Getting my groove back. Started the morning with a little private dance party to Interpol in my apartment. Dug into some painting. Thunderstorms expected, so going to put off the hiking trip to Sage Creek. A happy turn of events, since deep down I just want to be painting today. And it's been a great painting day. One of those where I forget about the necessity of food until I'm getting dizzy. That may sound terrible, but it means I'm fully engaged in my work. Had a snacky lunch around 2:30, painted until 5:30 when Ed came and knocked on my door with an offer to tag along for one of his fossil hunts. He gave me another 10 minutes to paint before we left, and what a gift that was. Put me back to frantic level for painting, looking for the essence of what I'm trying to say so I could get it laid down before we left. A tremendous help. This painting still feels uncomfortable and raw since I've put maybe 7 hours into it, when I would normally be closer to 80 hours for something this big. I think it's close to the point at which I'll declare it done. Will post a photograph of the progress so far. I see a few essential things that I need to add. I have a lot to say in this painting and am already feeling attached to it despite feeling so exposed by it. Anyway, Ed drove me and Steven out to the yellow mounds area where he had found some fossils last week that he wanted to go back to find and search for more. As always he was quite informative, and we found a lot of small bits of things. He was able to piece together most of a jaw from a deer from about 32 million years ago. His goal was for one of us to find a piece of alligator bone, and he succeeded. I took a couple short videos; I'll see if I can upload them here. We also drove over to near the Conata picnic area and searched some more, and then Ed drove us past the big pig dig (where a large bed of fossil horned rhinoceros was discovered and excavated; Ed helped work on it) before heading back to the quad. Making some rather late dinner right now, it's 9pm. Finally cooking a real meal though: pasta with sauteed garlic, red onion, mushrooms, sun dried tomatoes, kalamatas, capers, chicken, and mozarella. My apartment smells great. Yum. About to go eat, then planning to meet up with neighbors again for conversation and planning tomorrow's hike. It's supposed to be 87 degrees on saturday, so we might plan something for then as well. Otherwise I'll head out with my paints for the day and get more tan.
Painting of the site of final hike with Calhoun group. Getting close to done, maybe another 1-3 hours.
Unfinished painting of the drive away from Sheep Mountain. Been working on this intermittently for a week. A few more hours to go and it should be done.
Sunset at Yellow Mounds where we fossil hunted today.
