Joshua Tree National Park is most closely associated with one musician: Gram Parsons. This country-rock legend, who played with the Byrds and the Flying Burrito Brothers and created two classic solo albums GP and Grievous Angel, frequently made trips out to Joshua Tree. On some of these occasions he was accompanied by Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones, spending  time at night, searching for UFOs from the park’s boulder outcrops.

There are two locations that are destinations for any Gram fan: Room 8 at the Joshua Tree Inn (I stayed in Room 9) and Cap Rock.

Room 8 is at the epicenter of Gram’s cult legend for it was in this room that he died on September 19, 1973 at the age of 26. He was just shy of joining the infamous “27 Club” whose members include: Robert Johnson, Brian Jones, Hendrix, Joplin, Morrison,  Pigpen, D. Boon, Richey Edwards, Kurt Cobain, and Amy Winehouse.

The memorial for Gram Parsons erected outside room 8 at the Joshua Tree Inn,  Joshua Tree, Ca. “Safe at Home” is the name of one of Gram’s early albums, then playing with the International Submarine Band.

Gram was another causality of the distructive rock and roll lifestyle, he was another musician cut down too early making many fans wonder what might have been. So far this seemed to be the typical rock and roll tragedy but things were about to get strange, very strange.

Gram’s body was sent to LAX to be flown to New Orleans. But Gram’s friends claimed that he had talked about having his ashes spread in Joshua Tree. So two of his drunk friends put on some suits, borrowed a hearse and convinced airport officials to release the body to them. They then headed east to Joshua Tree stopping to buy gasoline on the way. They took the coffin to Cap Rock, filled it with gasoline and set it on fire.

The boulder at Cap Rock where Gram Parsons’ body was set afire. To rock climbers it’s known as the Gram Parsons Memorial Hand Traverse. (The traverse can be seen at the base of the rock.)

Cap Rock is now an unofficial public shire to the legacy of the music and memory of Gram Parsons.

On the way to Joshua Tree you pass a very beloved roadside attraction off of Highway 10, the brontosaurs and tyrannosaurs rex statures/buildings known collectively as the Cabazon Dinosaurs or Claude Bell’s Dinosaurs.

This attractions was built by the Knott’s Berry Farm artist and sculptor Claude Bell to bring visitors to his Wheel Inn Restaurant. The brontosaurs, named “Dinny” was started in 1964 and completed eleven years later. The T. Rex, known as “Mr. Rex” was completed in 1986.

The dinosaurs became famous when they were featured in Tim Burton’s first feature length film, Pee Wee’s Big Adventure (1985). In the film Pee Wee Herman is dropped off by Large Marge (“Tell ’em Large Marge sent you!) at a truck stop (the Wheel Inn Restaurant) and he strikes up a friendship with the waitress Simone. Together they watch the sunrise through the teeth of Mr. Rex’s mouth.

Dinny is not only a stature but is a building, you can visit the gift shop in the brontosaur’s belly.

The Wheel Inn Restaurant has now been demolished but Dinny and Mr. Rex still watch over the traffic on Highway 10.

I spent the first week of the new year in a sketcher’s paradise. The high desert and alien landforms of Joshua Tree National Park.

As a subject, this almost 800,000 acre park, can seem overwhelming with amazing views and vistas everywhere you look. So where does a sketcher start? I just had to pick a landform and start sketching. It can be impossible to capture every single detail of the eroded rock of Joshua Tree so I use a bit of short-hand where the sketch can almost have a gestural quality. These warm up sketches helped prepare me for sketch the park’s namesake, the serpentine Joshua tree.

These trees are the symbols for the Mojave Desert, made world famous by the band U2 and their multimillion selling album Joshua Tree (1987) which featured a Joshua tree in the albums’s artwork. Musicians and artists have alway been attracted to this part of California. (More about Gram Parsons in a later post).

What follows are a few of the sketches from my Joshua Tree sketchbooks.

A rock formation near Skull Rock which I named “Puzzle Rock”.

A rock outcrop at Quail Springs sketched on a very windy late afternoon.

The puzzle-like Joshua Tree (Yucca brevifolia) sketched while taking a break from looking for the Le Conte’s thrasher at Quail Springs.

For the past ten years I have created a holiday linocut (linoleum) print and given it out during Christmas. This has been a turning away from the pervasive commercialism of the holidays and creating something from the heart and by the hand. This year I sketched out designs before carving the final lino block.

The inspiration for this year’s print was an image that kept reappearing in my thoughts and journal pages. It stemmed from my summer’s visit to Portland, Oregon and the beautiful streamlined 1941 steam engine, a Southern Pacific GS-4 , numbered 4449. This engine I strongly connected with memories of my father and the time we spent chasing the engine on rail excursion across the Golden State and once were even passagers on an excursion from San Francisco to Los Angeles.

The iconic hood of 4449, which appeared in many sketches since seeing the engine for the first time again. The typhoon air horn on the upper right, was used to cut throught the thick coastal fog on the Coast Daylight’s route. 

The first field sketch I did of 4449 at the Oregon Heritage Railway Center in Portland. I knew that I wanted to do a linocut print featuring the unmistakable profile of this engine.

It took a few months to decide how to represent the engine in a wintery theme. In reality the engine, which was in service on the California Coast, was more likely to encounter a fog bank rather than a snow bank, but that’s why I have an artist license.

Relief printing is the opposite of field sketching. In the field there is a sense of spontaneity, of whimsy and surprise. With relief printing, everything is planned out and there is very little room for improvisation. And to top that, you have to think backwards. So it is a medium that takes patience, planning, and vision. 

Daylight in Winter. This was one of the first really polished sketches, with color, of the lino cut design.  With this sketch, I hit upon the element of the pine tree in the background.

This is a pre sketch with notation as I was finalizing my design before carving the lino block. You will notice that it sketched as it would look on the block, the engine going left to right. When the block is printed the image is reversed, the engine going from right to left.

The linoleum key block and the final hand tinted relief print (in watercolor) above. 

I finally took a great leap forward in my birding by purchasing a scope and tripod. This way I could  observe faraway birds without disturbing them, discern  minute feather patterns, and also it would allow me to sketch, hands-free, in the field.

Now it was time to field test the scope and I could think of no better place to use the scope than the country roads north of Highway 12 near Rio Vista. This area is collectively known as Robinson Road and is a hotspot for wintering raptors, burrowing owl,  and mountain plovers. This was the wide open openness that was made for scoping far off birds.

After scraping ice off my windscreen I headed north and rendezvoused with Dickcissel and Brown Creeper. It was one of the coldest mornings of the season and the sky was crisp and clear, a perfect day for the long view.

We arrived about an hour later and headed off 113 on Robinson Road. We scanned the fields to the north, trying to pick out the cryptic ground plover. A far off tawny bird caught my attention and I lined up my scope to capture the first bird to be seen through my new optics and it was a good one, a ferruginous hawk, Buteo regalis.

Our next target birds were mountain plover and rough-legged hawk. Robinson Road turned to the south and we willed a far off perched raptor to turn into a roughy but not even the scope could give a positive id.

The beautiful call of the western meadowlark was our constant soundtrack on Robinson Road.

Further down the road we had an outstanding  overhead view of a light adult ferruginous hawk that seemed to appear out of the warm winter sun.

To our right was a freshly plowed field, ideal habitat for mountain plover. The road turned to the south, keeping the field to the right. I saw a large group of birds on either side of a farming road that bisected the plowed field. A scope view revealed a large group of killdeer with horned lark and western meadowlark mixed in. This was a very good sign. I scanned to the left of the mixed killdeer flock and that’s when I got our target bird, a flock of about 30 mountain plover; a real ponderous of plover! We had great views of these birds whose entire population is estimated to be at 11,000 to 14,000 birds.

After watching the plovers disappear simply by turning their brown backs to us, thereby melting into the plowed field, we headed south to the intersection of Robinson and Flannery Roads. This intersection always produced burrowing owl. And without fail, Brown Creeper spotted one, crouching on a roadside berm. The scope revealed the owl’s piercing eyes and swivel head.

Heading west on Flannery the raptor activity increased with harriers, red-tails, and ferruginous. One bird, rising in circles above the road caught my attention. It turned towards me and its bold carpal patches screamed rough-legged hawk! Lifer for Dicksissel and Brown Creeper. A toast was in order!

That little dirt claude is the much sought after Robinson Road specialty, the poorly named, mountain plover. From a digiscope photo.

Two birds, ferruginous hawk and mountain plover, which where identified with the aid of the scope.