Biking and Painting at Highline Canal

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This is the beautiful idyllic scene we had always wanted to paint. For several years my friend Nancy and I would bike along the Highline Canal in Denver and thought one day we would paint this view. The purple mountains topped with snow are difficult to see but there.

The highline canal bike trail is lined with expensive gorgeous homes shaded and a lovely ride. It is near the southglenn Mall where we parked and headed north on the trail.  We invited Linette, a fellow teacher and avid biker (notice her cool shirt) to come with us for our journey. The ride in was 4.6 miles until we got to the spot.  We set up our easels and started sketching in the scene with our charcoal.

It was fun as different people walked by and looked at our painting.  We think the barn in front used to be an old school. The door was open today and we peered in. Seems as there is some restoration going on with it and part of it used to be used  as a chicken coop.

Here is the three of us set up at work. It was fun to mix our colors and to put down the underpainting for the details I was planning on top.  I put in the sky and green behind the houses and then put in the solid color of the houses and roof. I did not finish but hope to this summer. I found out the brushes we had at school did not do the job for detail but were fine for the background getting the color down.

As you can see each painter chose a different view as their main subject.

Here is Nancy loaded down with her  finished painting ready for the ride back.  We had a great time and hope to try the Hudson Gardens  for our next "en plain air" painting project

The paintings we started. Each one had a different viewpoint. But we all included those mountains.

Denver Chalk Art Weekend

My Adventure in Moab, Utah

One of my ladies groups had gone two years ago on this trip to Arches National Park and I wasn't going to miss it this time. It contains the largest concentration of natural stone arches in the world- more than 2500. These sandstone features are also visible other places in the southwest.  We left early Saturday morning drove 5 1/2 hours to meet up at 1 pm to eat our lunch. At the end of my post there is a link to see us in action in a movie. Kelly had one of those nifty cameras she put ontop of her helmet.

Our fearless leader, Jonna, was the organizer and did all the planning for our group of 20. She booked the guide for our rappelling on Sunday, dinner reservations for saturday night, put together a hike for Saturday when we all met up at the visitor center in Moab. She also found us some lovely cabins in town where we slept in bunk and queen beds.

Here is the famous Delicate arch. The photo above some of us were standing underneath the arch. It is larger than you think.

The views were beautiful surrounding the canyons and the mountains in the distance with snow still on them.

Here is a view as we drove through the park to get to the Delicate arch trailhead.

Later we drove to the Windows section to hike out to see North and South window arch and pictured above is the turret arch.  This was my third time to the park. The first time we did some biking  which is also popular here.

This was the company that took us rappelling. I would recommend them. Our guide, Herb , was very patient with everyone as most had never done this.

On Sunday we met for breakfast and headed to the office to begin our rappelling instruction.  We were all given harness belts, gloves, and a helmet before we set off to the trailhead. We actually went outside the park and left our cars at our ending point (Negro Bill Trailhead) and jumped into our guides van to start the hike.  We took two large ropes with us for the rappelling. The group before leaves one rope and we use that and added ours to it so you were always on a double belay. Except when we did the arch but that comes later... This is a picture of midevil chamber, our first rappelling exercise. We hiked to the edge and each person rappelled down to the slot canyon below. This was scary for me since it was my first time. The second time on the arch was less scary since I knew what to expect.We rappelled 100 feet down that descended into a steep dark shaft and ended on a cool floor of the chamber.

In a short while we came to the top of the Morning Glory Bridge.  You can see the people top left who are getting ready to rappel down the side of the cliff.

We had two choices at this point. We could rappel down the side of the cliff or simul-rappel with another person. In this pic above you can see one person coming down on the right side of the arch with a red helmet on.

All but four of us opted for the Double rappel. The guide tied two ropes together and knotted in the middle of the bridge. I didnt look down when we walked out to the arch. I was pretty narrow only three or four feet wide at the top. We each eased down on either side keeping our weight at the same height as we rappelled down.There were many onlooker watching when we got to the bottom. It was alot of fun! The Arch or bridge span is 243 feet long one of the longest in the world.

We had a two mile hike back to our cars. We followed a river that runs all year. It begins out of a crack underneath the bridge. It was a nice trail with trees and shrubery.

A natural bridge differs from an arch since it spans a watercourse and was chiseled by water. There used to be a waterfall behind the bridge when there was more rain. Now only flows during a thunderstorm. A natural spring gushes through a crack below the left leg of the arch.

Heading back to our cars on the slickrock trail.

Here is a link to a movie Going down the arch together of our group.

Art Journaling at the Ladies Retreat

We were given a nice large room to use for an art area at our retreat.  One afternoon Kim and I taught some art journaling techniques.

People stopped by to see what we were up to and tried some art.

We had lots of magazines to cut out visuals .

Many different color paints were available.

Some people used scripture as inspiration.

Kim and Jen hung out and made art together.

Teachers Night to Create Collage

I invited the teachers and staff to my home for an art class.  I put easels on my ping pong table and wine and snacks on my foosball table.

Everyone brought a photo to use as their focal point.  We used collage papers around the edge of the canvas before we glued down the photo.  Using stickon letters we put a quote or title on the edge of the artwork.

Each painting came out so different.

Each person chose a paint color to coordinate with their photo.

Art in the Desert

For spring Break I planned a hiking trip into the desert. I found some artsy towns that we used as a base while we headed out to do some hiking. We started in Palm Springs but didnt really spend much time there. Mainly we took the tramway up to the top of Mt Jacquinto to do some hiking in the snow.  Here is the moon rising above the palms. It got dark quite early so we did some morning hiking and late afternoon before we had dinner.

The next town was Borrego springs.  Ian joined us in hiking in California. Here is Fonts Point. What a view!

Prehistoric Animal Metal Sculptures are numerous enough to make you think the desert is populated with these fantastic creatures. An easy drive outside the town of Borrego Springs; dirt roads allow you to drive right up to the scultpures. Camels, llamas, horses, mammoths, saber tooth tigers 

Here is another sculpture. One night after dinner we followed a map to find 20 or more of these.

Sunset at our hotel in Borrego Springs. I loved all the palms!

Here was a mission church in JoshuaTree, our next city we stayed in. Sadly, these little towns had no clue what Gluten free was.

The town of 29Palms had many murals throught out the town. One morning I drove around admiring the art. Here is one. Most were done on the side of public buildings, churches, stores, restaurants. 

This mural was on the side of the visitors center