This scene in the oil painting above is along the banks of the Pedernales River in the Pedernales Falls State Park. It gave me great pleasure the morning I was there earlier this spring. I wondered why it gave me such great pleasure. After all, it is just a combination of trees, rocks, grass, stumps, a river with clear running water, distant hills, blue sky and early morning yellow sunlight. I am sure the gentle sound of the running water in the river and listening to the mocking bird singing from somewhere up on the hill added to my emotional being. As I look at this painting, those emotions still come flooding back, even including the taste of the bacon and eggs, that I had for breakfast in Johnson City earlier that morning. 

I happen to be reading a book titled INCOGNITO, The Secret Lives of the Brain, written by David Eagleman. He is a neuroscientist at Baylor College of Medicine, where he directs the Laboratory for Perception and Action. The book is about what the neuroscientist (those that study the human and animal brain) know today about how our three pounds of jelly-like human brain functions and how our thoughts and feelings are developed and formed by the input we get from the vision through our eyes, the sound through our ears, the taste through our mouth, the smell through our nose and the feelings of touch through our skin. 

I know that each of you have your own history, experience and thoughts. I know that you were not there that morning and maybe you have never seen a Texas Hill Country stream, so I wonder how this painting will affect each of you.  

As I wander up and down the Texas Hill Country streams looking for scenes to paint, I cannot help but remember my teenage years spent on these rivers. So, to me, in a way, they are something like a “fountain of youth”. For in my thoughts at least, for a short time, I feel young again. 

On Thursday of this week, I leave to attend my 60th year reunion of our high school graduation class in Uvalde, Texas. I plan to arrive a few days early and stay up in the hills in the tiny little town of Utopia, Texas at a Bed and Breakfast Inn on the Sabinal River where I can roam up and down the Sabinal and Frio Rivers seeking scenes for future paintings.