tinyExpanse North Idaho 

A blogging, painting, exploring good time up north!

I painted a lot today. Twelve tinyExpanses (my 3x3” paintings), a 12x12” painting of the sunrise, and a 12x12” painting of the sunset. I’m happy. And tired.

It’s like the tired that comes from digging in the dirt all day - a satisfied, somehow enlivened kind of tired. It’s the blissful hangover of what John O’Donohue would describe as a “quickening” experience, one that makes you feel alive. 

Sandpoint's grain elevator

My journey began this morning in Sandpoint, where I rose early to paint the first of my six sunrise paintings I will complete this week. I parked on the south side of the long bridge leading to Sandpoint, and found a spot to sit against the concrete that divides bike path from road. It was the kind of painting site where I expect to be confronted by a policeman following up on a report of a disheveled young woman shooting up (my little painting box, brushes, and an unkempt painting outfit have more than once confused a concerned citizen). 

It wasn’t ideal, but when painting in quickly changing light, there’s not much time to find the perfect place. Painting sunrises reinforces a lesson I’ve learned from Plein Air painting - one must learn to MAKE the real ideal. What is in front of you is full of potential to be experienced as perfect. It wasn’t the heavens-opening-up kind of sunrise; it was rather moody and windy and anticlimactic. It was real, and it was perfect. 

A quick coffee at the bank where my paintings will be exhibited next week with Nancy Dooley, ICL’s wonderful North Idaho Outreach Coordinator in Sandpoint. Nancy experienced a quintessential first impression of me - I realized afterward our meeting that I had paint on my nose the whole time, a relic of my prior painting session on the bridge. Nancy thought my nose was just peeling and sunburned. She’ll know better next time!

My next destination was Priest Lake, but before leaving Sandpoint I had to indulge an undeniable urge to paint the old grain elevator downtown. I do love landscapes most but once in a while I get a craving to paint something formed by humans and with straight lines. 

Priest Lake from Hanna Flat Road

Granite Creek (?) someone correct me if I'm wrong!

From Sandpoint I drove east on Highway 2 to Priest River and up 57 to Priest Lake. (A familiar rush of exhilaration upon breaking out of town.) A detailed email from a friend as familiar with Priest Lake as his own backyard (thank you Rob!), as well as a map from the Ranger Station, sent me merrily on my way. Climbing up Hanna Flats Road up to lookout over the lake, bumping along Tango Creek Road to paint cedar groves, streams, and a westward view, the day moved along painting by painting. 

Southeast from Reeder Bay

I had expected to find a primitive campsite or pull off on a quiet dirt road to sleep, but I ended up finding lucky #13 campsite at Reeder’s Bay welcoming me sans reservation card. To be honest I was craving the company of other humans more so than that of bears. 

I spent the evening painting on the beautiful Reeder beach amongst exhuberantly vacationing families, observing the light changing on the Selkirks on the other side of the lake. Wasn’t much of a stretch to make the real ideal here. A grandson swam with his grandmother, who moved about in the water like a teenager, shouting, “I love the water!”. I envied both the boy for his remarkable grandmother, and the grandmother for her joyful, fearless way with the water. I myself am afraid of boundless depths of water below. 

The painting session on the beach produced four of the twelve tinyExpanses I made today, and ended with the first of six 12”x12” sunset paintings to be completed this week along with the sunrises. 

And tomorrow? I’m a little too tired to transform anxiety into excitement for what I have planned...

I’ll leave you with a bit of suspense.

In Bob Ross's language, 12 happy little paintings in a happy little box.