OLD SOULS

                      Old Souls  | Pastel | 12x18

We set off on a long drive to find the little burg of Cascade. Privately owner, this hamlet for years used to host a yearly weekend gathering of the E Clampus Vitus, a male-only drinking club. Women were invited, of course. Located 20 miles SW of Quincy in Plumas County, Ca, we found it pretty deserted. Fortune smiled upon us and a man came down to talk with us and took us around. Besides the old truck and the dilapidated two story farmhouse, there remains several out-buildings, including a log cabin bar.  Attendees were known for taking their folding chairs and beer and planting themselves in the trickle of a stream (featured in the painting just beyond and below the middle set of shrubs). Here in the watery heat of summer, they would tell stories that grew crazier each hour, in that way that alcohol grows the tale.

Painting Notes:  Using one of my last pieces of Wallis Warm Belgian Mist, I still did an underpainting of darks for the foreground.  I've been working on my grassy foregrounds. To prepare for doing one, I go into my photo file 'Other Artists', pulling up some Karen Margulis grassy foreground paintings and study them for several minutes. This gets me on track for starting with side swipes, then going to random strikes. Another of the challenges of this scene was getting three of the four planes to recede. There is a large field between the dark trees of the left and the sunlit ones in the right rear.