerous city parks that surround and are part of the Minneapolis and St. Paul metro area.  It's even big enough to have a few laser sailboats.  Remember to click on the images to make them a little bigger!

I spent a "rest day" in Minneapolis after staying in Chicago for a few days.  A big thanks to Dave and Kate for letting me spend the night.  The Minneapolis Institute of the Arts is currently hosting a traveling exhibition on Rembrandt, a must see for art lovers!

One more building sketch from Chicago.  This is the headquarters for the Chicago Tribune Newspaper on Michigan Avenue.  It's right across the street from the Wrigley Building - see my previous post!

I spent three full days visiting Chicago - still not nearly enough time to get to do all the city, but I was happy to absorb the architecture and surroundings.  There are a few more pocket parks and sight lines in Chicago which makes it easier to paint and sketch than Manhattan.  A big thank-you to the Oldfield Family for hosting me on my trip!

My first stop on my trip was with Laura Nalesnick in Pittsburgh, PA.  This is a view of the Incline Trolley that goes up and down on the steep hill that borders the Ohio River and downtown.  The trolley is controlled by riding a cable that hauls it up/down the track.

I wanted to also show a snapshot of Cincinnati's train station, a beautiful example of Art Deco architecture done in the 1930s.  The station is still in use today and also houses a large museum and the Amtrak Station.

Hello from Chicago!

This is the Wrigley Building looking over the Chicago River on Michigan Ave.  Actually they're two connected buildings from 1921 and 1924.  The clock tower is modeled after the Giralda bell tower in Seville, Spain.

Happy Fourth!

View of the Ohio River looking southeast from Eden Park in Cincinnati.

Brick Row Houses on Mt. Adams hill which is immediately above

the Ohio River and downtown Cincinnati.

Already I'm off to a great start!  I wanted to post two watercolors paintings from Cincinnati, OH before I turned in for the night.  There will be more to come from my first two stays in Pittsburgh, PA and Cincinnati, OH but for now, here's what I did today while everyone else was out of town.