Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Skies over Horse Gulch - pastel

I think I've finally gotten out of my non-painting rut.  This was started and 95% finished last night, not long after I completed the last painting.

Horse Gulch is the name of the amazing area of open space, all public use, that is a block away from where I live.  In an article in the Durango Telegraph - a free weekly magazine - it described the Horse Gulch recreation area as "Durango's Central Park".  It's got 30 miles of trails that run through a small valley filled with sage, wildflowers and scrub, and surrounded to the east by a series of mesas.

A few weeks ago, I went on a trail run up the old road that goes along Horse Gulch itself (a small creek that parallels Raider Ridge to the west) and brought my camera.  Monsoon clouds were in abundance, adding to the picturesque views of the land.

There's no doubt that Horse Gulch will be visited regularly as far as subject matter - it instantly became a favored location, and its proximity to our place makes it an easy access if I wanted to bring a small plein air set along.

After finding success in improving the surface of the Canson paper, I decided to try it on the Artagain.  The result was that it dramatically improved the paper's ability to both layer and blend, and here is the result.  Since I really like working on a dark/black surface, I'll be doing this for all paintings I do on Artagain.  The paper still has its limitations, and I'll probably not use it for paintings I think are going to be "keepers", but that could change as my painting skills continue to improve.

"Skies over Horse Gulch"
9x12" on Strathmore Artagain

3 comments:

  1. Glad you're back in the (painting) saddle. Oo, bad Western joke.
    Will you guys be adopting a dog? That's the only thing it sounds like you're missing from your outings (well, make that dog and sleeping bag)...

    ReplyDelete
  2. Forgot to say, I love the skies in this one!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Jala - ha! Yeah, it's good to be painting again, even if some are duds. Glad you like the sky on this - I tried really hard to keep the painting loose.

    Y'know...we want a dog, but in this condo, it's not super feasible. We will probably wait until we have a house and maybe some property. A dog would be so great on camping trips, though.

    Forgetting a sleeping bag on a camping trip - that is a special kind of stupid. Gotta love Ace Hardware for saving the day!

    ReplyDelete

Your thoughtful comments add value to this blog - thank you so much for taking the time to leave them!

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...