Bliss and Tasha enjoyed a day at work.
Foresters spend a lot of time driving. Therefore, we spend a lot of time waiting in road construction. This is how I pass my time waiting. At least when I have no cell phone service.
Bliss isn’t impressed.
Spring wildflower season has begun with a vengeance in the Northern California foothills. Here are a few or the early risers.
Don’t worry if you’ve in the frozen north, spring’s coming!
In Head to Head Bliss we saw Mary’s work in progress. It’s an original watercolor submission, “Food Chain”, for the Sierra Cascade Logging Conference Forestry Education Dinner/Auction. Now for her competition. This is my work in progress
This is a multi-media piece called “Uncle Sam.” Uncle Sam is the name of the little locomotive in the picture. I made a print of my original pen and ink onto 140 lbs watercolor paper. I expanded and enhanced the print with additional pen and ink.
Next I did a two-tone watercolor painting with sepia and raw umber. The goal is to create an original piece reminiscent of an old sepia tone photograph. Both pieces are being framed right now. Stay tuned for our final pieces!
The view of the art table with one of the spreads in progress.
These were all that’s left to do. All have been started. Mary stretched and mounted them all for me, while I was painting. It’s good to have people! Working multiple illustrations at the same time is a very efficient way to get these done. By Sunday night I had completed two more spreads.
This is the view out my window at my painting table, while I work. Not bad.
The inking is complete and I’ve been painting furiously. I taken some vacation time to complete this project. Today I was painting the chipper scene. I posted about that one before.
I couldn’t decide which picture to post, so here’s another.
The Pacific Fisher in mixed media. Pen and ink, and watercolor. This is a spot illustration for the new children’s picture “Timber!”
This is the pen and ink before the watercolor. Which version do you like better?
Sometimes you feel like a nut!
Mary and I were driving into camp last summer and were approaching a little creek. As we rounded a bend in the road, this bear burst out of the blackberry bushes. It ran across the road in front of us and stopped in the blackberries about 30 feet away. I stopped the truck. It stared at us and we stared back. It appeared to be a young bear. It stayed there for a good 3 or 4 minutes while we took pictures. This bear was covered in burrs. unfortunately, that comes with this territory. 
Wild black bears usually run, but this one didn’t. Maybe, being a young bear it was curious. We’ve seen that before, “Curious Young Bear.” We also suspected that it might be a sow and she had a cub that was still below the road. Perhaps, she wasn’t leaving her baby.
Maybe, it was hoping we might stay and pick all those burrs out of it’s fur. After a few minutes of staring at each other, it ambled up the draw in search of a fresh patch of blackberries.
THE FORESTER ARTIST 