Month: July 2018

La Brea Tar Pits

After we disembarked from our train to Los Angeles, we spent two days in L.A. and saw a bit of the city. It was fun to drive around neighborhoods, but Hollywood was disappointingly gritty and honky took. My favorite place was the La Brea Tar Pits.

In 1903, while drilling for oil, fossils were discovered in these tar pits in what is now central Los Angeles. Fossils of 35 wooly mammoths, as well as saber-toothed tigers and other extinct species have been so far discovered in the ongoing excavation. Here’s a painting of the full-sized models in the tar pit which you see as you enter (I have omitted the skyscrapers you now see in the background). Animals were lured by the water which turned out to be mixed with quicksand-like tar, and they got trapped, as the male is here. In 12,000 B.C., when the last ice age ended and humans crossed to Siberian land bridge to North America and started hunting them, these species became extinct.

Pacific Ocean

We are home now, and I am painting from my photos. Our Amtrak train from Seattle to Los Angeles, the Coast Starlight, went inland for awhile, and then turned toward the ocean.

I’ve lived most of my life near the Atlantic Ocean, and by comparison the Pacific seems more majestic, colder and more forbidding. But we did pass some beaches where people were sunbathing and surfing.  I used a white pen to indicate the edges of the surf.

 

America’s Salad Bowl

We are at home now and have become evangelists for seeing the country by train; you can relax and see America out the window while avoiding driving, interstates and the same chain restaurants.  I still have some paintings I want to create (from my photos) and share with you over the next couple of weeks. I will post them in the order we traveled:  the train from Seattle to Los Angeles, a couple of scenes from L.A., and finally our train trip from L.A. to Chicago across the heartland of America.

The Coast Starlight is the Amtrak train which took us from Seattle to Los Angeles. It travels for a couple of hours  through the Salinas Valley, where agriculture bring in $9 billion each year. Strawberries, lettuce, tomatoes, and spinach are the dominant crops in the valley, as well as broccoli, cauliflower, wine grapes, artichokes, and celery. Due to the intensity of local agriculture, the area has earned itself the nickname “America’s Salad Bowl.” 

 

Seattle Waterfront

When I first started painting 20 years ago, I preferred to paint slowly and take hours to create a finished painting. Now I get a kick out of doing quick sketches, and especially get a high when there is time pressure. This sketch of the Seattle waterfront was done while we were waiting for our order at the Sound View Cafe in Pike’s Place Market.  The orange cranes and crates in the background are loading container ships.  

Traveling on Amtrak

The design of small living spaces — mobile homes, RV’s — is a real art. Bedrooms on Amtrak are cozy and have a couch, chair, closet and storage spaces, sink, toilet and even a little shower. At night they convert to upper and lower beds. They are quite comfortable, the food in the dining car is good, and the views from the observation car are often spectacular. Here are sketches facing each side.

 

 

The Big Sky

Sitting  by a train window hour after hour watching the endless expanse of plains and  farmland of Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota and Montana, helps you appreciate  the immensity of this country. Thinking about how you would feel if you lived there, so different in terms of lifestyle, worldview and even politics than living on the urban and suburban East Coast.

Chicago Skyscrapers

Our first destination on our Amtrak tour of the U.S. was Chicago. We went on the Architecture River Cruise, which is terrific. Chicago is rightly proud of the distinctive architecture of its skyscrapers which line the three branches of the Chicago River. In the last decade the river has become so clean that kayakers paddle nimbly among the big tour boats.

 

Seeing America by Train

I’m so grateful to modern medicine and my double knee replacement two years ago which, after nine years of limited activity, are allowing me to indulge my travel bug.  Bruce and I are just starting a 12-day train trip around the United States, something we’ve wanted to do for a long time. We’ll be taking overnight sleeper trains from Boston > Chicago, Chicago > Seattle, Seattle > Los Angeles, and Los Angeles > Chicago, spending six nights in the train and two nights in each city before returning home. I look forward to sketching and sharing with you.

 

The Frog Pond

In the middle of the Boston Common is a large shallow pond which is a kids’ wading pool in the summer and a skating rink in the winter. Last weekend, in the sweltering heat, it was full of little kids, and here is an impression I did of it.  Sketching people just requires some little marks — the mind of the viewer fills in the rest.

Families Belong Together

In over 600 cities last weekend people marched to protest harsh treatment of immigrants and separating children from their parents in different  detention centers. In Boston, despite sweltering heat, thousands turned out. I finally found a shady tree in the Boston Common to apply paint to my sketch.

One sign quoted Matthew 25:40 “Whatsoever you do to the least of these you do unto me.” Did you know (see map here) that there are juvenile detention centers in Connecticut and New York, and adult detention centers in Boston and all over New England?