Blue Moon, oil painting S Copas
The rain falls on the plain, just not my house
Sketch 20july2012
Cowboys and Indians, photo by s copas
scopas photo 16july2012 pano iPhone
It looked as if there could be rain.
1june2012 Home on the Range
The sky is the big event of the high plains.
Saw the first dragonfly of the summer yesterday
See them tumbling down
Pledging their love to the ground
Lonely but free I ‘ll be found
Drifting along with the tumbling tumbleweeds.
—Sons of the Pioneers, Tumbling Tumbleweeds —
Composed by Bob Nolan, 1930’s
The only things that grow in a drought are the tumbleweeds, cactus, and yucca. Photos by S. Copas.
What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset.
—Crowfoot, Blackfoot warrior and orator
The Last Buffalo - killed for his skin and his body left to rot
Photograph Susan Copas
The Last Buffalo - shot January 2012. His herd was shipped off last year, leaving him with just the coyotes and the jack rabbits for company. He used to hang out sometimes by the fence between my place and his pasture. I’ve never been watched as intently by any other animal. No question to it, I would have been risking my life to enter his pasture on foot, and I never made the mistake of thinking he was anything but wild, even if he condescended to stay behind his five-strand barbed wire fence. Days might go by when I didn’t see him, but I spotted his body, skinned, abandoned on the ground. Rest in peace, it was a privilege.
Work in process, oil on canvas, 22jan2012 susan copas
Sleeping Venus, digital study for oil painting
18jan2012
