Talking with people

Many people I speak to while painting assume I want absolute quite and no interruptions to create. But I find the interactions motivating. As an outdoor painter, my studio is frequently shared with the public. And those I run into while working are the only people who see everything else. All that did not draw me in. They understand the challenge of choice, especially when I  use the country's most precious landscapes as inspiration. If my subjects were to be removed from their respective landscape, the topography would hold strong, and maybe the trees who once blocked the view of the spring, the bridge, the vista, would miss the removed subject only for the loss of acknowledgement from the viewer, damming them for obstructing their photographs. (As a painter, composing these trees out of view is a frequent activity. I am sure they appreciate that I think of them while doing it.)

The paintings below are of the Mammoth Hot Springs Terraces. The location afforded me several hundred brief conversations with other visitors, a few self reflective comments from others that they should start sketching again, and a young British girl telling me that things were beginning to look proper.