Got to work at about 9.00 and immediately realized that everything I did yesterday was wrong, both in form and colour, so I spend all morning putting it right. The day started with an encouraging blue sky, but some serious clouds accumulated surprisingly quickly. I drew them in for later. MONDAY, 2 OCTOBER 2023 This sky is immensely complex with dark mountainous clouds from yesterday. I arrange it so they are over the main feature — that way I don’t have to try a graduated wash with pine trees interrupting it — an impossible task in the backcountry. Altogether I believe it took 6 hours of intense thought and effort to complete, but it is quite impressive, though needs some touching up. TUESDAY, 3 OCTOBER 2023 Up at 7.30. Wash in cold water and breakfast. Packed and on site by 8.30 and immediately start work. An enormous bear shit pile just by my drawing board. A beautiful cloud- less morning. I get straight to work and do some good stuff. Tea break sitting on a scree slope of pebbles washed down in the last rainstorm. Dined with some trepidation thinking a bear must be able to smell the beef jerky. Lunch at 1.30 under the same fear — assuming parmesan cheese must be equally desirable. WEDNESDAY, 4 OCTOBER 2023 Up at 6.15. Wash, breakfast and to the site by 8.30. An even bigger bear scat right next to my drawing board. I think it’s a critic at work! WEDNESDAY, 28 SEPTEMBER 2023 Proceed to walk round the inner trail past a site I had been ogling from day 1 — a very sharp ridge in bone-white material — wonderful against the Californian dense blue sky. Pondered on whether this would make a painting, and was undecided which site was best. Returning to the first site, we startled and were startled by a bear — the park has bear poop everywhere. It made me wonder whether painting there every day is such a good idea. Returning to my first site, I realized I preferred it because it will be different from most of my work, and I’m looking forward to drawing it. My choice was confirmed by a coin toss. Erected the drawing board using bits of tree as props — quite effective, and nicely under the shade of a tree. SUNDAY, 1 OCTOBER 2023 Up early after a reasonable sleep, except I awoke at about 4am hearing a bear trying to demolish my cabin. It tore off one of the planks. I yelled at the top of my voice and banged the pots together. It shuffled off. I lay worrying until dawn. I have realized on this trip that I’m not sure I still enjoy roughing it — camping or staying in rudimentary cabins. It’s not the physical discomfort — or not really — It’s more the darned inconvenience of it. I suppose if camping is time out from normal life, then it might be fun, but if it is your way of life, or in my case the way of making my work, then it ceases to be fun and becomes a means to an end. What do I hate? Everything takes so long. Everything is always in the wrong place, or never where you thought you left it. There is discomfort in every activity — cold winds, dirty crockery, struggling into sleeping bag, all standards of hygiene and cleanliness slip, the food is either monotonous or takes all day to prepare, the animals and insects are hostile. I think it is time I gave it up! But then how can my work any longer be about wild places? Will my new show be called “Tame Places?” MONDAY, 25 SEPTEMBER 2023 David filmed me collecting water, collecting my hidden painting board, setting up and starting work. I described how I was often met by a fusillade of hard green cones each the size of a hen’s egg and solid as rocks. These are picked from the top of the Sequoia 300 ft. above and thrown down by the squirrels, later collected and buried. Just as I was explaining how much they hurt — coming at great velocity from such a height, I have been hit twice and came up in bruises — the fusillade started. It was like being under attack — they crash into the undergrowth with a sharp crack all around us. I got on with painting the 2nd wash over the big tree trunk, but I’m not really sure how to tackle it. At the end of an exhausting day, the picture seems to be getting worse, not better. I think it may need radical action. In the last half hour, I made two mistakes — not getting an unbroken wash in the sky and getting shadow colour wrong. I also think the piece of foreground tree trunk doesn’t work — I may have to include the whole trunk to make sense. Back to camp after a long day despondent. MALAKOFF DIGGINS TUESDAY, 27 SEPTEMBER 2023 We discover that we can stay in a miners cabin abandoned in 1860. It has two bunk platforms, a wood stove and sink — no light or toilet, but way better than camping. We hike to the Diggins to find an enormous hole sculpted out of the hillside — the exposed surfaces were blasted out by high-pressure hoses. The scale of it is extraordinary. The colours of the exposed faces are beautiful. Who could expect such brutal methods could create such an extraordinary and beautiful place?! We walked for 2–3 hours and found a mind-boggling cliff face which I am tempted to paint. 92
