“Final Climb” depicts the long ascent of Washington Pass at the end of a two-month cross country bike ride. I’d ridden this pass several times before, but painting it made it part of me forever. Watercolors are perhaps the antidote to all the drawing I’ve done in my life.

Most of my little images do start with a very light, five or six- line sketch, but then it’s all paint, and quick! Stopping for an hour or two to complete a painting during a day-long arduous bike ride adds obvious constraints to my usual fastidious process of image making, but that’s the joy and benefit. No time to fuss with details or accuracy, just “see it and paint it!” No time to think. I have such reverence for the great plein-air painters throughout history. The immediacy of their images touch your heart so directly it’s easy to forget it was probably 95 degrees or 25 degrees, too sunny or too rainy, not to mention the line of ants walking up their leg.

The real pay-off is that while I take thousands of photographs on a month-long adventure, it’s the places where I stop, sit, and paint that I vividly remember and feel in my heart years later. Plus, while I feel competent with a pencil, watercolors still basically terrify me, and it’s good to feel that challenge. It wasn’t always easy agreeing on where to stop and what to paint, but sharing this pursuit with my cycling and adventuring partner, Bob Horsley, has been one of life’s great joys.