New Mexico: old houses

There is an adobe house in Santa Fe with a plaque reading "Oldest House in the USA circa 1646 A.D."  However, not far up the hill from Santa Fe is Bandelier National Monument, which is the remains of a large settlement of ancestral Pueblo people occupied from 1150 to 1600, with adobe brick houses in the valley and cave houses carved into the soft volcanic-ash cliffs.  So I think that "Oldest House" claim may be in some dispute.

I drew in Bandelier and Santa Fe on the same day - a stormy one as a cold front passed through.  At Bandelier, we had just climbed up (140 feet) to a kiva (ceremonial underground house) in a big cave on the cliff when a thunderstorm arrived.  It was pouring rain outside, but bone dry inside.  Unfortunately, that "bone dry" included centuries of dust, which became a blinding dust storm with the storm gusts swirling around the cave.  It made for a rushed drawing, because as soon as I mixed up watercolour paint, it filled with dust and became plaster.  Later in the day, I was sitting on a wall of an old church drawing the Santa Fe house when the same winds came by, pulled a big green tarp off part of the church that was being renovated and wrapped it completely around me.  It was definitely an extreme plein air drawing day!

The third old house is in the village of Madrid (pronounced MAD-rid, not ma-DRID).  The village has become a centre of galleries and studios on the scenic route from Albuquerque to Santa Fe, with a lot of brightly painted old houses - except for this one on the main street, which has kept its original decor.  I was talking to an old local character as I drew, and he said "I useta draw, but I quit drinkin', so now I don't draw no more."  I hadn't realized that was such a strong prerequisite.

New Mexico: To, fro, and vehicles not taken

We just got back from 10 days in New Mexico.  It certainly lives up to its licence-plate motto "Land of Enchantment". (Idaho might truly have "Famous Potatoes", but BC's humble "Best Place on Earth" is presumably a matter of personal taste.)  A great thing about time off from work and cabin-building was that I got back to drawing at least once a day.  So, lots of pictures coming soon...

I love to watch the changing environment on the flight from the green mountains of the west coast to the brown mesas and canyons of the Southwestern deserts.  Except for those wings that they inconveniently add to planes...

A main reason for the trip was to go for a hot-air balloon ride at the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta - the biggest hot-air balloon event in the world.  Unfortunately, the wind gods had other ideas, as the breezes were too strong to go up on the morning we had booked.  This is our second weather-canceled balloon ride, so we'll be third-time-lucky next time.  But they did inflate some of the balloons on the ground, which was an impressive site for us, and the tens of thousands of other people who showed up well before dawn (usually the best time to fly, with cold and still air).

Another thing we didn't do was go on the Cumbres and Toltec railway, a 100+ year-old narrow-gauge steam railway that now runs day-long tourist trips from Chama in northern New Mexico into Colorado.  But we did stop to see the trains, including one that was smoking and steaming away in the rail yard.  It's beautiful countryside in the mountains and canyons, especially at this time of year with fall colours, so it will be on the agenda next time we go.

To finish the transportation theme: the inevitable airport picture.  United Airlines and Air Canada generously provided us with an extra 8 hours of travel time on the way home, so lots of opportunity to study the details out the window of the Albuquerque airport.

Spare moments

 I had a quick and meeting-filled trip to Edmonton.  But there are always spare minutes for drawing - waiting for airplanes, waiting for people to show up for meetings, waiting for dinner.  I carry what people think is a laptop case, but it actually contains pens, sketchbooks, watercolour paints, brushes and a little jar of water.

The fire-fighting equipment out the window at the Vancouver airport looked remarkably antique, but at least you don't have to run and find the keys when you need it in a hurry.  While I was doing the painting, one businessman looked at me and said "Now I've seen everything."  I think he might have a limited conception of "everything", but it is rare to see anyone not staring at their smart phone.

The big South Park sign is at a car dealership on Whyte Avenue in Edmonton (well, truck dealership - it's Alberta).  It's not looking its best, with peeling paint, so I'm glad to have drawn it before it disappears.

The table next to me at the Italian restaurant was clearly a family dinner.  They all had heavy dark-rimmed glasses and held their hands clasped under their chins.  None of them noticed me drawing them, because their peripheral vision was so obscured by the thick arms of their glasses.

Three sisters

No, not a Dr Sketchy's gimmick. The Navajo Three Sisters are corn, squash and beans.  These ones are from Kelly's Edible Garden Project sharing garden.  Besides making a complete protein, the three grow together in mutual harmony.  The corn stalks provide a pole for the beans to climb, the squash covers everyone's feet to keep them moist, and the beans fix nitrogen to feed the other two.  They also make a nice palette of colours for an early autumn drawing.

Dr Sketchy's steamy punk and ... theft!

I haven't been drawing much lately - my free time and energy is being spent on the cabin.  But I did get to Dr. Sketchy's for their steam punk themed night, with Ann Narky.  Ms. Narky had a lovely costume, which she was too eager to get rid of.  I couldn't do justice to the complicated dress, monocle and other steam punk accoutrements in 2 minute poses.  We decided that the models should put more of their costumes on as the poses get longer later in the night.

In other news, I had my first art theft.  That is, the first thing I've made that was stolen.  (As opposed to me stealing art.  That's where the Vermeer I have hidden in the basement comes from.)  I made a simple Sears-Roebuck-type leaded-glass window for a local store.  It had been there for a year or so, then someone broke in in the night, unscrewed the window and took it.  Nothing else was stolen.  I figure it must have been a commissioned theft for some unscrupulous collector, or maybe it's being used as collateral for some underworld dealing?  So, something I have in common with Rembrandt, van Gogh and Munch.

Needle Peak

I joined my friend Russ for a hike up Needle Peak, near the Coquihalla summit and about halfway between his home in Kamloops and mine in Vancouver.  It's a great hike, with the first half hour or so on a steep forested slope, but then the rest of the day in rocky subalpine and alpine.  A little scramble took us to the summit, which looks like it should take a lot more climbing to get there.  The drawing has Needle Peak in the background of an alpine tarn on Flatiron mountain, the next peak over, and an easy part of the same day's walk.

Hollyburn cabin

We are working on disassembling an old abandoned cabin in the Hollyburn Ridge area, and eventually rebuilding it.  The cabin dates from the 1920's or 30's and is called The Viking, for reasons lost in antiquity but presumably involving a Scandinavian.  It spent part of its life bright pink, apparently as a protest against some restriction imposed by the municipality that administers the land.  Some of the purlins are an orange that must have come from the 1970's.  So far we have removed a large amount of junk that accumulated in and around the cabin, braced the supports so that it doesn't fall down while we're working on it, removed the metal and shake roofs, and pulled out windows and a framed porch.  The yellow cedar logs will start coming down next.  I did also find some time in there to hike up to the peak.  It was covered in fog, but the bumper crop of huckleberries and blueberries more than made up for the lack of view.