Sunday Morning at Valley Forge Park

When we arrived at the park we were greeted by the full moon. 

     When it started to get light out I started a sketch of the moon and the maple tree to the right. I used the light from inside the truck to see by.

 This is the sketch, I finished the rest of it at home. I wanted to capture the lighting conditions at the time when it just starts to get light out. I ran out of time because the light changes faster than I can paint.

 The sun started to peek over the horizon.

 The tree I was painting with a little sun on it.

 We got in the truck and and started looking for scenes to photograph, and came upon this guy, he was curious.

 He did a nice job of posing for us.

 Here was a photographer walking away with a big buck walking behind him

 A spot of  color along one of the trails.

 My brother Phil photographing some scenery.

Spent three hours at the park and captured some good images, not a bad way to start the morning.

Annual Flyfishing Trip to Northcentral Pa.

We had another successful trip this year. Caught alot of trout, saw alot of wildlife, and got some painting in too. We had good weather this week except for a little rain on Thursday. We visited the new Elk Visitors Center and went looking for and found a herd of elk. In the 2nd picture you see a bull elk laying down on the top of the hill, he has an impressive set of antlers. The skunk visited us most nights probably because we put out hardboiled eggs for him. He had a unique coloration to his fur, it was white on top and black on the bottom. I was within 8 feet of him  and he showed no fear whatsoever. You never smelled him once. A few times he tried coming up on the porch with us. The one picture shows me on a deadfall with my paintbox and the scene I painted in front of me. The small maple that is outside of the cabin is still mostly green. The picture above that is what it looked like 2 years ago in full color. My avatar is me painting that tree. You would think that after doing this for the last 23 years it would be easy leaving but its not, its always a little quieter on the ride home. What a great area to visit and a great vacation.