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Sucia Island

I haven’t posted in over a year but I’ve been doing things! Mostly I’ve been out hiking and kayaking, and in September I started riding horses again. I may or may not fill in the past year, but for now, here’s the 3 day trip from this week. I’ve been hearing about kayaking trips to Sucia Island (north of Orcas) for years now and I finally got to go with NSSKA.

The entire island is a state park and can only be reached by boat. There is no ferry service to the island. Most people arrive by motor boat, and we saw a few professional tour groups while we were there, but we made the 2 mile crossing after first visiting a Cascade Marine Trails campsite at Point Doughty.

Our original plan was to stay two nights and explore Matia and Patos islands, but forecasted high winds convinced us to return after only one night. We spent our second night at Moran State Park, paddled two of the lakes there, and went for a hike.

Arriving at Fox Bay Camp
Looking back at our campsite from a hiking trail
Some of the views around Sucia
Hike around the island
Fossil fish on Sucia
Sucia, Patos and Matia islands from Orcas
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Larrabee Park South – Kayak Trip Report

This is from April 26, but I’m just updating my blog now. We launched from Larrabee State Park and paddled south. We had a bit of wind at the start but that soon died down and on our return it was glassy smooth. We seemed to have encountered a nude beach and another good resting point that was occupied so we kept going until we found ourselves in what looked like a commercial oyster bed, so we exited that quickly and started on our way back. What we did find that was interesting was a rock carving (I assume modern) and a bunch of wind-sculpted Chuckanut sandstone. Overall I found the paddle south to be not as interesting as going north, but it was a good day to be on the water.

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Landscapes

I haven’t been painting as much as I planned but I’ve started sketching again so hopefully I’ll start turning those into paintings again soon. I have two new ones, the first is a small color study in oil of Cutthroat Pass and the second is a somewhat larger (but still small) painting of some hay and a house we saw in France.

Cutthroat Pass Blueberries
8×10 oil on panel
Haystacks
11×14 oil on panel
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Early 2021

So – what am I working on now? I was joking that I’m no longer making art, I’m just looking at it. But it’s probably more accurate to say that I’m not finishing any art.

I’ve got 3 oil paintings in various stages of done-ness, one of which I had previously put away for over a year and now I’m trying to salvage it. One is a bottle painting where I decided i was unhappy with the composition so I may not finish it. Third is another portrait of my dog, because everyone loves my dog.

Other than that – I’ve just been making tiny sketches to see if I like the layout – to avoid the problem of not liking a composition once I’m half way through. I think the rock in the forest and the sketch of Chain Lakes have potential. The other looked better in my head. The chameleon was just for fun and because I wanted to see if my multimedia paper would take watercolor (it does). The glass of water was a practice study. And the portrait is about half done, I’m letting it sit a few days to see if the proportions still look right when I’ve been away from it.

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Last of 2020

There’s no theme here, but I wanted to get in the last few things I did at the tail end of 2020. Two of my previous pastel frogs are promised to family members and I wanted to have one to keep for myself. The still life is the latest in what’s turning into a series of light shining through glass bottles. For a while in the middle I regretted my decision to paint green light shining on green apples, but I think it turned out in the end.

Are those words?
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Monte Cristo Ghost Town

We were looking for a hike that avoided the snow up the in mountains, so in that sense, this was a failure. There was a good 6 inches of snow at the trailhead up to about a foot at the town site, but the hike was mostly flat and we were able to walk in the footsteps of the few people who went up ahead of us. It was a beautiful day, a pleasant drive, and well worth the trek.

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Fall colors

The Pacific Northwest doesn’t get the fall fireworks show that the East can get, but we do mountains much better and also, there are larches. I had never seen them before, but these are deciduous conifers and if you time it right, you can see them in full, bright yellow color up in the mountains.
These are all from Cutthroat and Maple Pass in the North Cascades. The yellow trees are larches, the bright red bushes are huckleberries and the haze is the remnant of wildfire smoke.