Things have been pretty quiet on my blog due to a 10 day family vacation. We headed out west to places I've never been before: the Badlands, Black Hills and Yellowstone. The landscape is so different from the bright green, gently rolling hills and quiet creeks of southwestern Ohio and I was really looking forward to the change in scenery.
In anticipation of this new experience, I made myself a little plein pastel box from a box intended for beads. The bottom is lined with bubble wrap and pieces of foam are glued to a piece of cardboard to keep the pastels from moving around and breaking apart. The plastic clasps seemed a bit flimsy, so I bought a dog collar with a heavy duty metal clasp to keep the box from coming open unexpectedly. I also bought a 5x7" binder filled with pastel paper interleafed with glassine - a very cool product for any plein air pastelist. The ribbon tie was added by me for increased security.
But they were never used. The first day we arrived in the Badlands we drove and walked around a bit, admiring the view and scouting locations. I had intended to wait until evening when the temperatures would be more reasonable and the light less intense. But then we got distracted watching young bighorn sheep scampering about the landscape while the adults munched alongside the road next to our car. A storm was coming in and the light was quickly lost, so I just took many, many reference photos.
And that's pretty much how the trip went. There was just so much to see and our time was limited. But I have close to 500 photos and the memories of a lifetime, so there are no regrets. I am hoping to find the time while my memory is still fresh to fill up the binder - I'm feeling refreshed and inspired, and I needed to take advantage of those feelings before they are lost in the chaos of everyday life again!
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You cannot image the amount of times I lug sketching stuff around and don't draw anything.
ReplyDeleteThe most important thing is that you had a good time with your family.