August 21, 2009
Been obsessed with capturing the essence of the clouds I witnessed on my trip to New Mexico last week. Big Monsoon Mothers. Here's an early study, inspired by a mountain of clouds I saw north of the Trinity Site:

The mountains of clouds were as massive as the mountains below them. Another scene I'd really like to capture is from this sketch I did just west of Socorro, coming from Magdalena:

The clouds were moving fast so I had to really whip this one out, grabbing just the key details. When I got home I immediately tried to capture the dynamic of those clouds in a color study:

This morning I tried to build on that composition and torque it even more:

This is closer to what I witnessed, but I think I can do better. And, of course the trick is to get Looming Billy up into the middle of those clouds. I think I'm getting on the verge of something.

For a guy who hates math (and likes to joke that he married a math teacher in order to balance his check book), I sure have had the numbers rolling through my head recently. Woke up this morning mulling a few:

• 15: number of True West Moments we video taped for the Westerns Channel

• 10: number of days left before we leave for South America

• 4: number of editorial holes I have to fill before I can go

• 9,868: number of bad drawings I have completed on my quest to do 10,000

• 132: number of sketches I need to do to finish before I leave for South America

• 197: number of sketches I have done so far for for the Big Billy cover art

• 5: number of days before the issue goes to the printer

Joey Dillon took a couple pictures at the shoot yesterday. Here's one of me sitting on the water trough and setting up the bit:

Notice the sun reflecter. As if it's not hot enough, the crew feels the need to bounce light under my Tonto Brim to make it even hotter! Ha. FYI: the new True West Moments should be on the air in the next 60 to 90 days.

"Find something you're passionate about and keep tremendously interested in it."
—Julia Child