Going Southwest

After months of talking about it with friends in New Mexico and Arizona, today I bought the ticket and on the Summer Solstice will head out to the Southwest region for 4-6 weeks. I hope to spend time camping out in the Canyon-lands, as many as time allows and to see the Grand Canyon and experience a part of the earth I have known only through photos, video, and dreams in my almost 60 years on the planet! I am drawn to the red earth places and have a notion that they hold a piece of mystery I hope to explore... with luck I will find a horse to ride and some kindred souls to dance, and to share good food and fine times with. It is a journey I've wanted to take for a long time and now the pieces have fallen into place to make that possible. I want to paint there and wish I could take all my mediums as I am sure that the landscapes will beg for the silkiness of pastels and the richness of oils... but to travel by air is to travel light so my watercolors will be the ones to come along. I hope to get some good photos and sketches that will later develop into oils and pastels in the studio... and perhaps, if it is the place of magic I imagine, I will return to camp and paint in the Canyons for years to come.