INDIAN PAINTBRUSH16"x20" Oil Painting
Finished at last.
gkeimig@dteworld.com

With only a couple of hours to spare I ran up to the Bighorn Sheep range as I heard there were some large rams down. This is the season to witness their incredible fighting for dominance. I found only a small band way out on the meadow grazing with some browsing deer near the Glacier trailhead and did spot one big fellow way high on the ridge. I watched him traverse it for some time but all were too far away for pictures. It was a beautiful afternoon although pretty cool with a stiff wind blowing. The Ramshorn Peak over the Dubois badlands was an incredible late afternoon photo opportunity.
I had dropped by Kathys Koffee yesterday morning and had a cup with Skip who is a fellow I actually knew as a kid who lived west of where I grew up. He told me a big Black Bear had been seen along the hiway on an Elk carcass that had apparantely been hit by a vehicle and died on up the hillside.
We had a pretty good blast of cold air hit last night. Heavy snow was forcast but that fizzled out and we only had about an inch. Last night it hit -8 and hovered about zero all day. Having gallery duty I spent more time doing projects around the wood stove than painting but did manage to git a little bit done on this piece. blocking in trees, the Bull itself, and more work on the background mountains. I raised the height of the peaks behind the Bulls Antlers to give them more contrast. Tomorrow is a day off-THANKSGIVING-and the next day is our Christmas Art Show at the Gallery so probably won't accomplish too much in next few days.
A big event for a little town that seems to have a lot of little events. The nations Christmas tree that will be installed in Washington D C was escorted into town by a number of horseback riders all carrying Wyoming flags as well as our nations flag. State police, Sherriff deputies, Forest Service police and Secret Service agents were everywhere. Speeches were made and anyone wanting to signed their names on the side of the truck. Mine included. Interestingly it was accompanyed by a second semi that carried support equipment for the tree including watering devices for it. Even though it is cut down it is fed 1600 gallons of water/day.
Had a nice visit with family members this weekend while still doing Gallery duty.
For the last week to 10 days leading up to this last weekend we have had unbelievably warm and dry weather. Vicki and I went to Jackson to see the W R Leigh African show at the Wildlife Art Museum. It consisted of Pen & Inks he did along with his diary from one of his trips to Africa. Incredible work. If you have never been to the museum it is well worth the trip to Jackson, Wyoming just to see.
I should be getting quite a bit of work done in the next 8-10 days as my pardner in the gallery is off to Death Valley Days in Nevada for an art show and I am left to run the gallery which is extremely slow this time of year afording me the opportunity to get a lot of painting time in. Yesterday I worked further on my Monkey Flower-Stream painting. No. The monkey flowers are not in yet. Maybe today or tomorrow I will get to them. I had started with acrylic for the underpainting and am now working Oil over the top and detailing out with them.
I have been working off and on with this Gouache Watercolor for the past week and think I am pretty well finished with it. I was really intrigued with the sky reflection whcih was such a deep blue contrasting with the purple-orange of the Willows that have now lost their leaves exposing that beautiful winter color of branches.

MT. MORAN
Today I worked pretty diligently on my Aspen painting and have pretty well finished it. I see a few touchups I have to attend to but it is essentially finished.