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Tag: Texas

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In praise of Texas parks

Migrating pelicans at McKinney Falls State Park.

If like me, you are a lifelong resident of the northeast, you may have only a dim or cartoonish idea of the culture and landscape of Texas. Before last year, my only experience there was a drive-by of the statehouse in Austin and several days poking around San Antonio and the Hill Country. There are moments in those places that are unbelievably beautiful, but I’ll be the first person to admit my knowledge of Texas is only skin deep.

The wildflowers of Texas are ethereally beautiful.

“You need to come visit and teach here,” my friend and student Mark Gale told me repeatedly. Yeah, yeah, I told him. A workshop needs more than just spectacular scenery; it needs students. And yet Mark and I somehow pulled it together and we had a fantastic group.

But that’s not what I wanted to tell you about. Rather, I’m here to sing the praises of McKinney Falls State Park. When Mark mentioned it to me, I was skeptical. After all, it is just a few miles from downtown Austin. I wasn’t prepared for the solitude and peace of the place, or the beauty of knotted cypress roots. Onion Creek spills over a massive, long limestone scarf, and the water is a delicate blue-green-grey. Above all, there were lupines in their thousands.

The tangled roots of a cypress are worth painting.

Still, from a visitor’s standpoint that’s never enough. We need bathrooms, and the toilet block was fresh and clean. Where were the outhouses I’d expected there in cowboy country? (To be honest, we have state parks here in Maine where an outhouse would be a luxury.)

We residents of the northeast have the idea that with our four hundred years of history we are somehow more civilized than newer, rawer states. Mention Texas in New York and your odds of an anti-Texas comment are about 50-50. That’s absurd. Texas is so large and varied that it defies description. It’s also historic. The first European settlement in Texas was only 61 years after the Pilgrims founded Plymouth colony.

This limestone ledge is a perfect shelter in case of rain.

Texas parks are beautiful and wildly diverse. That’s not just in terms of terrain, but in wildlife. We were painting lupines along McKinney Falls’ ring road, when I noticed skeins of birds high in the sky. “Canada geese?” I asked tentatively, because that didn’t make sense to me. No, they were pelicans. Meanwhile Mark has sent me photos of buffalo from Caprock Canyon, which could give the red rocks of Sedona a run for their money. There are armadillos, wild boars and rattlesnakes.

If I’d had time, I could have hiked, camped, or fished. In the more remote parks, there are extraordinary stargazing opportunities. Because of light pollution, most of us never have a chance to see the heavens unfolded but there are still empty places in Texas.

Not in the park, but one of my favorite places in Austin. We painted nocturnes here.

The other thing I loved about McKinney Falls State Park were the children. There were hundreds of them on school field trips, learning about and loving nature.

Yesterday the wind chill was below zero as I hiked up Beech Hill. I like Maine’s weather, but I spent the walk musing on lupines, which is why I decided to share this blast of spring with you. The lupines will be out in just a little more than two months, and I’ll be there teaching. I hope you will join me.

Reserve your spot now for a workshop in 2025:

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Intimations of spring

Spring Greens, 8X10, oil on archival canvasboard, $652 framed includes shipping and handling in continental US.

Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays me from the swift completion of my hike up Beech Hill (to paraphrase Herodotus and the US Postal Service). Here in Maine, we dropped into the teens last week. However, the worst hiking was through bucketing rain on Monday. I arrived home soaked to the bone and shivering uncontrollably. My student and friend Amy Sirianni stopped by; I met her at my door in a flannel nightgown and robe because I couldn’t get warm.

What’s a poor New Englander to do when both days and nights turn bitter? My mother used to book a flight to Florida for March or April; it gave her something to look forward to. She didn’t want to come home until winter’s back was broken.

Coincidentally, I’ve ended up doing something similar. At the end of March, I’ll again be teaching in Sedona, AZ and Austin, Texas. Instead of shivering in sleet storms, I’ll be in shirtsleeves under clear blue skies. Alleluia.

Most of my workshops are on the east coast, which is my home turf. These are the only two workshops I’m teaching in the west (although I dream of reviving Pecos). Western painting is different from New England in atmosphere, color, and vista. I’m grateful for the opportunity to work in both.

Sedona is a small city of 10,000 people located within the Coconino National Forest. The town is encircled by red sandstone massifs in various stages of erosion. They glow brilliant orange and red in the rising or setting sun.

Peace, 8X16, $903 framed includes shipping and handling in continental US.

“This color looks exaggerated to me,” I told Julie Richard of Sedona Arts Center when I finished Peace, above.

“It’s not,” she answered, most definitely.

Much of what we paint there are long vistas and those incredible red rocks set against junipers, piñons, and prickly pear cactus. We often paint from isolated trailheads, from which we can sometimes watch vast cumulus clouds form over the buttes and mesas and just as quickly blow away.

Avenue B. Market and Deli at night. We had a riot painting nocturnes here.

Austin, on the other hand, is the tenth most populous city in the United States (and grown out of all recognition from the first time I saw it). Our painting sites are urban, including the delightful Avenue B. Grocery and Market, where we painted nocturnes and ate fabulous sandwiches last year. Then there’s McKinney Falls State Park with its huge cypresses and turquoise spill basin. That’s where we painted bluebonnets in their thousands. On that magical day, hundreds of birds flew overhead in long, winding skeins.

“Canada geese?” I asked, confused.

“Pelicans,” someone answered.

I find gift-giving challenging, especially for those people on my list who don’t want or need more stuff. I could look at all the catalogs in the world and still not find the right thing for that person who has everything.

Pensive 8X10, oil on archival canvasboard, $522 includes shipping and handling in continental US.

For him or her, experiences are a better bet. If you’re looking for a truly unique gift this holiday season that feels extra thoughtful, try a workshop. (And if you want a workshop for Christmas, print this out and leave it someplace subtle, like under your spouse’s coffee-cup. He or she can use the code EARLYBIRD to get $25 off any workshop except Sedona, which is already a discounted price).

Also, if you’re thinking of buying a painting as a Christmas gift (another great idea for the person who no longer needs stuff), let me know soon. I’m my own shipping and handling department and I want to be sure your painting is delivered by Christmas. Until the first of the year, you can use the discount code THANKYOUPAINTING10 to get 10% off any painting on my website.

Reserve your spot now for a workshop in 2025:

If you missed my North to Southwest virtual opening and have a high tolerance for listening to me drone on, you can watch it here.