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Becky Jewell

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Leadville Summer 2019 Photos

Becky Jewell August 25, 2019

In 2019 the mountains and western states saw record amounts of snow, where cabins in Tahoe were buried to the chimney and locals in Leadville were shoveling 4 feet of snow off of their roofs. Watching the snowfall from afar at my home in Maryland, it seemed like everyone in Leadville was shoveling their roof for about 6 weeks.

And the snow just kept coming. An avalanche near Copper Mountain slid down a mountainside and 100 year-old trees sank into the flow like capsizing ships. The avalanche was so powerful that it went down the mountain, into a valley, across a river, and up the side of the other mountain on the other side of the valley. Trying to escape this avalanche must have felt like being chased by a bear and climbing a tree, only to find that the bear is a much better tree-climber than you.

The roof of the bowling alley in Leadville collapsed - not the only roof-collapse in recent years in Leadville, but a pretty major one, where the alley probably won’t be repaired and will likely be taken piece-by-piece to the landfill.

Despite growing up in Leadville, winter is not my happiest time, especially not now that I live in Maryland near Washington DC. Winter isn’t full of fun fluffy snow here - basically it snows, and then it rains on top of the snow. But at least I wasn’t having to create a pulley system to get a snowblower onto my roof - I’d start to feel sorry for myself while standing on an uncovered DC Metro platform in heels in February’s nastiest sleet, and then I’d open Instagram and scroll past a photo of someone’s truck in Leadville, irretrievably immersed in four feet of snow.

If it had been my truck, I wouldn’t have known where to begin. Pray that I’d brought the snow blower into the house, so that I could start right out the door? Would the doors even open?

With all of this record-breaking, tree-slaying, roof-caving snow, stunning flowers emerged in the high mountains this summer at around 12,000 feet. Instead of hiking for miles and looking for the right creek to possibly glimpse an occasional columbine group, columbine bouquets were everywhere. Everywhere.

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columbine fields mountain flowers becky jewell.jpg
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Each photo in this blog was taken on a Google Pixel 2 camera, a machine which seems to be able to see far better than I, with each dewy filament of this thistle standing out as clearly as in life.

Outfitted with the Google Pixel 2 camera, for the first time I feel like I am doing some justice to the beauty of the high mountains in photo form.

Since Leadville has become a more well-known place over the years thanks to the amplification of the Leadville Race Series, I’ve done what I would call a C-minus job of explaining how beautiful Leadville is to my friends in Texas and Washington D.C.

You can talk and write about mountain life all day, but ultimately nothing I say ever feels on point about Leadville - nothing really sums it up. At a certain point, words just don’t work. Only the best writers among us ever come close.

Maybe photos come close, maybe paintings do.

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The flower peak is usually around July, this year it stretched into August. With temperatures dropping in September, these flowers won’t last too long, but who knows - the fall should at least bring gorgeous colors and possibly some snow, too.

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Leadville was a Superfund site for a while in the 90s, and the remnants of mining and exploitation of the land can still be seen everywhere. You can also see why people kept digging - look in any of the mining tailings piles and the diversity of rock that is there is unlike any I’ve ever seen.

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Some of the wrecked mines of Leadville are still explainable, where remarkable success happened and wealth boomed out of the earth. Still others are like ghosts, where there is no explanatory plaque, no historical marker, no mention of anything in books. What were people doing here? What was all this? Considering that the above would be buried in wintertime under 12 feet of snow, the desperation and hunger of it all just oozes out of these structures.

Someone was here and they wanted something, badly.

I was trying to understand what this once was - it's at about 12,000 feet at the Mt. Sherman trailhead near Leadville pic.twitter.com/2ND6DhrsuO

— Becky Jewell (@beckyjewell) August 25, 2019


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But even before major cleanup of the mines, life was finding a way - like these flowers and many more.

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Related Blogs:

Painting Mt. Elbert

Plein Air Painting in Leadville

Plein Air in Washington DC

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Who wrote this:

I’m a visual artist who lives in Maryland - I blog about art, I make art, I make comics, and I travel! I also like poodles, mountainbiking, and technology (most of the time). More about me here. Until next time, catch you around the internet.

- Becky Jewell

Tags google pixel 2 camera, lupine, indian paintbrush, sunflower, leadville, leadville colorado, alpine flowers
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Art Journal May 20 2018

Becky Jewell May 20, 2018

Lately I've been looking at a few big changes in life, mostly adjusting to life on the East Coast! 

This weekend I worked on a couple small watercolor pencil drawings made on the paper from France (Paris art store blog here!) Although my trip to Paris was in November, it took me a while to think about what I wanted to put on these delicately handmade pieces of paper. Perhaps I shouldn't say 'delicately handmade' - they're really strong and sturdy pieces of paper, yet you can feel the care and time that went into creating them. 

Indian Paintbrush

Indian Paintbrush

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For these small watercolor pencil drawings I am still using the Caran d'Ache Supracolor pencils, wonderful pencils in every way. The variation of colors in the 80 pencil set prove to be a dynamic and sophisticated range.

I couldn't decide on many of these pieces to add water to them or not. The seemed to look fulfilled with no water added, so I let them be for the most part. 

A couple happy hummingbirds 

A couple happy hummingbirds 

On the other side of the studio, I've been working through a list of Things I Want to Paint, a list of photos that I have assembled on Facebook of memories, things, and people that I want to paint. 

I decided to keep a running list of Things I Want to Paint after one day where I was stuck in front of my easel without a thought in my head of what I wanted to do. There is little worse than scraping along and finally getting time to paint and then suddenly... not knowing what you want to paint! 

"Things I want to Paint" is a public gallery on Facebook, so even if you are not my Facebook Friend, you can still hop over and take a look! (I am extremely friendly I just don't have time for Facebook too much anymore...) 

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Below are a couple results of "Things I Want to Paint" 

A photo of my friend's vacation to Tahiti, including a shark swim, and the painting: 

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A photo of my mom relaxing with Geddy the Poodle, and the painting: 

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These paintings are fairly in keeping with my style and outlook, I like to paint with bright colors only, I usually stay away from using brown or gray. 

Outdoor Studio oil painting becky jewell poodle.png

This month has also been a good month for digital art. I am still loving every moment of Clip Studio Paint on the iPad Pro. I'm finished with the very generous free trial and am grateful for every feature, every penny is worth it. If I meet the developers of this app I will hug them. 

One aspect of Clip Studio Paint on the iPad Pro that stands out and that probably doesn't get enough laudation is the basic pencil tool. The pens are great. The watercolor effects are bangin. But the regular old pencil tool really... just drives it home. It seems so simple, but it's so very powerful. Most importantly, it feels natural. 

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I made a couple drawings in Clip Studio Paint using a light lavender pencil on a black background. It's a lovely etching, scratch-paper like effect. Here is a portrait of my grandfather's cat, Flash, who has an interesting pattern on his back which resembles a broken heart: 

Flash the Cat Becky Jewell Ipad Pro Clip Studio Paint.png

I'm also working on this larger digital piece of two lovers surrounded by foliage - I was thinking about leaves from all of the places I have lived in the past 5 years, and incorporated leaves from Maryland, magnolia leaves from Houston, aspen leaves from Colorado, and forget-me-not shaped flowers from Leadville. I'll probably work on this one a bit more .... 

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I haven't made as many romantic paintings or drawings this year, not sure what it means, I both struggle and resist in putting words to most of my best art - this is probably why. 

Lastly it's been a great couple weeks of Tilted Sun being released and out in the open. The comic launched on May 1 and releases a new page every Tuesday and Thursday. It's also featured on the top level navigation of this website. For some reason I always leave Tilted Sun for last, I'll have to not do that next time! 

Tilted Sun is free to read online! Tether Orbs, cyber horses, electric guards, spy birds, and all kinds of cool things await you in the world of Tilted Sun! 

Tilted Sun Comic Becky Jewell.png
Tilted Sun Becky Jewell.png

Until next time ... excelsior! 

 

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In Art Life Tags cat, watercolor, indian paintbrush, colorado, leadville, becky jewell, original
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Art, comics travel, books, life! Welcome to my blog!

xoxo

Becky

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