" I recommend this art retreat to any of our Lake County artists who think they would enjoy it. One could hardly avoid learning something. Information at www.maynarddixon.com"

       Today is clear and bright with a cobalt blue sky and not a cloud in sight. Paul and Susan Bingham, experienced art dealers who created the Thunderbird Foundation to preserve Maynard Dixon’s work and historic ranch, welcomed me warmly. They are very kind and generous people and they showed me to the log and stone bunkhouse where I will be staying. The kitchen of the two room bunkhouse holds a pot bellied stove and the building does have electricity but no running water. The Binghams told me I am in charge of the whole place while I am here.

       The water is in another larger log building that was Maynard Dixon’s studio. His easel stands there and the walls are hung with some of the western memorabilia that he collected. The building is used for art exhibitions as well.

       Maynard Dixon’s house stands nearby. Also a log building it is decorated western style and is hung with western art, Indian blankets, lariats, etc. A small aqueduct ditch passes through the grounds through which races diamond clear water. Huge cottonwood trees shade the buildings and are now at the peak of their autumn gold foliage.

       The Binghams built a beautiful western modern home and gallery. The gallery is hung with very high quality southwestern paintings. They even have some Maynard Dixons which are very rare today.

       Soon after my arrival, I set up my French easel on the lawn by the bunkhouse, did a sketch and then an acrylic under painting of the bunkhouse itself surrounded by the cottonwoods. I then squeezed oil paints onto the palette and went to work. Well, it didn't come out. I couldn't get the sky the right color of blue and I couldn't duplicate the sunlight shining through the cottonwood leaves. At least I have the first failed painting of the trip behind me. I may try to rework it once it has dried a bit.

       Cup of Noodles beef flavor for lunch and then a dive into the next painting, a small apple tree in fall foliage. Blocked it in and will let it dry before going on. It then occurred to me that I should really be painting the scenery that Maynard Dixon painted, so I sketched the escarpment to the east in afternoon light. Deep shadows already fill the clefts and cracks. Transferred the drawing to a wood panel. Getting cold so I took the painting back to the studio, placed it on Maynard Dixon’s easel sat in Maynard Dixon’s chair and started roughing it in with acrylic.

       Before dinner I fired up the pot bellied stove (name Hottentots cast into the metal). It really puts out the heat and should keep me comfortable. Nuked some popcorn and then a can of noodles and beef washed down with a Budweiser. This primitive bunkhouse is a very historic building. Artists visiting Mr. Dixon would bunk here. This included Conrad Buff, Emil Kosa and Franz Bischoff among others. Ansel Adams stayed here while photographing Zion Park.

       Wow, the nights are cold here this time of year. The tiny space heater in the bunkhouse didn't do a thing and the wood stove will only burn all night if frequently stocked with wood.

       The day finally dawned bright and clear. The transparent water in the aqueduct ditch hurries autumn downstream and away. Grass blades, twigs and golden leaves it sweeps along; gone, gone, gone.

       Hot coffee then off to Barracks Canyon, a delight to the plein aire painter. There is more material here than an artist could paint in a lifetime. The Virgin River, red cliffs, white cliffs, crags and slick rock, junipers, pines and cottonwoods in full color are all here in abundance. The acrylics came out and I set up the easel facing west. Simplifying the landscape was the biggest challenge. There are just too many trees, too many cracks, too many boulders. The acrylics tend to dry much too fast in the low humidity but I found I could make out by spraying the palette with water from time to time.

       By 10 am the sun had stripped me to my tee shirt. At noon I retreated to the shade by the murmuring Virgin River and started a second painting, lunch and a thoughtful cigar. By 1:00pm it was feeling a little cool in the shade. Finished the painting around two and feeling a little tired and sun bleached I headed out to the Thunderbird Motel on Hwy 89. This is absolutely the nicest motel you have ever seen. Coconut cream pie (the best) and a cup of mid afternoon coffee black.

       Let me tell you about “Hole in the Wall.” Down Barracks Canyon a way a large black hole is visible in the canyon wall. This is the entrance to a tunnel bored through soft but dense rock to allow water to drain under the highway above. It takes a little climbing to get into the opening. The walking is easy once inside. The tunnel is maybe 150’ long and quite dark since it makes a bend. Emerging on the other side one finds himself and his dog in a pristine desert wash that can be followed comfortably for some ways until it bumps up to the base of a dry yellow waterfall. This could be climbed but we didn't.

       Back at the Maynard Dixon place I set up my easel again to work more on the painting of the eastern escarpment that I started yesterday at about this time. I had thought a lot about what I would do and the painting advanced quickly. Suddenly a gust of wind upset my little table. Palette, paint tubes, brushes all went flying into the dirt and gravel. Ah, the pleasures of plein aire painting!

       I found I did a little better today. I am starting to get it. The second painting lacks contrast but the other two contain elements that I almost like. So what size are these acrylic sketches? 5 ½ “x7” or 8”x10.”

Day 3

       It didn't seem so cold in the bunkhouse this morning. Juice, hot coffee, granola with milk got me on my way. Headed up Muddy Creek Rd. about 5 miles. It is good that I am driving the Isuzu Trooper because some of these dirt roads are pretty rough and rutted. We stopped on a high bank overlooking the creek which is not muddy this time of year and not much of a creek either. But this made a good vertical composition. The creek leads the eye into the sketch. It curves slightly to the right and disappears right where a golden cottonwood tree shines against the dark greenery. This is obviously the focal point. Beyond it a hill drops down from the right and high above that a butte of decomposing yellow rock nearly touches the top of the panel.

       It is a little cloudy this morning so I had to imagine where the shadows would be. The creek has no blue in it at all but reflects a little of the gray sky. Oils would be more effective for a painting like this, but acrylics are so convenient in the field. This sketch has potential and I may redo it in oil at home. In doing it I learned how to render these juniper trees. Most of the trees here are much more a grayed green than our trees in Lake County - sort of olive drab with some burn umber and white added. And the sunny side of these trees is the same value as the shade side.

       I now know what is wrong with the painting of the escarpment that I finished yesterday afternoon. The two prominent buttresses, which are different, are enough alike to make the painting look two sided and symmetrical. It just doesn't look right. Last evening I saw a painting Maynard Dixon did of the same escarpment. He pushed both of the buttresses way to the left making them seem one unit and solving the problem. So mine is a failed painting in spite of my good shadows. So we learn.

       So here’s how I did the deep shadows in the clefts and gullies. First I painted the areas red,the color of the rocks, varying it a little here and there. Then I mixed blue, burnt umber and white to make a cool gray blue. This I dry brushed roughly over the red. The effects very convincing. I think Maynard Dixon did the same thing when he painted rocky places.

       Wind was predicted. It came up this afternoon while I was 4 miles up Cove Rd. At first I thought there was nothing there to paint and conditions would be impossible. I parked where the yellow clay road bent around a small hillock with a juniper tree atop and a nice rocky slope. Couldn't set up an easel in the wind but figured I could sketch.

       Took my pad and pencil and did a quickie. Kind of liked it so I resketched it on an8x10 panel. Still liked it, so I got my palette with just some burn umber and holding panel and palette in my left hand reinforced the drawing with thin paint and started to block in the darks. The juniper now looked too large,so I reduced it in size. This all seemed easy enough so I put a cobalt blue wash over the sky just to kill the white. Why not keep going? Thinned down some yellow ochre and put a was hover the lights. Then a wash of sap green over the juniper and more burnt umber and blue over the distant range.

       Well, that’s as far as I could go out in the wind. Asti and I drove back to the bunkhouse, put a tarp over the table, poured a glass of Lake County zinfandel and finished the sketch in color in about an hour. This is my first somewhat successful sketch of the trip.

Day 4 and last

       Very cold and windy too again this morning, but sunny and beautiful as well. The cold seems to be loosening the leaves on the cottonwoods. They come fluttering down and blow along the ground until they catch in the grass or a sagebrush.

       Drove up to a high plateau this morning. Had to use 4 wheel drive through some pink sandy spots. Too cold and windy for painting but I did a couple of pencil sketches.

       On the subject of color, let me say that there are some I haven't used. Cerulean blue is one. I could have used it to mix some greens but generally the sky is cobalt. Also haven't used the cadmium yellows and oranges. The muted yellows (Naples and ochre) are more useful here. I wish I had some rusty Indian red but I can make a similar color from cad red and burnt umber plus a little white.

       I returned to Barracks Canyon to get out of the wind. There I tried to paint a rock wall with interesting shapes. Thought I would put a horse and rider at the bottom of it. But I just couldn't get the wall to work. Even worked on it back at the bunkhouse this afternoon and couldn't improve it much. Another thing I haven't mastered is the cottonwood tree. Just can't get them looking right. Maynard Dixon painted them sort of dull with dark trunks, yellow ochre in the shadows and Naples yellow in the highlights - no definition of the foliage at all. His cottonwoods look good. So here’s another lesson learned.

       Did sketch a couple of dead cottonwoods and more rocks. Mid afternoon pie and coffee break, cherry ala mode this time.

       Back at the Dixon Place I fired up the wood stove and settled in to work on already started paintings. Added some chocolate dark to the right corner of the painting I did yesterday. I still pretty much like it.

       Visiting the Gallery I found that Mrs. Bingham is also a painter and quite a good one. Today she was working on a floral about 15” square. She used a gray blue rectangle in the left rear to create depth quite effectively and she had a good composition in the difficult square format.

       Tomorrow I will descend through Zion National Park into Nevada and home to Lake County. I recommend this art retreat to any of our Lake County artists who think they would enjoy it. One could hardly avoid learning something. Information at www.maynarddixon.com

       The crystal water in the ditch by the bunkhouse keeps flowing.