Great Basin Valley South of Ely, NV

Part 1. Supplies
My memoir, The Road to Beaver Park, Painting, Perception, and Pilgrimage, tells the story. On Sabbatical we took the kids out of school and went camping for a year. I decided to improve my watercolor painting, so I painted en plein air. This may sound exotic, but it meant that I was at the mercy of wind and sun, gnats, mosquitoes and deer flies, disturbed by passers–by and visiting dogs. I was too warm or too cold by turns. I grew alert to crawling ticks and range cattle. Yet during that year of freedom I carried my art pack and folding stool into one of the most incredible landscapes on the planet: the canyons, deserts, mountains, and river valleys of the Southwestern United States.

The memoir is something of a Painting Primer for beginners; perhaps a refresher for a more accomplished artist. As well, it is an Art Appreciation Course, a travelogue (16 National Parks & Monuments), a Naturalist’s notebook, and the narrative relates how my journey turned into pilgrimage.

✔How did I get started painting? The very first time I painted out of doors I used a simple Prang watercolor set and drawing pad found in the children’s section of a grocery store. I remember sitting at a picnic table in Olympic National Park early in our marriage and painting the trees across the way.

✔20 years later when I packed up to go on Sabbatical my supplies had grown. By that time I had taken several watercolor classes, a year of drawing, a year and a half of printmaking, and had also spent a year doing botanical sketches for Don’s plant book: Wild Edible Plants of Western North America. Naturegraph has kept our book in print since 1970. It has sold close to 100,000 copies.

✔What did I take along? For extra supplies I filled an old wooden paint box with odds and ends of equipment, but for field work I loaded materials into a Boy Scout backpack. The pack was fairly small, with squared corners, rectangular, thin green nylon, very light weight. (For serious backpacking in those days what was available to us were the old Army Surplus heavy duty canvas packs on an aluminum frame. Remember those?) The Boy Scout pack was just the right size and the right weight for me.

That pack accommodated a 12×14  Masonite board, 1/4″, (Don rounded the corners for me); I precut Arches brand of 140 lb. watercolor paper (later I switched to Morilla paper), **four sturdy clips to hold the paper to the board; **roll of drafting tape (similar to masking tape but won’t damage the paper); **two old soup cans, one large for cleanup water, and the other small, to pick up clean water on the brush before dipping it into paint; **extra tubes of watercolor paint; **Allman watercolor palette in a waterproof bag. The 10″ round white plastic palette holds 12 dabs of tube colors and has two large mixing areas in the center.

Somewhere along the way I acquired **a bamboo placemat to wrap around my wet brushes. It was airy and the protected brushes could dry while traveling. I also took along **folded paper towels; **small elephant sponge; **pencil box with HB, 2B, 2H, 6H drawing pencils; **brass pencil sharpener (worth the money); **erasers (used to be Art Gum & kneaded, but the new white ones are better); **one easy–flow ball point pen with permanent ink; and **a waterproof poncho for when I sat on damp ground or to wear in case it rained. This bare bones assortment was lightweight and easy to carry. My small fold–up stool was handy for sitting where there were no flat rocks or logs. I carried a metal canteen in case I was not near a spring or creek. Next week read about Tips and Useful Techniques . . .

Books are available on http://Amazon.com, http://Barnes & Noble.com, and http://Indiebound.com  booksellers.

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