Gallons of catch up

I'm a little behind. Also I haven't posted in a while. It's not like I'm lazy, I've just been traveling a lot and can't find the time to post on the road, and I've had a case of the blue funk. It's a bit of a psyche juicer blender thing that usually starts up in May, kinda light blue, goes purple by August, green in December and then slowly subsides ending in April as a nice pastel hue and then it starts all over again. I don't don't think it's at all uncommon but it makes it hard for me to write things.... and paint things. I've found the best thing to do is just keep on pushing on and travel when possible. It doesn't affect the way I paint, just the way I look at it.

So... much to write about. Starting with a campapalooza trip last month to Big Sur down from Monterey with Randy Sexton and Billyo O'donnel (Not Billy, Billyo). It came about at the last minute, just when I had decided no more painting trips for a while, just studio time. Bamm-O.. Billyo sends a note saying he's going to be heading up the Cali coast and needed a copilot. Then Randy says he wants to join in (we do have a lot of fun together, much laughter and hijincks [from the greek god of myrth, Hijinxia]) and immediately, I'm in. I figured it would be a nice cure for the blue funk. Randy drove, we camped, no shipping and frames, so it was affordable.

The general idea was just a fun paint trip with friends without the pressure of having to deliver for a show, which is a whole nuther kind of psyche juicer blender. It was a kind of fun reference gathering trip.... Martin and Lewis and Clark. Randy and I stayed with friends in Monterey while we awaited the arrival of Billyo and as it turned out the plein air convention was going on that very weekend. Having nothing to do, we crashed the party. Well, not really intending to crash it, we stopped in to say hello. Eric Rhodes of Plein Air Magazine sees us and says, come on in. I didn't really want to stay long because we weren't paying for it, so it was hugs to all my painting buddies I haven't seen in a while, bought some art supplies and vamoosed. Though we did manage to have some beers and painting time with a few of the visiting artists and speakers and locals.

We ran into Scott Christensen (great painter, great friend) and his lovely wife Myra and had fun with them, painting, drinks etc.. Scott says, why don't you come out and we will talk about art, I sez, Sure! and that's my next post. I also got to finaly meet Don Demers and Skip Whitcomb in a local bar and those guys are nice as can be. Are there any plein air people who aren't? Billyo arrives and after some painting and supply runs off we go to the camp site.

I don't really want to bore you with all the details but the highlights were:

It's friggin beautiful there and camping at Big sur was dreamy.

Randy Sexton is a Star Scout and knows his stuff about camping, also a hell of a cook. Where I was expecting road kill jerky and red wood pine nuts we got cale with garlic and pasta for dinner.

A skunk invaded our camp and in the middle of the night was scratching at my tent. I knew it was a skunk because it smelled skunky. Randy got out of his tent and shoo'd him off. Apparently it was attracted to the garbage bag that was hung right over my tent.

We hugged the coast and painted all the turn outs but it was windy like you could test an airplane on a rope windy. Our stuff was always getting blown over.

An entire day was devoted to fixing a broken o-ring on the camp stove, rather than just buying a new stove because, that's just how the boys roll.

Fire circles with the best people in the world- priceless.

Billyo plowing in the paint. Literally... with  huge palette knife loads of paint. Fun to watch.

The amazing Randy. Great painter, great guy.

Jesse Powell, another painting phenom and wonderful person with his cuter than anything gal Ashley. He set up the fire circle and let me tell you nothing beats a fire on the beach in Carmel.