Sunday, August 16, 2009

riding a rhino in the rockies











noticed a voice mail on my phone from my friend Sue. amazingly, she was on holidays and was at home working on a painting of a reining horse...normally this time of year, Sue is embroiled in the throes of horse show madness at spruce meadows where she works. huh i thought...so i phoned her. the conversation went something like this...

what ya doin?...
painting...what you doin?...
thinking i need to come out and paint plein aire at your place...ya in?...
oh yeah, I'm in!

so i tossed my french easel, some canvases, brushes and various other bits of painting stuff into the back of the Dirty White Hoe (the Tahoe) with the hopes of attempting to paint the great outdoors. now Sue and Garth live in a wonderful log house in the east slopes of the Rockie mountains west of Calgary. the possibilities for wonderful landscape painting are limitless there...the vistas ridiculously hard for neophyte pleine aire painters such as ourselves..sue even more so than i. i have dabbling the this 'sport' a few times, but pale in comparison to others who excel in plein aire painting in this area, of the likes of Doug Swinton. http://dougswinton.com/

the rhino is an amazing beast. capable of taking us and our supplies out to premo painting sites, and offer us some protection or at least a quick escape from the mother grizzly that been sighted the day before, having killed one of the neighbour's horses to feed her two cubs....eep! it offered little comfort for speed, one's only hope that the noise from the rhino might afford some 'spooking' ability, cuz it sure couldn't outrun a grizzly bear...that i know...

we painted for an hour...a wonderful hour out in the most glorious of landscapes, one which i was feebly trying to capture on canvas. whatever. i had a beer, the company with sue was brilliant, and we were quite smug in the fact that we had made the effort, and we were out!! the paintings kinda sucked, but no matter...we did it.

...we zoomed the rhino back to the log house, where Garth had so thoughtfully BBQ'd us some t bone steaks and potatoes! after supper allowed for some story telling by Garth, a celebrated documentary film maker...tales of dysentery and Japanese hotels....so funny, i laughed so hard i could hardly breathe. for such a serious documentary maker and journalist, his talents could very easily swing over to the comedic side of combat. such a brilliant story teller!!
http://www.google.ca/search?q=garth+pritchard&hl=en&rlz=1T4ADBF_enCA265CA333&start=0&sa=N

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

your gay and I havent painted outside in over one year

and Im not that good when I do

Anonymous said...

nice spot though
you seem to like horses....

Michelle Grant said...

ed, i am sorry to hear that you have not painted outdoors in over one year. perhaps that could be remedied by throwing yourself and your paints into that rhino and getting out there...and don't be too hard on yourself. we all have to practice our craft to get good. the painting i did is not very good at all...but i had beer, a good friend, great weather, and had a wonderful experience...you should try it.

Erik van Elven said...

Very nice plein air, looks like you had a great time. You have a great blog and I'm looking forward to browse through your previous posts here. Best wishes, Erik