Tag Archives: The Great Outdoors

Definition of Poop

Posted on May 26, 2011 by Don West
Definition Of Poop

Definition Of Poop...click for a larger image.

Sketch Text:
Personally, this one’s kinda ugly and lifeless. But I’m sketchin’ for the sake of sketchin’ today because I hear Brother Drawing Funk pecking at my door. I figure if I put something on the page, perhaps he’ll pass me by.

And since this IS a journal, I feel compelled to put the poop down as well. BTW, “poop” is a sort of unsatisfying attempt at creativity. (my definition.)

Further Comments:
“Poop” may seem like a strong word in this context.
Think “shucks”, “darn”, “dang-it” or “dad-burn”. An expression of self-dissatisfaction or the enduring of a mild but unpleasant experience.
And since sketching is supposed to be a good and fulfilling experience for us…when it isn’t, I usually think “poop”.

I hope that clarifies it a bit.

Posted in Sketches and Words, The Great Outdoors | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

Sheep Creek Geological Loop, Utah

Posted on May 19, 2011 by Don West
Sheep Creek Geological Loop, Utah

Sheep Creek Geological Loop, Utah

Sketch Text:
I took a little road trip to see a part of Utah I’d never visited. It turned out to be a 700 mile loop by the time I got back home.

Hint: If you don’t like to drive, don’t go to Utah.
Hint 2: If you like rocks & Dinosaurs, go to Utah. There’s plenty of both.

The scenery was both beautiful and monotonous. I thought the rocks in this little loop [Sheep Creek Geological Loop] were amazing. A billion years exposed.

Additional Comments:
Mother Earth is truly amazing and unfathomably old. Utah provides many areas where Earth’s geology is exposed, showing literally billions of years of rock layers visible in one scene. I find it fascinating, but also hard to grasp…out of reach. I’ll say this: spending a few days around these truly ancient rocks made me feel very, very fortunate to be here for my own little speck of time.

Posted in Old Things, Sketches and Words, The Great Outdoors, Travel | Tagged , , , , , | 4 Comments

Roadside Tubs

Posted on May 5, 2011 by Don West
Roadside Tubs

Roadside Tubs...click for a larger image.

Sketch Text:
I was driving home from the grocery store and these plastic tubs were sitting by the road near a driveway. I thought the colors were unusual for plastic tubs and they just looked kinda cool…like somebody arranged them to look kinda cool.

But that would be silly wouldn’t it?…

Posted in Objects, Sketches and Words with Questions, The Great Outdoors | Tagged , , | 8 Comments

I’m Being Watched…

Posted on April 7, 2011 by Don West
I'm Being Watched

I'm Being Watched...click for a larger image.

Sketch Text:
Outside my front door there lies a field of sagebrush and grass. Here and there one can see small mounds of dirt piled around holes in the ground. In the early morning these little sentries will stand at their post atop the mounds.

When I open the door to leave for work, all the little black eyes turn their attention to me…and stare. They watch me walk to the Jeep.

These are the neighbors. The ones I’ve never met. The quiet ones…that are always up before me…always watching me. Sometimes I wonder if they know something I don’t…like the location of the coyote poop I’m walking directly toward as I stride to the car.

I am entertainment for Prairie Dogs.

Posted in Animals, Sketches and Words, The Great Outdoors | Tagged , , | 8 Comments

Country Roads

Posted on March 25, 2011 by Don West
Country Roads

Country Roads

I was looking through some image archives on the laptop and came across this little imaginary scene I painted in 2008. I thought about its peaceful beckoning to take a walk, drive…or even a life’s journey.

For me I think, it’s about a journey.
How fortunate I am to still be taking one.
How much of a gift the journey is. It is after all a miracle of odds that we are each here being us.

As a frame of reference for me, the caves at Lascaux in southwestern France have paint covered hand prints and animal drawings on the walls that are dated to 14,500 years B.C.
Humans go back even further of course. But I can relate to hand prints and animal drawings in a cave.

So beginning at just 14,500 years ago provides an enormous amount of time for one little thing to go wrong in one’s lineage. But for you and me, nothing did. For you and me to be here…taking this journey…male and female had to meet and mate, create a healthy child, that child had to meet a mate, create a healthy child…on and on and on. The beginning of it all we really don’t know. Certainly well prior to 14,500 years ago.

Considering all that can happen to take a person’s life…thus breaking the chain…earthquakes, accidents, violence, disease…it’s pretty dang special that unique and very long path that has lead to you and me coming to be. One little instance of being in the wrong place at the wrong time for any person in that long chain of mating…and neither you nor I would have ever popped out of a womb and become who we are.

It conjures up images of all those lives if you think about it. The journeys they took.

Makes me appreciate my journey. Good or bad, each day is a gift :-)

Posted in Sketches and Words, The Great Outdoors | Tagged , , , | 9 Comments

Power Pole Art

Posted on March 23, 2011 by Don West
Power Pole Art

Power Pole Art...click for a larger image.

Sketch Text:
I know what you’re thinkin’…

“He’s lost it Harold! Come look! Poor Don is out drawing power poles on his day off…bless his heart! He needs help Harold! What can we do?

Fear not dear reader. I’m o.k.
I simply find power poles are a form of utilitarian sculpture…created by regular Joes just like you and me except for the chewin’ tobacco.

If you pay attention to them as you drive, you’ll find them to possess a great deal of character…even beauty in their complexity.

Some are very simple. Some are loaded with so much stuff one wonders if it’s not a storage pole or somethin’. They are really fun to draw and wonder over. Somebody assembles them and raises them to the sky for a living!

Further Comments:
If you think about it…an enormous amount of raw labor has gone into planting power poles in our country over the years. Without them, you and I would not be using computers, toasters, microwaves, those vibrating toothbrushes, televisions, radios, electric razors, manscaping trimmers, calculators, light bulbs, dishwashers, washer/dryers, refrigerators, coffee makers, copiers and zillions of other devices. In fact, there is precious little we could do if we didn’t have power poles and the power they distribute.

So…the human grit, sweat, thought and strength that has gone into placing each one certainly warrants looking at them in another light…as sculpture…as art…as something worth sketching :-)

Posted in Power Pole Art, Sketches and Words, The Great Outdoors | Tagged , , | 4 Comments

Yellow Day Lily

Posted on March 22, 2011 by Don West
Yellow Day Lily

Yellow Day Lily...click for a larger image.

Sketch Text
Back in October I trimmed back a bunch of Daylily plants for my girlfriend. (Do 53 year old men have girlfriends or ladyfriends?) (And…do 50 year old women have boyfriends or manfriends?)

Daylilies have always been pretty to me…though the blooms only last about a…you guessed it…a DAY. They are prolific though and bloom all summer.

They are bulb (or tuber) plants which means they will spread out on their own to a certain degree. Plant a few and keep ‘em fertilized and before a few summers pass you’ll have blooms out the wazoo.

And that my friends will get you many admirers…and curious looks.

Posted in Plants, Sketches and Words with Questions, The Great Outdoors | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Imaginary River

Posted on September 29, 2010 by Don West
imagined river

Click image for a larger view...

I was poking around in my many unfinished sketchbooks and came across this little sketch. Thursday I intend to go out a sketching. In the mean time I thought I’d post this because I like the spontaneity of it. It says what it needs to say without a lot of fuss.

Everyone likes a certain style no doubt. I’m drawn to loose paintings, drawings, and sketches that express a scene in an almost abstract way, yet evoke a recognizable emotion in the viewer. For me, this one is a simple “getting away from it all” emotion.

I also find that paintings which seem very loose when viewed up close, yet gel into a quite realistic scene from a little further back, also appeal to me. There is as much skill involved in creating a scene that way as there is in carefully rendering a scene with photographic detail. The time involved is far less…but to make up for the lack of time by executing a successful painting…well, that is the skill.

I’d be interested to know from you dear reader…what sort of paintings evoke emotions in you and what sort of paintings do you find yourself drawn to most often?

Posted in Sketches and Words with Questions, The Great Outdoors | Tagged , , , | 6 Comments

A Day at the Park

Posted on September 22, 2010 by Don West

Hardy Water Lillies

My girlfriend and I spent a couple of hours noodling around the Yampa River Botanic Park in Steamboat Springs. We came upon this little pond which had some lilly pads in bloom. I scooted down upon a rock as near as I could get and sketched this. I had to add the color later because, as with everything in life these days, there wasn’t time to do it on site. As the title implies, these are “Hardy Water Lillies”. I dispensed with the scientific name. My apologies to you biologists out there. (Yeah right…I have a ton of biologists reading my blog. I’m runnin’ a regular scientific journal here…uh huh…)

I was also inspired to create a future blog post about the lowly dragon fly…in particular their mating habits. Amazing…absolutely athletically amazing. The little bastards were buzzing all about me as I sketched as if to say, “Hey fatso! betcha caint do this!” And they’d be right.

But that’s another post…

Posted in Sketches and Words, The Great Outdoors | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

A Rock in the Frying Pan

Posted on May 5, 2010 by Don West

Rock in the Frying Pan

I know…”why would anybody put a rock in a frying pan?”

Well, the Frying Pan in this case is a river about thirty minutes from where I live. Geographically speaking, it has its beginnings in the White River National Forest, runs down a canyon to Basalt Colorado, and feeds into the Roaring Fork river, which in turn feeds into the mighty Colorado river in Glenwood Springs Colorado. The Colorado then flows on down to the Pacific ocean near the border of Mexico and Baja California.

The Frying Pan is a pretty little free-stone river and a well known destination for those who like to stand in streams and fly fish for trout. The canyon through which it passes has dropped some rather large boulders from its walls over the eons and this happens to be one of them. A rock in the Frying Pan. I found it interesting because a stunted, lone pine tree had lived its short life aboard this rock…a skeleton being all that remains in the patch of grass that provided its start. The rock too was interesting. In fact, for a person who likes rocks and geology, this is a great place to spend your time. And if that person also likes to sketch or paint, well there ya go friend. Rocks, a canyon, a river, trout, fly fishermen, pines, watercolors, paper, brushes, sunshine, low humidity, a nice breeze, no snakes…and time. And I guess a Bud Light if you’re so inclined. Just don’t leave the can.

Posted in Sketches and Words, The Great Outdoors | Tagged , , , , , | 6 Comments