Thursday, February 23, 2012

Road Trip series - #2 & 3, in oils

The series continues through the Navajo Nation, now switching over to oils...

Blue House at Red Mesa - #3
oil on board - 9x12 inches
© S.Johnson
During our drives across Hwy 160, I always see this blue house.  It sits alone, dwarfed by the surrounding desert.  It fascinates me.  A few miles away is the community of Red Mesa, so named for the distinctive geological formation in the distance.  Far off on the right, the top of the Abajo Mountains in Utah are seen.  

Approaching Teec Nos Pos - #2
oil on board - 9x12 inches
© S.Johnson
This is yesterday's painting, and the first time I've used oils since June.  Yeah, a bit rusty with them - can you tell?  I almost wiped this, and probably should have, but decided to just power through it and move on.  Also time to replace some of my brushes - they were not helping the process.

Teec Nos Pos [pronounced 'tees nose pose'] means "circle of cottonwoods" in Navajo , and it's a tiny little community that sits at the junction of Hwy 160 and the end of Hwy 64.  

4 comments:

  1. I think these are both great, Sonya! I love your composition in the first one. The highway really leads your eye into the painting in an interesting way. You always achieve a true sense of distance in your landscape paintings, and I envy that so! Nice work!

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  2. I am always facinated when I see a little lonely house dwarfed by the expansive desert. You really captured that feeling. Both of these are beautiful. Looks like it was a nice road trip too!

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  3. Thanks so much Darla! I definitely struggled with the aerial perspective in #2 (and just the painting in general), but I'm glad that it at least reads okay to someone else :). Adjusting my palette for #3 helped a lot.

    Hi Liz - I know, right? There is something compelling about the lone dwelling as a subordinate to the land. It's also something that is unique to our region: almost everywhere else in the country, it's hard to not see the land cluttered with man-made structures.

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  4. Thanks for the help that you posted on Casey's blog!!

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