Good times on the river

One of my favorite drives is on the road from Bozeman to Big Sky, Montana. Running along a narrow mountain canyon, the road winds through spectacular scenery and occasionally crosses the fast-flowing and ruggedly beautiful Gallatin River. It’s a mecca for fly fisherman, and although I’ve never mastered the sport, this time of year triggers memories of my dad and his lifetime of fishing adventures.

My dad, Dale Stull, was an avid fisherman and tried, unsuccessfully, to share the fun of fishing with his daughters. He truly loved to get up before dawn, grab the bait, and hit the river. However, to this day, I believe neither my sister nor I are willing to bait a hook, and we are terrible at sitting for long periods of time in a boat. So he often traveled with his fishing buddies to remote locations and came back home with wonderful stories of life in the wild. Some of his favorite locations were fishing at off-the-grid camps in the Kenai Peninsula of Alaska or on one of the thousands of crystal-clear lakes flung across northern Canada.

This week, my painting, Fly Fishing, 8” x 12” Watercolor, strives to capture the art and adventurous spirit of fly fishing – the thrill of standing in a cold, fast-moving stream, sending the line sailing out above the water, and waiting for the next big catch.

 

 

 

May arrivals and Great Blue Heron

After months of gray, the world around us has exploded with COLOR! We are blessed with a variety of blooming wildflowers in the woods around our house. Although my Grandma Ellen was a master in identifying wildflowers (and wild mushrooms!), I’m lucky if I recognize two or three of them. However, beautiful Trilliums, False Pennyroyal, Spring Blue-Eyed Mary, and Jack-in-the-Pulpits are familiar and provide beautiful early color below the canopy of trees.

It’s especially lovely to smell fresh dirt and see green again - with farmers in the fields and cows and calves, sheep and lambs, and even the local Clydesdale horses with their new foals returning to the pastures. For Mom’s Day, one of our daughters gave me the Goats of Anarchy book – and I agree with author, Leanne Lauricella: “Baby goats are just about the cutest things on the planet!”

And a wonderful variety of new songbirds appeared at our feeder this week, including: Indigo Buntings, Red-headed Woodpeckers, Baltimore Orioles, Rose-breasted Grosbeaks and Ruby-throated Hummingbirds.

This week’s painting features of one of the heralds of spring and a favorite summer bird in this area. My painting, Great Blue Heron, 7”x13” Watercolor (framed 15”x21”), was a commissioned artwork, and I’m hoping it looks lovely in its new home in North Carolina.

If you are interested in purchasing or commissioning a painting, send me an email for more details and pricing information.

 

 

In tribute to Ruby and Paul

Yesterday, we lost a dear friend. Ruby was a gentle spirit and resident beagle in our Blake Lake neighborhood. And although she belonged to Ken and Bev, everyone on the street knew Ruby. She loved to roam in the woods behind their house and the find of a rogue chipmunk, squirrel or rabbit was met with a joyful round of howling. On one of the first days after we moved into our new house, Ruby met me coming around the corner from our kitchen. She had wandered into the open door and made herself right at home. In time, she would come in the door, walk directly to the kitchen and wait patiently for me to open the “treat” drawer. However, after a diagnosis of a mass in her tummy this spring, Ruby didn’t make it through the surgery yesterday, and Ken buried her last evening in her beloved woods. We will deeply miss her.

My husband, Paul, will celebrate his birthday this week and in honor of that occasion, this week’s painting is one of his own photographs. One of our favorite things to do is take roadtrips and follow the “blue roads” – those roads that veer off main highways and roam through rural countryside. We have seen incredible vistas and discovered so many wonderful places in these journeys. Row Boats at Cornamona, 8.5”x12” Watercolor, came about on one such adventure. As we came around the corner of this loch, we saw a group gathered near the boat launch preparing to go out fishing for the day. Paul stopped the car, visited with them for awhile and then took this picture of their boats.