Wednesday, September 17, 2008

North, to Alaska!

I just got back from a painting trip to Denali National Park in the Alaskan interior with my buddy Frank Serrano, and damn was it beautiful up there! We flew into Anchorage where we rented a camper, then drove four hours north to the park, it was so easy. The weather was chilly, and mostly (heavily) overcast with a few showers and wind storms here and there just to test your plein aire mettle, so needless to say, I completed far fewer canvasses than I had hoped for. But I can't really say that I was disappointed because I took a ton of photos, saw all the "big five" animals in the park (and then some), viewed Denali (Mt McKinley) at least twice which I'm told is very rare indeed, and even got a few pages done in the mini moleskiene sketchbook while waiting for weather to improve (while sitting in the cozy camper!). I'll post the oils when I get a chance to take some snaps, in the mean time peep these if you please.








That's me on the left. We hopped a shuttle bus (the only way to get this far) to the Eielson center 66 miles and four hours down the only road in the park. We had just enough time to get a quick painting done before a squall moved in bringing heavy clouds and rain.

4 comments:

enb said...

jealous jealous!!!
great little travel sketches there jimmy g! lookin forward to seeing the paints, and hearing any, any additional anecdotes of the trip.
Good on yah. wish I woulda known I coulda sent you over to stay with my mom and her husband in prince william sound- next time

JimmyG said...

Thanks buddy,
It was a great time, even with the spotty weather. Hopin' to get some shots this weekend. If ya can believe it, some of the canvasses were still wet last weekend!

Pablo VillicaƱa Lara said...

Wow! what a great adventure! I'm jealous too! You're making me wanna get outside and plein air!
by the way, on KCSM on Saturday mornings there's a new series called plein air that follows three artists on their outings, they are currently in Alaska.

JimmyG said...

Yeah!!! That program was the direct inspiration for this trip! http://www.pleinairamerica.com/
4 more days til your show!