Frogs and Fog

Lagoon Morning Fog

14 x 16          

Pastel on Canson Mi-Tientes Paper     $700

It was spring, sometime in late March in the mid 90s when we went on our first backpack of the season in the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area. It was a beautiful spring day. Perfect weather, incredable flowers were in bloom ( we even spotted some shooting stars along the trail). Anyway we set up camp overlooking  a lovely lagoon. Now this lagoon is a hangout for frogs, cute brownish frogs as I remember. We all retired early for bed. It was sometime in the wee morning hours when I was awakened by a surround sound symphony of, I want to say, thousands of frogs croking in unison but it was probably hundreds. Anyway it was incredable, I shall never forget it. I went out of the tent to use nature's out house to find myself shrouded in thick fog also unexpected.  It was at 3:00 am when suddenly in unison the croking stopped. Now that was something to behold. I will always associate this painting of the logoon with the frogs I heard that night. The next morning when I saw the beauty of the lagoon with the fog beginning to burn off showing a glimpse of sun breaking through, I thought to myself how priviledged am it to see and experience this. I'm a studio painter who takes digital pictures but actually being there and experiencing makes all the difference in the world to me . So a photo I use but it's my memories and feelings I refer to when painting. The photo is a reminder and should only be a reminder. How do you out there in blogland feel about your camera.

Someone please comment.......