Here is a close up view of some Petersen rocks. I took this picture at Petersen Rock Garden and Museum in Redmond, Oregon. This unique roadside attraction has small-scale buildings and landscaping covered with local rocks.
To learn more about this attraction, see my previous post. It includes LOTS of photos!
Bend Branches always appreciates your comments and likes. Comments may not appear right away since they’re screened for spam prior to posting. Thanks!
In a silent scene, filtered light illuminates deserted dwellings
Gentle ripples trail an American Avocet quietly striding across a wetland
Years ago, I volunteered at an artists’ cooperative gallery in Bellingham, Washington. A man named Corky regularly visited the gallery. He had special needs and, despite his challenges, always had a sunny outlook on life. One day, he asked if I could draw him a rabbit. I drew him this pen and ink drawing that I titled, “Corky’s Bunny.” I decided to portray this rabbit looking up because that’s what Corky always did.
I’ll never forget how excited Corky was when I gave him the final drawing. I only charged him ten dollars for the original artwork. To him, this drawing was something of immeasurable value that he would always treasure.
aerial angels
drift o’er a desert dreamland
shadows of summer
Birds of the Week
I took this picture of a snowy divide in my front yard last winter. Snow mutes colors and I decided to accentuate that by showing this image in black and white.
Though it may be a while before I get much snow at my house, snow is beginning to accumulate at higher elevations. In Bend, there’s a snowy divide based on elevation. I live at an elevation of 3,400 ft.
Continue readingHere’s a short video of my dog, Tesla, burying a log. Some dogs like using their nose to bury things. A few days after I filmed this, Tesla dug up the log, played with it for a while by herself, and then buried it again.
I’ve had a longtime fascination with this behavior, so I finally looked it up. I learned that wolves and other canids often cache food by burying it for another day. After they’ve put what they’re caching into a shallow hole, they cover it with loose soil by using their nose. Here’s a video of a wolf using its nose to bury food.
You can easily tell when dogs and their wild relatives have been using their nose to bury things. Their snout will be covered in dirt. Yeah, it looks pretty funny!
I’ve seen my dog bury bones and sticks, but she also buries toys. Her one-time favorite duckie plush toy is buried somewhere on our property. Perhaps she thought if she planted it, more duckies would grow. 😉
Here is a photo of my cat’s eye up close. She likes to sit on my lap every time I sit down so I thought I might as well take her picture.
As cat’s age, the color of their irises changes and they may have a “lacy” pattern. The edge of the black pupil can also become less sharp and distinct. My Pixie-Bob cat is fourteen and a half.
Founder’s Square features a large open-air pavilion at the Oregon Garden in Silverton, Oregon. At certain times of the year, the Silverton Market Garden, located behind the pavilion, is full of color.
The Founder’s Square pavilion structure is beautiful year round. I’m highlighting its architecture in black and white. This pavilion is one of several venues available for rental at the Garden.
The Oregon Garden is designed to showcase foliage and flowers throughout the year. It’s easy to overlook the architecture and many outdoor sculptures. This is the kind of place where you will notice new details every time you stroll through it.
When days start to shorten and nights take on a chill,
the world begins falling back into Autumn.
A single fallen leaf shines as brightly as a star,
announcing Fall’s arrival.
Leaves begin to turn,
slowly at first.
High Desert skies can be full of fiery emotions
Or calm and blue, framing peaceful works of art
a killdeer paces
along a sandy shoreline
awakening spring
Bend Branches always appreciates your comments and likes. Comments may not appear right away since they’re screened for spam prior to posting. Thanks!
Petersen Rock Garden & Museum is a unique roadside attraction located halfway between Bend and Redmond in Oregon. The original owner, Rasmus Petersen, began working on this site in 1935.
As you can tell, he loved rocks. He constructed the many features on this 4-acre site using rocks collected within an 85 mile radius. Oregon is known as a rockhounding paradise so there are plenty of rocks nearby to collect.
The “novelty architecture” here includes castles, churches, buildings, and bridges.
Continue readingI saw these three Long-eared Owlets at the Summer Lake Wildlife Area in southeastern Oregon last May. They were perched within a thick stand of willow trees.
There were rumors of these owls being in the area and I wanted to get a quick glimpse of them. I was lucky to spot these secretive, well-camouflaged birds. Older Long-eared owlets like these are referred to as “branchers” since they often perch on tree branches near their nests.
If you’d like to see an impressive collection of treasures of the Wild West, be sure to visit the Buffalo Bill Center of the West. This world-class attraction is in Cody, Wyoming, an hour’s drive east of Yellowstone National Park.
The Center contains five museums, including the Buffalo Bill Museum. There’s something for everyone at this museum.
During his lifetime, William F. Cody worked as a ranch hand, bison hunter, fur trapper, wagon train driver, Army scout, prospector, and Pony Express rider.
Cody is perhaps most well-known as a showman. He helped create a traveling show called Buffalo Bill’s Wild West. He took on the persona of Buffalo Bill.
Source: National Portrait Gallery. Smithsonian Institution.
Cody and his crew of performers put on outdoor western shows, highlighting (and romanticizing) the legacy of the West. The show began in 1883 and continued for 30 years.
Bison grazing under the beautiful Lamar Valley sky in Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming.
Today I’m sharing an owl shirt & sign I created. I’m featuring a drawing I did of a Flammulated Owl, Psiloscops flammeolus. When I originally drew this small owl with pen and ink, it was one of my favorites. In fact, I liked it so much I made it my logo for the art business I once ran.
First, I’ll share a photo of the t-shirt. I used sublimation ink, sublimation paper, and a hot press to transfer this image.
As mentioned in a previous post, I’m still learning how to do sublimation printing. This time, my first transfer didn’t work well at all. I used the settings included with the hot press. When I redid it, I used the settings recommended by the sublimation paper manufacturer. On some fabric products designed for this transfer process, there may be an additional set of instructions. I figured out you should keep extra blank products to discover the best settings.
Here is a closer view of my owl shirt. A few areas aren’t as dark as they should be, but it turned out well overall.
Next, I’m sharing a picture of a sign from my one-time business, NatureWise Art. For a while, I participated regularly in arts and crafts fairs with my wildlife art. I sold stationery, prints, boxes, and rocks featuring my artwork. Creating this post showing my owl shirt & sign reminded me of the many hours I put into participating in fairs.
Since I’m an introvert, these events weren’t easy for me. I thought I must not have inherited my family’s salesperson gene. Later, while working as an elected School Board Director, I learned successful politicians rely upon the key qualities of salespeople regularly. Over the 12 years I served, I became a salesperson. Though I no longer work at fairs or serve as an elected official, I “sell” information and entertainment on this blog site.
I have always said that everyone is in sales. Maybe you don’t hold the title of salesperson, but if the business you are in requires you to deal with people, you, my friend, are in sales. Zig Ziglar
Do you have artwork you would like to share? Be sure to include the First Friday Art tag.
First Friday Art (FFA)
Bend Branches always appreciates your comments and likes. Comments may not appear right away since they’re screened for spam prior to posting. Thanks!
Clouds collect overhead, darkening and protecting the landscape
Cumulus curtains part and the earth awakens
Colorful voices shout from sloping shorelines
At West Thumb, magma boils below
Cooled by lake water’s ebb and flow
Alkaline frosting marks the shore
Thermophiles collect, framing more
I saw these Rudbeckia up close while walking along the Deschutes River trail in Bend, Oregon.
In photography, the way you show objects in small and large scale can have a big impact.
When I’ve seen grizzly bears in Yellowstone National Park, most of the time they are hundreds of yards away. I took this small scale picture through my spotting scope of a sow with two cubs in the Lamar Valley.
To see a closer view of a grizzly bear, I visited the Grizzly & Wolf Discovery Center in West Yellowstone, Montana. They are massive creatures.
Sometimes, bonsai masters sculpt smaller versions of objects of nature. This is a juniper tree bonsai, recently purchased at the Bend Summer Festival. It measures 4 inches in height.
Continue readingI decided to take pictures of some of the fruit and flowers in our garden today before they fade away.
Delicate petals of nodding hollyhocks filtered the sun’s light
Snapdragons filled the landscape, exploding in shades of pink
Iceplants with purple punctuations slid towards the pond’s edge
Here’s the High Desert Voices August 2024 newsletter for your reading pleasure. Lots of nice photos as well! This newsletter is published by and for volunteers at the High Desert Museum in Bend, Oregon. I’ve been working there as a volunteer since 2013.
Articles this month include one on the Natural History Pub lectures, one on the Lost in Place writing workshop, one on sea otters, and one on the Sensing Sasquatch exhibition at the Museum.
Please enjoy the High Desert Voices August 2024 issue!
Bend Branches always appreciates your comments and likes. Comments may not appear right away since they’re screened for spam prior to posting. Thanks!
So, when you think of trees on the westside of Oregon you probably think of evergreens, right? However, trees associated with more tropical locations also grow there. This is a Chinese windmill palm, Trachycarpus fortunei, growing at the Oregon Garden in Silverton.
Windmill palms have been cultivated in China and Japan for thousands of years so their exact natural range is difficult to determine. This hardy palm has been planted throughout the world. The tough leaf fibers of the Chinese windmill palm have been used in making rope, sacks, and coarse cloth.
Wind palm trees reach a height of 10-40 feet. In southern China, these palms grow at elevations as high as 7,874 feet. They tolerate cold temperatures, wind, salt, and drought.
Today I’m sharing a fringed gentian drawing I created from a photo. I used colored pencils for this drawing. Originally, I planned to paint over the drawing with water since I had used watercolor pencils. However, I decided to leave the drawing as is because I liked how the texture of the lines turned out.
Did you know that the fringed gentian, Gentianopsis detonsa, is the official flower of Yellowstone National Park?
If you visit the park in the spring, you’ll see lots of wildflowers in full bloom. We were there in the beginning of June 2024.
I took this picture at Black Sand Basin, just west of the Old Faithful area. As soon as I saw these blooming beside the boardwalk, I knew I wanted to do a fringed gentian drawing to try to capture their beauty.
I previously featured another photograph of fringed gentian and showed how they look with three different photo processing techniques. These flowers look pretty, no matter how they are presented.
Do you have artwork you would like to share? Be sure to include the First Friday Art tag.
First Friday Art (FFA)
Bend Branches always appreciates your comments and likes. Comments may not appear right away since they’re screened for spam prior to posting. Thanks!
When I looked at the pictures I’d taken at the Oregon Coast Aquarium, I thought several images were like abstracts adrift.
The northern sea otters rolled themselves up into buoyant balls.
Moon jellies fell like brilliant blue windblown blossoms.
Seeing pairs of bronze bulls bash together in winter blizzards
and a couple of cascades crashing down craggy cliffs
Seeing two octopi slip and slide over seaside skyscrapers
This antlers & horns & skulls chandelier is at the Fishing Bridge Visitor Center and Trailside Museum in Yellowstone National Park. A metal circle is adorned with bighorn sheep and Rocky Mountain elk antlers & horns & skulls. It’s suspended by heavy metal chains.
This museum is small and probably overlooked by many visitors to the park. I recommend stopping by to see its collection of historic bird specimens. If you want to see mounts of many of the park’s birds to help identify them in the field, this is a great resource.
The hot pools of the Lava Hot Spring tourist attraction are in the city of Lava Hot Springs in southeastern Idaho. Four blocks from the hot pools, you’ll find a water park and indoor and outdoor swimming pools, also heated by hot spring waters.
Swooping red sunshades over the hot pools offer visitors shelter from the sun.
The five outdoor pools in the Hot Pool site have water temperatures ranging from 102 to 112 degrees Fahrenheit. Lava Hot Springs uses over 2.5 million gallons of hot spring water per day to heat their pools.
I enjoy using cameras small enough to fit in a pocket. I recently got a new flying lens as a gift.
Here it is. What, can’t you see that it’s a camera?
How about if I unfold it? Yeah, it’s a drone. I still have the lens protector on the front in this photo.
Here’s the controller. I like my new flying lens because it stops itself from crashing into things in 360 degrees of direction. It will also land from where it took off with the touch of a button.
Today I’m sharing a gray squirrel drawing and photo I created. I drew the squirrel with a charcoal pencil.
It’s fun to work with charcoal because you can change its appearance by using different techniques. You can “stump” it by using the side of a charcoal stick, your finger, a chamois cloth, or other materials to spread it. Since it lifts easily from a surface, you can erase or scrape parts of it off. Some artists mix charcoal with water or other liquids .
I’m also sharing a photograph I took of a gray squirrel at Three Island Crossing State Park in Glenns Ferry, Idaho. I like this picture because it looks like the squirrel is giving me a fist bump. The diagonal streams of water from a sprinkler in the background add an interesting detail to the photo.
Here’s a picture I took of a pair of puffins at the Oregon Coast Aquarium. This photo shows them in breeding and nonbreeding plumage.
This bird lives most of its life at sea, but they nest in burrows that can be more than 5 feet deep. A pair of puffins will feed their young tiny fish, which they line up crosswise in their bills. Sometimes they will carry as many as 20 fish at a time to their nests.
Bend Branches always appreciates your comments and likes. Comments may not appear right away since they’re screened for spam prior to posting. Thanks!
