When I was a kid, on the farm, we had an old Dodge Power Wagon. My dad would send my brother, sister and I out to the field to pick rocks. Where we lived rocks, the size of your fist covered the top of the ground. There was no end to how deep those rocks went under the surface, they went on and on forever.  Our job was to fill the box of the power wagon with rocks, then take it to the rock piles at the edge of the field and throw them out.  When empty, go fill it up again.  We spent days doing that. I hated it. Most boring job in the world, right?

Now I'm painting on rocks. My husband and I get in the truck, head out to a field and pick rocks for hours, lol! We pick and hunt for rocks that are just right, we don't have to pick up every single rock, I guess that's why it's more fun.  We can come home with a pickup load of rocks and have the greatest day ever. Somehow that tickles my funny bone. I can laugh right out loud when I think of being a kid and hating those rocks so much.

In the photo above, you'll see a rock painted a neutral grey, with the beginnings of a bull elk drawn there.  First I found the angle of the slant of his head, then began to draw the shape of his body and the antlers.

Now I'm finding his facial features, and laying down a basic color on his body.

Just adding and correcting his shape here.

Now I added in some background color.  This elk was on a sagebrush flat, so he was surrounded by that soft green color of sage.

Here are a few more details, and placing darks next to lights, and vice versa.  Just to emphasize the elk from his background.

Adding in some sagebrush details and background work.

And here it is finished.  It was so nice, the way his antlers wrapped around the edges of the rock, he just fit! If you've ever spent time with elk during the rut, you can easily "hear" the sound of that bugle coming from his mouth! It's the wildest, free-est sound in the world.  I love it. I can't get enough of watching the elk, and the rut is coming upon us quickly! I can't wait.

If you want to see more bugling elk, visit our store, where you can find rustic wildlife decor for your home!

Thank you for coming by my blog, I hope you enjoyed seeing this bull elk come to life in a painting on a rock! :)

 

 

I had a few more interesting photos from our trip up the Teton Canyon the other day, here's a black bear walking down the dappled trail, looking back at us. We rarely see bears on our excursions so it's extra fun when we got to spend time with this one.

We've watched this tree growing from the rock since we moved here in 2003. In real life, it looks 30 feet tall.  We'd feel sad if we took this drive and saw where it was broken or it gave up on life. It's hard to imagine it can live and thrive in that place, but it does!

There are little streams alongside the road along with empty beaver dams. It seems odd they trap the beaver out of there and don't let them live.  The dams they create are beautiful, the water is so clear there....they make this soft deep green  color.

I loved seeing this shaft of light come through the forest and light up this patch of thimbleberry bushes. It only lasted a second! I was glad I caught it!

This little squirrel was running around a campground where we stopped. Of course he was a busy fellow, up and down trees, throwing pine cones to the ground then coming down in a streak to hide them in the ground or tuck them into hidey holes.

Here's a stump where the squirrel sits to eat when he gets hungry and needs a break from storing food for winter.

Hope you enjoyed the photos, we're planning to take another photo trip before long, possibly up the Sun River Canyon to Gibson Dam.  If we're lucky we'll see more bears in the chokecherries, and possibly the mountain sheep! We never know when we'll be lucky and see wildlife.

Photos and art prints for sale in our Wildlife Indoors store.

Here are some of my latest paintings. This one is named, "On the Cave Wall".  It was represented by the Equis Art Gallery in Red Hook, New York and is sold.

"Carrying Sunshine to her Horses"

"She Reaches out to Many Things but Only Touches the Horse"

This is how some of the paintings begin. I painted the canvas black, I added a thick layer of white paint.  I drew and scribbled into the white paint, threw water on it and picked up the wet paint, and I dropped India Ink into the surface. That created the black and white image you see above.

"Oh How They Danced When The Horse was Created"

When I began to add color, I noticed those wild figures dancing in the background. This kind of reminded me of the days when I was in high school and I loved reading Greek Mythology. One figure is kind of devilish with horns and a tail but I left him in there as some horses are kind of full of mischief and devilish, they're not all perfect, lol!

When I'm painting, I have learned to step myself back and let a painting become what it wants. They just about always let me know. A day or two after I've created a painting, I can not recall the process of painting it, it feels like someone else must have done it.  It's hard to explain what happens when a painting is being created. The process takes over and I'm just a conduit.

"Thank You for the Blessings of the Horse"

Through much the same process a painting is created, the horse came about and Mother Earth loves her creation.

If you happen to come across this blog, I hope you enjoy it. It began many years ago and has a lot of posts.  Take a minute to look back on some of them! And thank you for being here.

Donna

 

Robert had his right shoulder replaced August 11th. It's healing nicely and we were tired of sitting in the house so we took a drive up the Teton Canyon. We'd barely entered the canyon  when we spotted this bear in a huge chokecherry bush.  When we drove forward to see him, he backed up, when we backed up-he went forward.  So we were laughing and playing peek a boo with a bear. It was pretty fun after a couple weeks of staying tight to the house.

When you drive by the ski run and continue on down the pass, you enter the burned area and find an elephant!

Thousands of Montana forests look like this now. It would be a much needed miracle if we could return to the days of well managed forests and prevent this needless waste.

Trees that are this warm color really stand out in the burns. As a photographer, I like the interplay of the warm and cool colors.

This little guy was zooming around in the rocks at the edge of the road. I think they're so cute. We don't find many of them anymore for some reason or another so we're always tickled when one comes out where we can see it.

Ear Mountain, pretty well obscured by smoke in the air from forest fires.

Skinny legged hawk flying off a post. I almost missed a shot at him. :) All in all, it was a good day along the Rocky Mountain Front and we enjoyed it a lot.