Word has gotten out and that’s typical for a small town like Montrose. Mother passed away a week ago. Many of you have called to express condolences. Thank you. I appreciate it. I’d like to thank the great staff, nurses and doctors at Montrose Memorial Hospital and staff and nurses at Hope West (Hospice) that helped us get through this and my sister Mary for coordinating everything with the funeral home here in Colorado and the one in Anaheim, California. Mother will be buried in the Riverside National Veterans Cemetery with my father. Please let me assure you that her death was a good thing. She’s at peace and happy now, or I assume so. It’s what we‘d like to think anyway. At least the suffering is over. That I’m sure of. Although difficult at first, the grieving is over. All is good and life goes on.

I’m scheduled to leave on my Return to the North Country ride Friday but because of funeral arrangements, I’ve delayed departure until Sunday. For you new comers or those who drop by occasionally, I’ll be riding my Harley back up to the Yukon. The plan is to paint along the way, making a loop through British Columbia to Whitehorse and then back into BC, crossing into Alberta and the Canadian Rockies. With Mother’s passing I can travel and not have to worry about her. That’ll be a big relief. I’m looking forward to the solitary ride.

That’s one thing about riding a motorcycle over long distances, say at least a day or two out. You get some quality one on one time with yourself.  In this case, over a couple of weeks or more it’s also a good idea to be on pretty good terms with yourself. It’s actually sort of like painting. Being an artist is a very solitary life, strange as it may seem. I mean, the act of painting a picture really isn’t a team sport. You’ve got it to do…by yourself. Artists generally spend countless hours in their studios, alone. Some are hungry for social contact but many relish the solitary life.

Spent the 4^th of July camping up on the Uncompahgre Plateau. It was a nice quiet weekend. I don’t do fireworks very well so it was nice to get away and have some quiet time, especially with Mother’s passing. Quality time around the camp fire. Hard to beat. I even managed to get a couple of paintings done.

Next week I’ll be on the road if you’d like to tune into the day to day ride, beginning Monday, go to my blog/website at www.ArtistOnAHarley.com . I’ll be posting the daily activities and what paintings I get done.

This is a little watercolor I did the morning of the 4th of July from our camp. It had rained during the night and the sun was struggling to burn off the humidity in the air. In fact it was so humid that the w/c took and extraordinary length of time to dry. The benefit however was a nice atmospheric look to the painting.

This is an oil of an old lightening struck snag behind our camp. When the sun finally broke out on Saturday morning, it shone through the trees on the snag and the center core looked like it was on fire. I went back Sunday morning and tried to capture it at the same time with the same light effect but is often the case it was over cast and it didn’t look like I was going to get it. I simply took my time and drew the shape in with paint and laid in the basic colors and background and just when I was ready the sun shone again for a very brief couple of minutes and I was able to capture the same effect. Such is the luck of an artist.

I fly out of here to SoCal on Thursday afternoon and will fly back immediately after the funeral Friday morning so I can pack and finish up a few things at the shop before I leave on Sunday. Stay tuned and I’ll update this blog daily and as internet connections will allow as I travel farther into The North Country. Sometimes it get pretty sketchy so I may be out of touch for a day or two but will keep you all posted as best I can.