Like a hot morning coffee on a winter camping day tastes better than coffee ever has, contrast happily alerts our senses. Oak Creek’s miracle of riparian verdure and musical waters are that sort of delightful surprise to visitors who’ve driven to it’s beginnings near Sedona, through miles of dry red rocks, bare dry dirt and Sonoran desert cacti and scrub. A creekside is always nice, but in Arizona’s Sonoran Desert, it demands shedding your shoes at least, and that you not waste of an amazing resource: stop, sit, breathe, and cool at the very least your bare feet, if not your mind. When you do pause, you’ll see blackberry patches, shrub and Gambel Oaks, narrow leaf cottonwoods, sycamores, junipers, some trees 50 feet tall, a wonderful collection of greenery, and this is so surprising a change from the few saguaros of the desert you just left, the canopy does feel like a gift. Surprise and delight. The variety of warm and cool deep greens and rust, sienna and walnut browns beside and in the creek and the sunlit neon lime of the little glade past my stopping point were the painting in my mind. Can you feel it? I’m sure this may remind you of magical streams other places too, and I hope it does, because this is where I feel a connection to humans who were as happy to arrive here thousands of years before I saw it as I am each time I return. Acrylic on canvas, 14” x 11”, in a dark plein air frame with a gold liner.
Like a hot morning coffee on a winter camping day tastes better than coffee ever has, contrast happily alerts our senses. Oak Creek’s miracle of riparian verdure and musical waters are that sort of delightful surprise to visitors who’ve driven to it’s beginnings near Sedona, through miles of dry red rocks, bare dry dirt and Sonoran desert cacti and scrub. A creekside is always nice, but in Arizona’s Sonoran Desert, it demands shedding your shoes at least, and that you not waste of an amazing resource: stop, sit, breathe, and cool at the very least your bare feet, if not your mind. When you do pause, you’ll see blackberry patches, shrub and Gambel Oaks, narrow leaf cottonwoods, sycamores, junipers, some trees 50 feet tall, a wonderful collection of greenery, and this is so surprising a change from the few saguaros of the desert you just left, the canopy does feel like a gift. Surprise and delight. The variety of warm and cool deep greens and rust, sienna and walnut browns beside and in the creek and the sunlit neon lime of the little glade past my stopping point were the painting in my mind. Can you feel it? I’m sure this may remind you of magical streams other places too, and I hope it does, because this is where I feel a connection to humans who were as happy to arrive here thousands of years before I saw it as I am each time I return. Acrylic on canvas, 14” x 11”, in a dark plein air frame with a gold liner.
#178 - Acrylic on Canvas
Painting: 14” x 11”
In Frame: 19.25” x 14.25”
