Sonya's Daily Art Journal

Road Trip series - #2 & 3, in oils

2012-02-23T21:04:00.000-05:00

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.

Revisiting the roadtrip: a new series

2012-02-21T19:24:00.000-05:00

After mulling over a few different ideas, I think I've finally settled on something to paint while I wait for plein air season to begin in earnest...

Altocumulus Over Sleeping Ute
9x12 inches - pastel on black construction paper
© S.Johnson

A theme for a previous series - the roadtrip - and even the same route - Hwy 160 and 89A. Even the Grand Canyon. But, this will also take us further south and off the Colorado Plateau to Phoenix, via Interstate 17.

The trip was back in early August, and early on, the skies started being interesting, but I had no idea just what an amazing transformation would happen just in the span of a few hours, courtesy of the monsoons. Maynard Dixon would have loved this day.

I've decided that for this series, it will be pretty much "anything goes", in terms of media, surface, size, style, etc. Basically, I want to use this as an opportunity to focus on specific ideas or concepts for each painting, and the common element will simply be that they all are based from references from this trip to Phoenix and back, with a side trip to the Grand Canyon. I've shared photos and the plein air piece I did from that trip here. I even tested the waters months ago for this series with this graphite drawing.

For this first piece in the series, it's all about the sky and minimalism. The view is south of the Sleeping Ute Mtn, located in the southwestern corner of Colorado. The sweep of the clouds over the mountain, and their movement throughout the sky are what appealed to me here. Blue seemed too conventional, so the sky is in some fun colors of turquoise and teal/purple-gray.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the drive!

Another studio wrap-up - pastel landscape

2012-02-19T23:05:00.000-05:00

The stack of unfinished paintings slowly dwindles...

Heading Into Fall
12x16 inches, pastel on Strathmore Artagain
© S.Johnson

Here's a piece that I started in the studio from a photo taken during another plein air painting trip (with another unfinished painting).

The date was August 25 - late summer, and beginning the transition into fall. It's along the dirt road that runs along Lemon Lake - one of my favorite places to paint. It was one of those days where clouds came and went throughout the day, and at times, the sky was somewhat overcast, as here.

Another good exercise to simplify-simplify and eliminate unnecessary detail.

Summer plein air - Colorado Trail, pastel

2012-02-14T19:23:00.000-05:00

I think I need a drink after this one...

Colorado Trail Shadows
12x12 inches - pastel on Strathmore Artagain
© 2012, S.Johnson

No kidding - I had to really work for this. Looks deceptively simple, but I realized even when I was painting it back in July (it was the first of the two unfinished plein airs I did that day) that it was going to be tough.

It's a section of the Colorado Trail (CT) as it comes up through a stand of aspen before a really, really steep section starts around the corner, near Molas Lake and maybe 50 yards from Molas creek (where Wayne was trout fishing).

Biggest issue: trying to mass the aspen leaf foliage in a way that was convincing by balancing busy masses of color with suggestions of leaf detail. Detail: I've sort of come to not like that word very much, and I fight with it constantly. But, it was just everywhere in this scene, just trying to drive me nuts.

Anyway, when I realized that I wasn't going to finish this on location, I shot some photos to act as a guide later. When I got home and downloaded them, I was stunned by how poor they were as a reference in comparison to what I was seeing while painting on location! I only really used them for a reminder of where a few things were supposed to go and basic proportions/values, rather than color.

It's a reminder to me of how important it is to try and paint on location when possible, at least sometimes, if your goal is to capture something representational as far as colors and such go. The photo itself would be just horrid to paint from. I also realized that I have the tendency to paint the lighter values (like the trail) much darker on location than in the studio - I need an umbrella!

Oh yes - happy Valentine's Day, everyone!

Versatile Blogger Award and passing it on

2012-02-12T22:45:00.000-05:00

A kind thank-you to LeAnn from Lincoln, NE, for this award last week. LeAnn wears many hats, including retired judge and still-practicing tax preparer, and does quilting and sewing in her free time. I used to sew a lot when I was younger, and while I don't any more, I still enjoy reading about others who do. Please visit her blog Ponderings to see some of her charming and skillful fabric creations!

As a recipient, I'm supposed to list seven random things about myself and then list other blogs to receive this award.

So, here's the first part:

1. I was in FFA when I was in high school, and was on the poultry judging team. So, I know how to candle and grade eggs and the qualities that make the best laying hen

2. I ran track and x-country in high school, and still have my varsity letter these many years later

3. I know how to weld (both oxy-acetylene torch and arc, though I was much better at arc)

4. I love to bake artisan breads

5. I have hiked and backpacked most of the named (and a few un-named) trails and routes in the Grand Canyon, some on multiple occasions

6. On my 40th birthday (which would be 5 1/2 years ago...eep!), I climbed to the top of Angel's Landing in Zion NP

7. I'm a huge science nerd, obsessive reader and collector of books, and I like reading about subjects such as quantum mechanics and geology for recreation, as well as everything art

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For the second part - passing this award on to other blogs - I had to give this one some thought. The original instructions were to give the award to 15 blogs, but that seemed like a bit much, so I stuck with 10.

It would be easy to pick blogs based on all the wonderful blogger peeps I feel I have a personal connection with and who also: 1) post regularly, and; 2) have consistently high-quality and interesting content. But, in the end, I decided I also wanted to include a couple of bloggers who don't even know I exist, and subsequently, they won't know of this award.

If you read this post and see your blog here, and are so inclined to pass the award on, that is great. So, in alphabetical order from my blogroll "follow" list, here they are:

1 - http://artandinfluence.blogspot.com/ - Armand Cabrera's blog. He occasionally posts his own work, but his blog is weighted heavily towards discussions of artists and paintings of past and sometimes present, as well as practical issues facing working artists today.

2 - http://apastelpainter.blogspot.com/ - fellow pastel artist Dan Michael's blog. Dan always includes his musings and thoughts on his painting process, which I love, and his rendering of the landscapes of Virginia where he lives are, in a word, masterful.

3 - http://crystalcookart.blogspot.com/ - watercolor (mostly) artist Crystal Cook. In addition to having a magical way rendering light, color and shadow in her medium of choice, regardless of subject, she's a talented writer to boot, and her posts are always a delight to read.

4 - http://brushandbaren.blogspot.com/ - linocut printmaker, nature observer and sketcher extraordinaire, Sherri Y. Sherri has a wonderful writing style that always makes me smile or laugh when I read her posts. Bonus: she's a fellow Coloradoan.

5 - http://www.dailyartwest.com/ - artist Don Gray. Seriously, Don switches back and forth between oils, watercolor, graphite and occasional encaustics and makes it look easy. Plus, he not only paints in all three of the main genres (figure, still life and landscape), but he also does non-representational work and murals. Versatile: this man shows how it's done!

6 - http://darlamcdowell.blogspot.com/ - oil painter Darla McDowell. I found Darla's blog through the DailyPaintWorks site and her DPW Challenge entries. She is another artist who moves from still life to landscape and portrait (some human, more animal), while bringing her own personal style to each painting and making them look effortless in the process.

7 - http://lizhamptonderivan.blogspot.com/ - my friend Liz Hampton-Derivan. I met Liz when I was in Bisbee two years ago, and was in awe of her mixed-media encaustic paintings, as well as her photography, and she has the ability to take the ordinary and makes it compelling and 100% unique. She is always exploring new creative paths, which is something I really admire.

8 - http://stapletonkearns.blogspot.com/ - oil painter Stapleton Kearns. "Stape" devotes much of his posting to the discussion of artists and the elements of paintings that make them work (or not), and I always learn something from each of his posts. He also does workshops, paints outdoors in NH in sub-zero temperatures, so he gets a bonus for that.

9 - http://thealteredpage.blogspot.com/ - Seth Apter's blog. I'm not a mixed-media artist, but this is a blog that is worth reading regardless of your medium or painting style. Seth's blog focuses on surveys of the artist community in a variety of subjects (favorite artist, favorite tool, etc.) that never fails to be informative and interesting.

10 - http://thecolorist.blogspot.com/ - pastelist Casey Klahn. Casey's blog is another of those which, in addition to featuring his very unique style of abstract-expressionism-colorist paintings, also discusses artists and other things art in his blog. Always a good read.

Summer plein air landscape - wrap-up #2, pastel

2012-02-08T21:51:00.000-05:00

The second of the small stack of unfinished plein air paintings now completed...

Daisies Along the Old Road
12x12 - pastel on Strathmore

A plein air from July 22. This double-track road and stand of aspens can be seen at one of the turns along Hwy 550, near the turn-off to Cascade creek. I've desired to paint it ever since I first saw it, and in high summer, large patches of daisies (non-native and considered invasive weeds) can be seen in the open areas and meadows. Personally, I love them.

I will return to this location to paint again.

Summer landscape - wrapping up an old plein air, pastel

2012-02-07T00:33:00.000-05:00

I have finally happened upon my next "subjects" to paint: last summer's unfinished plein air paintings...

Creek Crossing
12x12 inches - pastel on Strathmore Artagain

This painting dates back from July 13, and was the second (unfinished) plein air of that day's trip. A dirt road leads off of Hwy 550 and drops below the highway to this crossing of Lime Creek. If you've got a high-clearance vehicle, you can easily cross it, but not in a Civic.

As soon as I saw this view, I knew I had to paint it. Wayne crossed the creek to fish upstream a bit, and I worked until he came back, getting it probably 75% finished on location. I'm not sure why I didn't finish it up promptly; I think I was worried about ruining it. In the interim, I also purchased some additional pastels, including my now indispensable Ludwigs, which I employed here.

I feel a great sense of satisfaction having completed this painting, and am now motivated to try and finish the others that have been patiently sitting on my shelf.

Winter landscape - river shoreline, pastel

2012-02-04T19:02:00.000-05:00

Winding down the "winter landscape" series with another river scene (and a plein air)...

Winter Shoreline
12x16 inches - pastel on Strathmore
© 2012, S.Johnson

I had the realization a few days ago that I'm pretty much done with winter now, both the season and probably most of the paintings. As enjoyable and successful as I think they've been, it's now time for me to move on to something new.

I checked my blog archives, and it was just around this time that I wrapped up my winter painting series last year - for the same reason.

Earlier this week, I also confirmed my suspicions that I'm probably not ever going to be a winter plein air painter: the PAP4C, of which I am now officially a member, met on Wednesday to paint the Animas around town. I was actually excited to get outside and try to get some painting done. Temps in the mid-40's, with no wind.

The paint-outs usually start at 9AM, but it was in the low 20's then, so I waited until 11:00 to head out. Things were fine at first - I selected a location just north of the library, which is where we met for the critique. I was less than an hour into the painting when a slight breeze kicked up and some high thin clouds crossed the sun. I have some thin gloves for painting during colder days, which I've used when the temps were in the mid-50's or so, and they were fine. However, it didn't take long for the fingers of my right hand to get cold and start going numb; they are the weak link in my ability to be outdoors in low temperatures, particularly if I'm not moving.

At that point, I knew the session was over, as I couldn't concentrate any longer; it felt like my right brain just turned off. At the critique session, all whopping 6 of us who showed up were all complaining about the cold.

Anyway, in the spirit of "pictures, or it didn't happen", here's the painting as far as it got, after an hour of painting. There is a flock of mallards that reside in the area, and if this doesn't end up in the trash, I may play around with adding some in there, just for kicks, because the composition is sort of boring:

Plein air interruptus
12x16 - black construction paper

Winter landscape - side creek, pastel

2012-01-30T00:59:00.000-05:00

This afternoon's painting, switching to a portrait format, of a small creek, water reflections and shadows...

Along Lightner Creek
16x12 inches - pastel on Strathmore Artagain
© S.Johnson

Lightner Creek is a small drainage that enters the Animas River right near the Hwy 160 bridge passing through town. This is near a small footbridge that leads to the local dog park in town, and the photo was shot the day after our winter storm 2 weeks ago.

These small streams that have the meandering edges against the snow - I just love them. Aside from the interesting abstract shape of the stream itself, I liked the balance provided by the horizontal shadows and the vertical winter trees.

This painting came together so effortlessly it was almost eerie, and it was just plain fun to paint. I realized that it's actually been a while since I've worked on the Artagain - probably almost 2 months - and it does handle better than both the cardstock and the el-cheapo construction paper (and much better than the Somerset Black Velvet!).

I've been busy-busy framing paintings for a guest artist exhibit I was invited to for the month of February. I'll post more about that later, but I did this painting specifically to go in a silver plein air frame I have, to be on display downstairs when people walk into the building. I'm hoping it will entice people to make a trip up the stairs to the gallery to see the rest of the paintings (and photos by the gallery owners)!

Winter landscape - an urban nocturne, pastel

2012-01-24T22:31:00.000-05:00

And now for something really different: a bunch of man-made things, after dark...

Snowfall After Sunset
14x11 inches, pastel on black construction paper
© S.Johnson

So, the other night, as I was working on my last post, I looked out of my window, and saw this. It was just after sunset, and it was still snowing. The streetlight was casting the most amazing light on the freshly fallen snow and the still-falling snow was catching the light of the street lamp in an almost dreamy glow.

For whatever reason, I found it amazing, and got out my camera to get some quick reference photos. I've always liked the house across the street (it's two, actually) with its very cool design and double pointed roofs.

Okay, you can tell I don't paint buildings that often, and I usually find telephone poles and lines to be a bit of a visual blight on the landscape. But, this was different.

I made a few adjustments to the composition, but the fire hydrant, well, it had to stay. Not sure why, but it needs to be there. What you won't see, OTOH, are any hidden initials on the house or little curly wisps of smoke coming from the chimneys, although you can tell the neighbor peeps are probably home. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, it's probably just as well.

And, for giggles and grins, here's the reference photo I used. Not to showcase how much my house is off from the photo, or how I botched the perspective of the road, but to show that yes, even a really horrible photo (I call these "crapshots") can be used for a painting, so don't be quick to toss out the blurry ones if they otherwise contain information you can use:

Winter landscape - aspen tree shadows, pastel - SOLD

2012-01-22T19:47:00.000-05:00

Departing from the grass and river theme for this piece to bring you a painting featuring my favorite tree...

Aspen Shadows - SOLD
12x12 - pastel on black cardstock
© S.Johnson

Shot from the passenger window during our snowshoeing trip to Haviland Lake on Thursday, I knew instantly had I had paint it: awesomely cool shadows and it also leans towards abstraction.

I think this might be fun to try in oils, if I can manage to pry the pastels from my hands long enough, that is.

Anyway, it was a fun challenge.

Winter landscape - river boulders, pastel

2012-01-20T18:48:00.000-05:00

A pile of rocks, dead grasses, shadows, and some ice...

Boulders and Shadows
12x12 - pastel on black cardstock
© S.Johnson

Taken a few days before we had our recent snow, this is a small inlet off the main river that, facing north, managed to hang on to a surprising amount of snow.

That serpentine shadow running across the ice and disappearing into the shadowed area? Wayne didn't much care for it, but it is from an unseen tree, and it fascinated me, so I kept it. This was a good painting to work with lost and found edges - something I find myself enjoying when I look at paintings.

And, there's black in this painting. Many artists/instructors will say that one should avoid values 8-10 (with 0 = pure white and 10= pure black), but as with all things, there are exceptions. Shadows within shadowed areas are black. Judicious use of black also helps define the relative values of the rocks and gives them proper depth.

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Here are a few photos from some of my recent "duck hunts" down by the river. I always say that if you're having a crummy day, just go watch some ducks. You'll feel better.

Mallard pair
He has just finished a "yoga stretch" with his right foot. How on earth they can handle standing and sleeping in water that is just a few degrees above freezing is beyond me, but they clearly enjoy cold winters.

Common Goldeneyes taking flight
These are very striking birds, but extremely wary; any approach towards the edge of the river and they take off

Balancing act
Okay, not a duck, but this Canada goose and its mate were both one-legging it on some exposed rocks close to shore

Squadron of Common Goldeneye - two males and several ladies
Taken from well above the river, this is the best in-water photo I could get of them.

Winter landscape series - River Path, pastel

2012-01-17T20:29:00.001-05:00

After what seems like an eternity on my easel, I finally have something to show...

River Path
12x12 inches - pastel on black cardstock
© S.Johnson

I expected to finish this last Thursday. Then, I decided I didn't like the original effort, done on light brown cardstock. It was well into Thursday, and I was much further along when I decided to bail on this version than what you see in the photo, which was shot at the end of the first session.

I originally took the photo below intending to show it as an in-progress for the finished piece, just for kicks. Working from memory for the second session, when I finally turned my laptop on to view the reference, the colors I had chosen for the grasses were off. Wrong temperature, wrong value...just plain wrong. Plus, I thought the whole thing just looked anemic on the lighter paper.

So, I started again on a piece of black cardstock, and worked from the original painting for the first part, vs. the photo, for the final version - similar to working from a plein air study, I guess. The final version subsequently resembles the reference photo even less - a good thing.

I probably would have had it finished then on Saturday, but my sister came up to spend the weekend, and of course, nothing got done on it. The storm that rolled through the region yesterday delayed her departure for a day due to dicey road and driving conditions, so after she left today, I sat down and motored through the rest of it.

So, here we are, 5 days later, and it's finally done!

The primary reason I wanted to have this ready to post on Thursday is so I could share the link to a blog post in a timely fashion by Antonia and Fabio DueAlberi featuring their interview with me. Antonia and Fabio are fellow Etsian shop owners, and that is how I came about meeting them online, and discovered their blog. When they inquired if I would be interested in being featured on their blog, I happily agreed.

Please have a look at their blog, linked above, featuring their wonderful floral and botanical photography. Their collaborative efforts produce beautiful and unique images that always make me ask: "How did they do that?" I certainly couldn't create photos like theirs, which makes me appreciate their work all the more.

Oh yes - here's the link to their interview last Thursday with me. Thank you again, Antonia & Fabio, for your generosity and support of fellow artists here in the blogosphere!

Winter landscape - snow-lined creek - pastel

2012-01-10T22:27:00.000-05:00

Returning to the high country winter-themed paintings...

Winter's Reflections
12x12 inches - pastel on black cardstock
© 2012, S.Johnson

Today's painting is based on a photo taken on my Xmas day snowshoeing trip. The loop trail I was on crosses this small wooden footbridge and creek that drains from Haviland Lake. I saw this small section off the trail a bit, with its reflections and other fun details, and plowed through 18" of powdery snow to procure the photo.

I was really drawn to the abstract shape the creek forms. A few grasses here and there, some trees and the smooth, undulating lines of the snow covering the land - all very cool. I also like the exposed rocks at the edge of the creek with their little "snow biscuits", as I call them. I had to adjust them so they didn't look like Sno Balls© , which is not a good look for any self-respecting winter landscape.

Aside from the fact that some of the "white" pastels (which I think are Senns...very soft) had issues adhering to the paper, this painting came together quickly. Those are fun times in the studio.

Speaking of snowshoeing - here are a few photos taken from our Dec 30 trip to Spud Lake. Fellow pastelist and PAP4C member Jan and her husband are avid snowshoers and she told me about this trail which is sort of hidden:

Along the trail

Winter grass still life

Aspen leaf with snowmelt drops

Aspen hillside

Pano shot of Spud Lake and the West Needles

A Trip to Cedar Mesa, UT

2012-01-09T19:52:00.000-05:00

A brief intermission from the winter and snow scenes in CO to bring you a southern Utah landscape with large rocks and a road...

In The Valley of the Gods
9x18 inches - pastel on construction paper
© 2012, S.Johnson

So, this is the painting that would have been my plein air painting, if the timing had been different. I started it on Friday and it languished on my easel for a few days. Unlike the recent snow scenes I've been doing, this one did not come together quickly.

On Thursday morning, we headed out for one of our favorite destinations in southern Utah: Comb Ridge and Butler Wash. The plan was to hike to a few ruins and petroglyph sites listed in a guidebook and then find a good location in the early afternoon where I could do a plein air painting.

Alas, it didn't happen. The guidebook we brought to find the particular ruins (called Double Stack ruin) was so vague in its description of the route that we never found them. Trying to find such hidden archaelogical treasures is really difficult without a GPS and reliable beta. So, we spent far longer hiking up Comb Ridge than we'd planned, and by then, it was too late to start any painting.

But, that was a minor setback in the scheme of the trip. Instead of risking more disappointments from said guidebook, we decided to head west along the highway and check out the BLM area known as Valley of the Gods. Not to be confused with the Garden of the Gods, which is near Colorado Springs, this area forms what is essentially the southern edge of the Cedar Mesa. A 17-mile loop drive on a dirt road takes you through the valley and past countless buttes, spires and amazing balanced rock formations.

If these eroded structures look similar to Monument Valley, that's because it is about 25 miles to the southwest. Probably the same sedimentary rock, but I cannot confirm this.

Anyway, here are a few of the photos from the hike up Butler Wash.

First stop is the Wolfman petroglyph panel* - a short hike takes you to these remarkable examples of rock art. They can be seen from several hundred feet away:

You would need a ladder to reach these. Aren't these designs beautiful? So precise and symmetrical - these were artists who were clearly skilled and took pride in their work. I've often thought about how fascinating it would be to travel back 1400 years and meet the creators.

Another section with a central animal figure (it looks like an owl to me), a botanical design and maybe a staff of some sort?

Why I love abstract art: interpretation is up to the viewer

This makes me smile; I like to think this figure is doing a Happy Dance

Next stop: a side canyon creek in Comb Ridge...frozen solid

No ruins to be found!

Obligatory abstract image: detail of ice from creek

Trapped air or crystal formation? I'm not sure, but I love the patterns created.

*Editorial note: readers will be disappointed if visiting the Wolfman petroglyph to see that doesn't look quite like the photo - several bullet holes from vandals deface the surrounding rock facade and some of the actual art. Sad, but true. I opted to edit them out as best I could, since they are ugly and shouldn't be there to begin with.

Winter landscape - Starting the new year off

2012-01-04T22:22:00.000-05:00

First off, a Happy New Year to everyone! I am a little slow out of the blocks, painting-wise, for 2012, but hopefully, this painting will break my low output for the past month.

I'm not generally prone to making resolutions for the new year, as that sounds a bit too formative and absolute. So, I tend to think more of goals I'd like to try and achieve throughout the year, based on the direction(s) I'd like to see my art go, and areas that I feel could stand improvement (well, that would be everything, actually). I have some ideas orbiting around in my head, and one of my goals is to actually make those a reality instead of a mere idea. We'll see.

In the meantime, here is today's painting. Another one of those "ordinary" scenes, with snow, blue shadows and yep - dead grasses. Bonus: getting to paint ice on the stream.

Shoreline Shadows
12x12 - pastel on black cardstock
© 2012, S.Johnson

I have more of these winter river scenes planned from photos taken last week, and they are dying to get out of my head and onto some paper.

However, due to the amazing weather we've been having lately, a trip is planned tomorrow...and I am hoping a plein air painting will be forthcoming.

Winter landscape - A still life, of sorts

2011-12-27T12:26:00.000-05:00

Intersection
11x14 inches
pastel on acid-free construction paper

I'm not sure precisely all the reasons I'm drawn to such ordinary scenes like this one, but I am. This is also the type of thing that I would love to have painted on location, but given that this was in about 15" of snow and at least 1/2 mile down the road to Haviland Lake, which was closed to vehicle traffic, that wasn't happening. Perhaps one of these days, I'll snowshoe in to paint on location, but not for this.

The reference photo for this was taken on Christmas day, while I was out snowshoeing. It was a bright, sunny day with no wind. Just perfect. The low angle of the sun at this time of the year and mid-afternoon light of winter produces the most amazing shadows.

Here are a few other photos from the day, which was a loop including roads and a trail:

Beautiful crystals of ice form on a small creek along the trail

Creek reflections

Cattails along the edge of Haviland Lake

Sweeping tree shadows across the frozen lake

This Red Squirrel [Tamiasciurus hudsonicus] was extremely put out by my presence. He is giving me the stink eye from high up in a Ponderosa pine 25 feet away - hilarious!

Winter landscape - An urban landscape, deconstructed

2011-12-18T21:27:00.000-05:00

December Morning
12x12 inches - pastel on acid-free construction paper
© 2011, S.Johnson

Something quite different for me - a landscape with not one, but multiple elements of human presence...including some humans!

Based on a photo taken the same day and not far from the same location as the painting from the last post, this one of three gals walking along the Animas River Trail (ART). Even as I took this quick snapshot, I knew immediately that: 1) I had to paint it; 2) it would crop perfectly to a square format.

When analyzing the photo for any compositional changes I wanted to make, I actually decided I liked just about everything (save for an off-leash dog...definitely out!), and that they were all important to the design and meaning of the painting. It got me thinking about the importance of not blindly following a photographic reference, and asking oneself: "is adding or keeping this element really necessary, and does it improve the painting?"

- the trail: this multi-use paved urban trail is one of the many things that makes Durango special. It is the source of great enjoyment and recreational value for its residents. The path itself is the lead-in to the painting, and the non-linear curves keep the viewer from racing through.

- the figures: the focal point. They also symbolize the importance and popularity of this trail to its residents by their presence. Odd number = better compositionally. I was mindful to keep the intervals between them varied. They were also by far the most challenging thing to paint!

- the lamppost: adjacent to the figures, it balances them, and adds another vertical element to the painting. Its presence symbolizes safety and comfort.

- the evergreen trees: breaks up the purple-red-grays of the winter trees surrounding it, and helps to keep the viewer from leaving the painting by stopping the pathway, and hopefully, helps guide the viewer's eyes up to the...

- snow-covered rooftops of the neighborhood houses: add a broken horizontal element to the painting and tie in with the snow on the sides of the path.

- the chamisa: even with its faded flowers, this shrub is attractive. It helps break up the rust-colored grasses and it sweeps in towards the painting.

Try covering up each of the elements with your thumb and see if you think the painting would work as well without it/them. I don't personally feel it does, but others might feel differently. Either way, I think it's a useful thing to apply to your own reference photos, and even during the painting process. I actually do the same thing when I'm painting on location.

My goal and challenge with this painting was to make it look as though there is not much detail...but, yet, it required being detailed in some areas. Does that make any sense? Little dashes of color here and there to suggest shapes and planes. Thin dark lines to suggest underlying tree structure.

I don't analyze my all of my paintings or references so carefully, but I thought sharing my thoughts behind this one might be of some interest to other artists; it's also the sort of thing I really enjoy reading on other art blogs.

Winter landscape - A new studio piece...finally!

2011-12-16T16:06:00.000-05:00

First Season's Snow
14x18 inches - pastel on Somerset Black Velvet paper with Golden pumice ground
© 2011, S.Johnson

After what seems like an eternity, I'm back. I've actually not been gone per se - just out of touch with much of everything, for lack of a better explanation. Actually, my attentions and creative energy have just been diverted to things not art, and probably of no interest to most readers. So, I didn't bother to share them here.

This piece was done from a photo taken 11 days ago and actually started on the same day. It's not even that I struggled with it, because I didn't; I actually had it almost half finished after the first session, and had fully expected to finish it the next day...but, that just didn't happen.

December is always a weird month for me, and my least favorite. While most people are enjoying the build-up to the holidays and such, I have an overwhelming desire to head off to a remote backcountry cabin, armed with nothing but art supplies, food and books, and emerge again on Jan 2. Then, life finally returns to normal and the days are getting longer.

But, the upside of Dec is that it usually provides the first decent snow of the season, both in town and up in the mountains, which begins snowshoeing season.

For me, a day out snowshoeing is the antidote to the noisy, frenetic and spend-spend-spend mentality of the Dec holiday season, which bothers my sensibilities on various levels. The absolute stillness of the land covered in snow calms the mind and allows one to truly live in the moment.

The landscape takes on a Zen-like quality of simplicity...

Things ordinary become extraordinary...

Water, transformed, for a moment in time...

Sometimes, the snow offers a most curious transformation...

And views otherwise never seen are seen...

A final plein air...for a bit - pastel, 12x12

2011-12-01T18:13:00.001-05:00

Late Fall Shoreline
12x12" - pastel on dark brown cardstock
© S.Johnson

Yesterday was probably the last "warm" day we are going to have around here for a bit, possibly months, and while the landscape is probably at its least attractive [in my opinion, anyway] in the period after the fall color has gone and before the snow works its magic on the land, I wasn't finding much inspiration to paint on location.

But, the urge to get outside and take advantage of the gift of a beautiful, mild day made me think of what would be interesting to paint. Answer, of course: the river. New location for this piece, and one I'll most certainly revisit. One of the standout features were the reddish bare branches of the shoreline willows. I actually think they look more interesting and attractive without leaves - quite possibly the only tree/shrub that I could say that about. Makes for a sweet compliment with the river, too.

I had to work quickly, though: a hogback ridge is just across the river, and at this time of the year, the sun drops behind it early. No sun = immediate drop in temperature = painting is over for me. So, I didn't quite finish it on location, and despite having made some compositional adjustments to the foreground rocks on location, when I got home, I didn't care for them. The closest rock had the misfortune of looking like...a hamburger. Partially due to its shape and partially due to me being so focused on capturing its color variations, which were striped horizontally. I hadn't given it much thought while I was painting that it might not translate so well in the painting. And, there was some major funk happening with some of the colors I used in those rocks.

So, I messed around with it a bit this afternoon, fully expecting I might ruin it, which happens. Then, suddenly, things seemed to come together and I decided that I liked it, so I took this photo:

However, upon looking at the photo on my computer, I saw two things, albeit minor, that immediately bugged me, and I knew I had to fix them. Do you see them? Actually, others will possibly notice different things (hey, if I ever create the perfect painting, my career as an artist will be over), but for whatever reason, these jumped out as very bothersome. Even if you don't notice specifics, I hope you'll at least agree that the first image is better.

I mention this because I think it's a good example of how looking at a photo of the painting can be a good editing/critiquing tool. As much as I try to catch these things before I declare the painting to be finished, sometimes I just miss them. But, they often show up in the photo. I still haven't figured out exactly how this phenomenon works, but I am grateful for it!

More from southern Utah - 8x16 pastel

2011-11-30T14:03:00.001-05:00

Passing Through
8x16 inches - pastel on museum board with Golden pumice ground
© S.Johnson

It occurred to me yesterday evening when I started working on this painting that roads are one of the few manmade elements I really have no hesitation adding in a landscape. I'll never get tired of painting them.

Another painting based on the drive back from the Needles Overlook, along the road of the same name, which I just can't seem to get enough of. This one made a perfect crop to a 1:2 format.

It's hard to tell from the photo because I employed blending here, but this is on a black-toned surface. I usually mix acrylic paint in with the pumice ground, in an approximate 1:1 ratio and add a small amount of water from a spray bottle. One or two layers and it's good to go, and because the board is smooth, the only texture I have is what I want: from the pumice grit. It's particularly good if you frame without a mat.

If I frame this one, I will probably try mounting it on top of a mat (since it isn't in a standard size and I can't afford to custom frame anything) with archival foam tape. I've seen many pastels on paper with deckled edges framed this way and I like the look.

Water abstract photos in upcoming juried show

2011-11-28T12:01:00.001-05:00

So, as I've mentioned before, I find it difficult to paint abstracts. However, as a photographer, abstract images of nature have been one of my favorite subjects for almost two years now, with water being my all time favorite abstract "medium" to photograph.

Mosaic With Pearl
11x14 inches
© 2011, S.Johnson

The Durango Arts Center sent out its list of upcoming shows for 2012, which includes an all-abstract venue titled "Abstract Views". I'd briefly considered submitting some paintings, but since the show is open to all media, I figured it might be better to submit some photos instead (I think they are far better than any of my abstract paintings).

Transformation
11x14 inches
© 2010, S.Johnson

The submission deadline was a few weeks ago, and to my delight, I discovered when we got back from AZ, that two of my three photos were accepted into the show! Those are shown above.

The show runs from Jan 5-28, 2012 at the Durango Arts Center.

Back from the Valley in the Sun

2011-11-26T16:56:00.001-05:00

We had an enjoyable time down in southern AZ, enjoying the mild, sunny weather that the desert region is known for at this time of the year, and thankfully no travel mishaps (bad weather and accidents usually being the issues).

Our lodging location plans changed due to logistical reasons - namely, that the White Tanks Regional Park we'd planned to spend the trip closes its entrance after 8 p.m., which wasn't going to work for us. So, my plans to try and get some painting in most days also changed.

But, on Wednesday afternoon, we did manage a trip out to the area north of town so that I could paint.

Morgan City Wash
12x12 inches - pastel on light brown cardstock
© S.Johnson

We decided to go back to an area we'd hiked on Christmas day last year, near Lake Pleasant. Lake Pleasant is a large reservoir that serves both as a recreational area for boaters and as one of the water sources for the sprawling cities of the Phoenix area. Water from the Colorado River via the CAP canal also flows into the lake.

Last year on our hike, we discovered this neat wash right off one of the roads leading to the lake, which is apparently popular with the OHV crowd and people who like to shoot at things, at least based on the number of empty shotgun shells littering the wash near the road. Looking on the AZ Gazetteer, I discovered this particular wash has a name, albeit a puzzling one.

More interesting, however, are the wild burros that also inhabit the area. We didn't see any on this hike, although we did hear some braying off in the distance, quite possibly this same trio of bachelor jacks I photographed last year:

I've only ever painted the Sonoran desert landscape from photos, and only a couple of paintings at that. It certainly presents its own unique challenges, especially at this time of the year when the vegetation is in its somewhat drab winter state.

And unlike the last wash I painted in Farmington, which was comprised of sand from the sandstone cliffs, these washes are often formed from completely different rock, often volcanic and more gravelly in appearance, that washes from great distances during flash floods.

Looking back through last year's photos, I realized when I got back yesterday that I had taken a photo of the exact same location I chose for this painting! Clearly, it struck a chord with me. It was a good thing I brought my backpacking straps along, because this was a mile from the car.

Normally, I don't post reference photos that I paint from, because it's just not that interesting. But, this is different, and it was interesting to see that, well, not that much has changed here in a year. The main difference is that - ironically - there is more green in the Dec photo. And, it was taken earlier in the day.

Christmas Day in the desert

Nelson enjoys the ultimate in cat TV: the view from the RV

A new discovery: painting on cardstock

2011-11-20T22:06:00.001-05:00

Sandstone study in purple
6x6 - pastel on brown Colorbok cardstock
© S.Johnson

One of my paintings sold on Etsy yesterday, so I had to make a run to Walmart today to pick up some more shipping envelopes and other miscellaneous stuff that I need that Walmart [usually] carries. Usually, our grocery trips to Walmart are one of those "in and out as fast as possible", but sometimes when I go by myself, I wander down some of the other isles where I occasionally find things useful for my studio and to appease my crafty side (like yarn for a crocheted hat).

Today, I visited the scrapbooking isle, and even though I don't do scrapbooking, I always like looking at the supplies and little do-dads they carry. I happened to notice the selection of papers, which included these pads of 12x12" heavy smooth cardstock paper that came in a variety of colors, and specifically, a pad of earth neutrals which included black, two shades of brown, white and yellow. The company is Colorbok , although their website doesn't show any of the paper products I saw.

Thirty sheets. Acid and lignin-free.

And, the best part.....the price:

$5.00.

That's less than I paid for the single sheet of the Somerset Black Velvet paper.

Sold!

We are leaving for AZ early-early tomorrow morning for the holiday, so I couldn't dedicate an evening to trying out a full sheet. I decided to try the dark brown paper and after hitting it with my sanding pad, I quartered it and did this quick value study to see how it handled.

It's based on a photo taken in - where else - Moab, during my plein air trip. I had cropped the original photo, squared it, and made it b/w for a possible abstract painting, so I could ignore the local color and just focus on values.

Verdict: Love the paper

I probably won't use the white with pastels, but it is heavier than Bristol and just as smooth, so I'm thinking it will be great for graphite drawings or pen and ink.

So, if you ever wanted to experiment with smooth paper for your pastels, this could be a low-cost way to give it a try. They also had packs of 8.5 x 11" paper, same price, in some wonderful dark neutrals.

I'm bringing it with me on our T-giving trip, along with my easel, as I am hoping and planning to do some plein air painting while we are in the Phoenix area. We are going to be staying at White Tank Regional Park in Wayne's brother's ginormous RV, which means I'll have plenty of Sonoran desert-y subjects to paint within walking distance. Exciting!

I usually don't have internet access during these holiday trips to Phoenix, so I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving, and safe travels. I will definitely miss reading everyone's blogs while I'm out of town.

Impending Storm - pastel

2011-11-19T21:10:00.001-05:00

Finally able to spend some time in the studio today...

Impending Storm
11x14 inches - pastel on w/c paper with Golden pumice ground
© S.Johnson

Another painting based on a snapshot taken during our drive back from the Needles Overlook road from the Moab trip, right near the junction of Hwy 191. Those are the Abajo Mountains to the right there. I have a thing for these dark, brooding skies against sunlit yellow grasses, and I found myself repeatedly drawn to the photo and realized I needed to paint it.

One thing that continues to surprise me is how some of the best reference photos I have for painting are those shot out of the window of a moving car. No careful planning of the composition, but somehow, many of them translate into what I feel are very good paintings and often with minimal adjustment.

I love the starkness of this land, and the fact there are no trees and essentially no green to speak of. It's open and bare and the antithesis of the pastoral tree-covered landscapes of the east that many people define as "beauty". Nothing cozy or comfortable about this, which is perhaps why I am so drawn to it. It has occurred to me on numerous occasions that I would be perfectly happy to never paint another green landscape again in my life!

Our local newsstand finally got in some copies of the Dec issue of The Pastel Journal, so I got mine yesterday. I was reading Richard McKinley's column, which is always wonderful, and I felt he was reading my thoughts when he spoke of the "...creative malaise and diminished desire to paint" from photos in the studio after spending all summer painting on location. Glad to know it wasn't just me! Anyway, he pointed out that this is the time to experiment with new techniques and materials that you'd normally not want to do when painting on location.

He included a demo with a grayscale value underpainting on some Rives BFK paper and overlaying this with a clear gesso ground and watercolor underpainting. It inspired me to pull out one of my pieces of prepared w/c paper, the same of which I mentioned in my previous post. I didn't feel like using the cheap-o watercolors I had, so instead, I just went with a pastel and rubbing alcohol underpainting, which is how I usually paint on this paper.

However, there wasn't a particularly good layer of the Golden ground on the paper, resulting in poor adhesion of the pastels. In his column article, Richard mentioned using fixatives, and I decided this would be the perfect time to experiment with using them. And besides, Degas frequently used fixatives in his pastel work, so why shouldn't I give them a try?

I ended up using 2 applications of Grumbacher workable fixative to get the coverage and depth of the sky how I wanted it. For this painting, which is essentially (and purposely) split between the land and the sky, I wanted there to be a contrast of textures between the two. So the sky is heavily blended, and with the exception of some of the darker areas of the immediate foreground shrubs and grasses, I tried to not blend anything else on the land elements (okay, I forgot that I did blend a bit in the mountains).

I should have taken a photo of the original underpainting so you could see just how totally funky it looks in that stage before being transformed into something I am actually pretty happy with, just because I always find that sort of thing to be fun(ny).

Even if you aren't a pastel artist, if you can find a copy of this months' Pastel Journal just to read Richard's excellent article, I'd recommend it. The suggestions he gives for experimenting could easily be applied to any medium.

An exercise in perseverance

2011-11-16T21:05:00.001-05:00

Okay, so I'm finally back from my rather longish (for me, anyway) absence from the blogosphere, and really any active participation in the internet in general. Sort of a self-imposed hiatus of sorts, due both from having a series of "meh" paintings as of late, and being too lazy to photograph and post the few that didn't immediately end up in the trash. It used to be that I'd post those less-than-stellar pieces and discuss them, but I guess I'm feeling less inclined to do that these days.

You know the old saying: "If at first you don't succeed, try-try again". That's the theme of today's post, and I thought I'd share the story behind this painting because: 1) there are probably several others that can relate; 2) maybe someone else will be able to apply this to a future situation in their studio instead of throwing in the towel (which I was oh-so-close to doing).

The successful result:

Sandstone Mesa Shadows
14x18 inches
pastel on Somerset Black Velvet paper
© S.Johnson

Note the surface for this painting - black Somerset paper, which is a printmaking paper, I believe. That's where this all begins. On an art forum I used to read, several pastelists raved about this paper, so a while back, I decided to order a sheet, and last week, I decided it was time to give it a try. It is an odd size - 22x30", and after doing some checking, I found that 14x18" is a sort of standard frame size, and since I wanted to go bigger for this piece, I went with that size.

After having such a great time painting Corona Arch, I decided to stay with the Moab area theme for the next painting, and settled on a photo I took from Potash Road Friday morning, on our way to Corona Arch. This road follows the Colorado on the west side, and this view is from an area called Poison Spider overlook and looks to the east towards Kane Creek Rd:

So, I did a quick 4x6" study to work out the colors and see if it was worth doing a bigger painting:

Yeah, I think it will work...

The study was done on the smooth black paper. Somerset paper, however, has a textured surface, much like rough watercolor paper. As I quickly found out, pastel handles completely differently on this surface (duh), and almost right away, the painting started heading south. Colors wouldn't blend and the texture made it impossible to use a light touch that I'm used to.

I decided to turn the first attempt into an alcohol underwash and try again. Here's Round 2, when I determined I hated it and contemplated tossing the thing in the trash:

Oh, the horrors!

So, I get out my trusty sanding pad to get rid of some of the texture and pastel:

Ah...much better

I'm determined to salvage this paper if at all possible, both because it wasn't cheap and because I'm going to make this work, dammit! After considering possibilities, I decided to pull out an old standby that has worked in the past: Golden Pumice ground. I have transformed cold-press watercolor paper and matboard into successful paintings with this product.

The sanding removed a lot of the annoying texture and the pumice ground added the Goldilocks amount of grit to allow for a perfect amount of layering and blending. The ghost image was washed away when I applied the pumice, and resulted in a gray, rather than black, surface.

And, since I don't believe in banging my head against the wall repeatedly, I decided to abandon the original reference and go with a photo taken late in the afternoon along a side trip we took along the Needles Overlook road. On the way back to Hwy 191, the light hitting this Navajo sandstone mesa was amazing, and I knew I had to paint it. The composition was simpler, which also helped. And, glory be - I actually had compatible colors. Success was mine at last!

For giggles and grins, here are the pastels I used that I actually thought to take photos of before they got re-trayed:

Foreground colors

Sandstone mesa

Sky and clouds

I guess the take-home message from this is that, if you are one who experiments with new surfaces and you find they aren't working with your techniques or painting style, don't be so quick to toss it, and consider modifications that might make it useable.

Arches and Towers of Stone

2011-11-05T22:18:00.000-04:00

It was love at first sight...

Corona Arch
12x16 inches - pastel on black construction paper
© S.Johnson

We got back from our two-day trip to Moab in the evening, and I spent the rest of the night processing the photos from the trip (which Wayne refers to as the "Post Game Wrap-Up: brought to you by Nikon"). We squeezed it in between the two storms that went through the region, today's of which has left about 3" of snow in town. I wish I could say I was excited about the first snow of the season here in town, but I'm not.

Anyway, our trip was great, as expected. It's just hard to go wrong with any hikes in the area, and I we had sort of planned the areas we wanted to hike, based on what I did and didn't get a chance to do when I was in town for the plein air event. On Thursday, we drove out Hwy 128 to hike Fisher Towers, which is about 24 miles east of Moab. I hadn't made it quite that far east when I was out for the plein air event.

Yesterday, temperatures were about 20 degrees warmer and no wind was predicted until later in the afternoon. Having spent a lot of time exploring Kane Creek Rd during my last visit, I suggested we drive down Hwy 279, which follows the Colorado south and west of Moab, and specifically go hike the trail to Corona Arch, which is also short (~3 mi RT). Actually, it's a two-fer, since it is right next to Bowtie Arch.

Most people are familiar with the arches in Arches NP, of which there are many. Delicate Arch is arguably the most well-known arch in the country, having achieved iconic status as the symbol on Utah's license plate. It is well-deserving of awe as possibly the only free-standing arch in the world, as is Landscape Arch, which is one of the longest spanning arches in the world.

The arches outside the park don't get nearly the attention or the visitors that those inside the park do, which is actually perfectly fine by me. The hike to Corona and Bowtie arches was by far one of the most scenic hikes we've done in the area, and then there are the arches themselves. You round the corner of the slickrock bench, and there they are: sculpted over millions of years out of the petrified sand dunes of Navajo sandstone. No other type of sandstone produces arches quite like Navajo.

After taking several photos of the arches from various perspectives, I knew I had to paint Corona at least. I've not had that same urge with the other arches I've seen and photographed. I also was thinking that I really need to get a lightweight plein air set up that will fit in a backpack so I can paint this baby on location, because, really - how cool would that be? There is one set of metal stairs and a cable with Moki steps (areas cut into the sandstone for climbing up a steep sandstone face), but that's it as far as difficulty goes (in other words: not a problem).

So, after doing several small color studies for more abstract landscapes (none of which were worth posting), I decided to whip this out from one of my photos. After using a piece of the el-cheapo construction paper I bought a few months ago for some color testing, I realized it worked pretty darn good when used without sanding the surface. As is always the case, some pastels work better than others, but for the most part, I got it to do what I wanted. The sky was the main issue.

This would turn out even better in oils, where I could finesse the temperatures and values better. It sort of has a graphic feel to it, which I like.

----------
Some photos from Thursday, the first day of the trip:

The Colorado along Rocky Rapids on Hwy 128

One of the Fisher Towers, as seen along the trail....

...and a close-up of the same tower a bit later with a climber peep standing on the top!

This extreme example of a balanced rock along the trail, that I named "Striking Cobra rock"

Some of the towers along the trail

The Colorado River as seen at the end of the Fisher Towers trail - view is to the north

The view to the south at the end of the trail - looking down to Onion Creek Canyon

Fisher Towers as seen from the trailhead in afternoon light

Half moon rising over The Titan - the tallest sandstone spire in the world at 900'
View is from Hwy 128

A walk down the path of abstraction

2011-11-02T21:40:00.005-04:00

Despite the self-imposed label of "representational artist" that I assign myself, I secretly (well, okay...maybe not so secretly) want to be an abstract painter as well. The problem for me is that, while I have no difficulty finding abstractions in nature (clouds, rocks, reflections, patterns, etc.) and as subjects for my camera lens, my mind simply does not work in the way that I can just spontaneously create an abstract painting out of the mental aether, as it were.

So, I rely on photos to some degree as the starting point when I set out to paint something that I hope will be a little more on the abstract side of the fence. What I love about abstract art is that it encompasses a wide range of painting styles: that is, an abstract painting can be anything from tightly rendered and hugely detailed to a few blocks of color...and everything in between. It really depends upon the context of the subject and what the artist intends for the viewer.

Eastward
6x6 inches - pastel on Artagain
© S.Johnson

A great thing about experimenting with abstracts in my studio is that there really are no rules. Anything goes. It's a great way to use many of the beautiful color-saturated pastels that normally see little time on the paper, and for me, I think my use of color is sometimes one of my weakest points as an artist. And in some cases, the less it looks like whatever it was based on in the reference, the better.

In September
6x6 inches - pastel on Artagain
© S.Johnson

Color. Value. Design/Composition. Edges. Just like a representational painting, an abstract painting needs these elements in order to be successful in my opinion. Of course, "successful" is a somewhat nebulous term in itself, and is open to interpretation. For some, that might be a sale; for others, it might be accolades from fellow artists. For me, it's generally: "Did I accomplish what I wanted to with this painting, and am I satisfied with it?"

High Country
4x6 inches - pastel on Artagain
© S.Johnson

These are a fun break from the pieces I usually do; I spend far more time considering the four elements I listed above than doing the actual painting, which in these three paintings, were supposed to be very loose. The last one was done as a "memory painting" - another exercise I've found useful: study the photo but do not refer to it while painting.

If you find yourself getting into an artistic rut, feeling burned out from your current painting style or subject, I'd recommend taking a walk down this path, if even for a brief time. For those used to doing realism, it probably won't be easy at first. But, I can almost guarantee it will be fun, you might find something useful for your primary style of work, and who knows: you might end up adding abstracts to your repertoire!

--------

We are heading up to Moab early tomorrow for two solid days of slickrock and canyon hiking adventures in the small window before temperatures drop into the 40's. Everyone have a great Thursday and Friday!

Painting in New Mexico with the PAP4C

2011-11-01T18:55:00.000-04:00

Well, I can now officially say I've painted on location in all the Four Corner states:

Along The Wash
12x12 inches - pastel on Artagain
© S.Johnson

Today was the next-to-last official paint-out held by the Plein Air Painters of the Four Corners for the year. Since the fall color is now history in the Durango area, today's location was moved south into an area right near Farmington known as The Glades. Primarily known as an OHV (off-highway vehicle) site, it is mostly low sandstone cliffs along a wide wash.

Lori and Sharon and I went down together, and initially we weren't sure the area had much appeal for painting, as the light seemed very flat, but we finally settled on a small spur road leading to one of the countless natural gas pads found in the area.

I immediately gravitated to this wash and shadowed sandstone with all the desert scrub (pinyon, chamisa and sage). Originally, I hadn't planned for there to be so much of the wash in the painting, but as is sometimes the case, the composition deviates from what I originally frame in my viewfinder. Before our group critique, I showed it to Lori, who agreed that cropping some of the bottom off would be good. However, at the critique session, everyone pretty much liked it as is and didn't think it needed cropping.

I did play around with cropping the photo and am undecided, since the crop didn't improve the painting to the degree I thought it would..either way, I love this very desert look and I think a few of us will probably come back down here over the winter on warm days to paint - the light got better and better as the day went on, which is often the case in the winter months when the sun is near its lowest angle in the sky.

More photos from today's paint-out, which turned out to be a beautiful, warm day:

Lori

Sharon

Riverside fall colors and a pair of pears

2011-10-28T22:25:00.000-04:00

Along The River Shore
9x12 inches - pastel on Wallis paper
© S.Johnson

Today's painting done along a section of the Animas that I've painted along four times now, although only one of the other paintings has made it onto the blog...

It's the final hurrah for fall colors here in southern CO. The storm that passed through the past couple of days did much to accelerate the leaf departure from the trees, both along the river and along our street. Having been cooped up inside for the past 2 days due to the storm, I was grateful that it was sunny in the mid-50's so that we could get outside and paint! Today, Pat and I were joined by Rosemary, another pastelist, who paints with the Friday plein air group.

I've done paintings on Wallis that I was quite happy with, but this isn't really one of them. I have decided that I just find the surface to be too aggressive, and I don't find the ability to add many layers to be desirable. In fact, it adds significantly to the painting time because of the need for an underpainting and it really chews up the pastels, resulting in lots of smearing when I try to lightly scumble another color on top. This is good to know, and since Wallis is pretty $, once my existing pieces are used up, I won't buy it again, unless I have some breakthrough moment with it.

Yesterday, I started a studio painting from one of the fall color reference photos I took recently, but it was a grind right out of the blocks, and while I know the scene has merit as a painting, I'll probably revisit it with oils.

There are these delicious red D'Anjou pears in the house now, so I decided to do another mini 10-minute challenge painting before they are all gone, which will be soon:

Pear Pair
6x4 inches - pastel on Artagain

Riverside Rocks and a 10-minute challenge

2011-10-27T00:33:00.000-04:00

Riverside Rocks
12x9 inches - pastel on Artagain
© S.Johnson

A studio piece, based on one of the photos taken from Baker's Bridge the other day. I was really into these rocks with all their fissures and interesting textural things going on, and then of course, there was the amazing green water and reflections with the yellow cottonwoods.

The reflections on this were a bit tricky; the brown central area is actually a section of shallow water, but I don't know if it reads properly or not. I think I could finesse it a bit more. And the photo did odd things to the greens used in the water, esp. the darker reflections in shadow - they are a darker turquoise and not the more saturated green in this photo.

I think the best part about doing this in my studio was that I had access to all of my pastels! No having to make do with what was in my plein air box. And, I was finally able to use some of these beautiful dark turquoise greens I bought a while back.

And, here is yesterday's painting, done as a warm-up for the painting above. It's this week's DailyPaintworks challenge - a revisiting of the Ten Minute Challenge from earlier in the year. You basically choose an object (and this is an apple, believe it or not) and divide your canvas into small sections and paint the object several times in 10-minute intervals. Even with a 3x3" size per square, it's not as easy as you might think. I did a pear last time, and it was a lot easier than this Gala apple.

Apple Octet
6x9 inches

It's really funny having a partner around who isn't an artist and is totally comfortable being honest about the paintings: "the first one looks like an onion, and the 4th looks like a smashed pumpkin, and some look like they are rotting..." Seriously, Wayne's comments make me laugh, and I know what someone will be getting in his Christmas stocking this year...

I tried to select accurate colors for everything prior to starting the painting, but you can see I sort of hosed it with the shadow colors on the first set of four. By the 8th one, I was starting to get a bit better, and they are starting to look more like apples. I just set the apple on a piece of Strathmore paper and rotated it under my studio lamp for each mini painting to get the differing shadows.

This is a great exercise, and I would encourage anyone who paints to try it, especially if you are trying to loosen up in your work. Thanks so much for the challenge, Carol!

Animas River, rocks and reflections SOLD

2011-10-24T19:46:00.000-04:00

River Rocks and Fall Reflections
SOLD
12x9 inches - pastel on Artagain
© S.Johnson

Yesterday's painting, done along the east side of the Animas about 1/4 of a mile up river from our location on Friday, and a new location for me. We went there at Pat's suggestion, and while both of us were initially drawn to this amazing pair of cottonwoods on the opposite side of the river in backlit fall light, I found couldn't make the composition work, so I moved downstream a bit, and when I saw this big boulder its coterie of smaller rocks, and the reflection, my first thought was: "fun!", so I was compelled to paint it.

Care to guess what the most difficult part of this painting was? Hint: not the water or reflections, which I find pretty easy to paint. It was actually the grouping of rocks in front of the boulder. As I set about to block them in, I was thinking: "must avoid cloning rocks", but that's exactly what started to happen. Basically, the left brain came in and tried to over-ride operations for this part of the painting...and sort of succeeded.

The light faded before I had time to address this on location, so I tinkered with them in the studio this morning. An improvement, but could be better. Another thing to work on...

We are supposed to have a system move through tomorrow that will bring rain and much colder temps for a couple of days, so my plein air bender is coming to a close. So, it will be back to the studio for a bit.

Near Baker's Bridge - plein air, pastel

2011-10-23T19:02:00.000-04:00

From yesterday's paint out...

By Baker's Bridge
12x12 inches - pastel on Artagain
© S.Johnson

On Facebook, local photographer Kathy Myrick posted a link to some photos she's taken recently of fall colors along the Animas, including some at Baker's Bridge, a historical marker for the Durango area. I'd only driven down the road that crosses this section of the Animas River, which is about 13 mi. north of town, maybe twice.

And had totally forgotten about how scenic it is until I saw her photos. So, yesterday afternoon, that's where Pat and I headed to paint. The bridge itself crosses a very short gorge in the river, with the water being the most unbelievable shade of green, and I couldn't believe I've never thought to paint here before! It has reflections, rocks, trees and painting potential up the ying-yang, so I'll definitely be back.

I also secured some photos to use for studio paintings later, and here are a couple from the area:

View from the bridge looking up river

Wide-angle view from my painting location looking south and downstream

A willow and its reflection in a small pond near the river

Animas River fall colors - plein air, pastel

2011-10-21T21:06:00.000-04:00

Since coming back from Moab: 1) the riverside cottonwoods have come into full color; 2) I've felt even more energized to do plein air painting since the season here will end soon.

I haven't painted every day, but here are two paintings from the three outings this week. As much as my enthusiasm for painting from photos has diminished, I did take many photos as well that I can use later when the color is gone and it's too cold to go outside.

Riverside Trio
9x12 - pastel on Artagain
© S.Johnson

Behind our local shopping mall is access to the paved multi-use trail, and a small dirt foot path leads directly to the river nearby. I'd taken photos on Sunday during a long walk Wayne and I took along the trail, and decided to come back and paint these three cottonwoods. The three tiers of slopes are separated by a road (top) and a singletrack path (lower) on the east side of the river.

River Boulder and Bridge Shadows
12x12 inches - pastel on Pastelmat
© S.Johnson

Today's painting, done a bit further down river at a small park. Local pastelist Pat Smiley and I were finally able to plan to paint together, and we had a great time. Back in July, she had given me this piece of Pastelmat to try, as I'd never used it before. I used it for a painting not long after that which didn't work. I brushed the painting off and used rubbing alcohol to stain the rest into the paper to try again.

For some reason, it suddenly worked better for me, perhaps because the surface was darker? I don't know, but I found the amount of tooth it had to be probably perfect for me. A sanded paper like Wallis is probably too much, and this surface was nice in that it allowed more layers than my usual sanded Artagain does and worked really well with the light touch I am used to.

It's funny...I'm not sure how well this painting reads to anyone but myself and Pat, since we were both there. The two large shadows - the upper one from a bridge, and the one across the water from a large cottonwood - were two of the things that attracted me to this scene, along with the boulder and lone yellow sapling.

I'm not super happy with the water reflections in this one - they were very cool, but difficult to render because of all the reflected yellows and browns from the trees. Plus, this paper handles differently than the Artagain which I'm used to doing water reflections on.

Pat and I have planned to go out for at least the next two days in a row, so more fall colors to come!

PleinAir Moab - Part II

2011-10-18T22:17:00.001-04:00

Readers will be relieved that this second installment is not nearly as long as the first....

Thursday, Oct 13:

Today was one of those days where I opted to ignore my gut feeling, which was to not return to the Onion Creek area to paint. But, having looked over the photos I took, and having done a couple of thumbnail sketches based on the third photo in the previous post, I was really drawn to the view, and compared to the Fisher Towers painting, this composition was really straightforward: a sand and scrub foreground; red sandstone mesa with shadows; distal LaSal mountains. Really, how hard could that be?

So, after collecting the Civic with its new battery just after 9:00 AM, I headed back out Hwy 128 to the pull off where I'd taken the photo on Monday afternoon. I'm not sure why I thought this would work; the light in the morning was completely different, with both the cliffs and LaSals in shadow, which was not nearly as interesting as the late afternoon light I'd seen on Monday.

However, since I'd already driven the 20 miles to the location, I was determined to try and make it work. I thought that perhaps by the time I'd gotten the drawing done and all the foreground finished, the light would be better, and if I'd been there all day, that probably would have been true.

I decided to go with the 16x20" panel, again. Unfortunately, because of the wiping and washing off of the Tuesday painting, the surface of the paper just wasn't interested in holding the pastel. To make matters worse, the corrugated texture of the Coroplast was coming through when I painted, and after about 30 min, I came to the painful conclusion that this was just not going to work, ever. So, I packed up and headed back towards Moab.

About 5 miles from the Hwy 191-128 junction is a fabulous side canyon called Negro Bill Canyon. I'd stopped there on Monday to assess it for painting potential, but the light wasn't good in the late afternoon - much of everything was in shadow. But, I decided that since it was on the way, perhaps I'd try a quickie 9x12" piece along the stream that runs through the canyon year-round.

I clipped on the backpacking straps to the easel and headed up the very scenic trail, looking for a good (read: simple composition and preferably in the shade) location to paint. I probably hiked 1/2 mile down the trail before settling on this really attractive section of the stream where the water cascaded over some terraced rocks with some fun shadows going on. For this painting, I thought I'd try some of the Wallis sanded paper I brought along.

Again, I'm not sure what I was thinking, since I'm used to painting on smooth black paper with essentially no tooth, and here I'm using a white sanded paper that has a pretty aggressive surface. I think I was there for maybe 10 min. before realizing this was a complete bust.

Realizing that painting wasn't in the cards today, I went back to the hostel and got the 3 paintings I had completed finished and framed. Later, I dropped off the two paintings into the gallery, and got something to eat. While sitting in the cafe, I saw Andre walk by, and I flagged him down. He joined me for dinner, and as the quick-draw event was winding down, we decided to head over to the reception to check it out, and there were a few really outstanding paintings that were a treat to see, including the eventual winner, painted by Doug Braithwaite, which was incredible! Be sure and have a look at his website to check out his outstanding work.

Friday, Oct 14:

Today was the "no pressure" day, as it were - my painting was dropped off for the competition, and I decided that I would spend the day hiking and maybe painting, before the reception and awards that started at 7PM.

I went back down Kane Creek Rd, and hiked up Hunter Canyon. It was glorious, and photos will follow.

On the way back, I decided to paint an area along the road of this remarkable cliff face that kept grabbing my attention each time I drove past - this arch in progress:

Remodeling Process
9x12 inches - pastel on Wallis

For this painting, I used the piece of Wallis from the earlier days' failed painting. Using a black Nupastel, I scrubbed over the entire surface and turned it black with an alcohol wash - now, I was back in my comfort zone with my black paper security blanket! To make things even better, I got to paint this entirely in the shade of the huge canyon wall behind me, and I decided to sit to paint it.

There was so much amazing stuff going on with this cliff wall - the geometric curves of the arch and its shadows; the debris pile under it; the horizontal, vertical and diagonal lines...and all the colors! I got it about 85% finished at the site, and did the finishing work from memory today. Painted almost entirely using NuPastels with just a few softies, I was impressed with how fun they were to work with on the Wallis. I'm glad I thought to bring my entire 90-pc. set along.

At the awards reception that night, I had the chance to meet Colorado pastelists Mike Ray and Norbert Nagel. Norbert's pastel took 2nd place in the pastel/dry media category, and was one of my favorite pastel pieces in the show.

It was quite fun to see over 100 paintings by artists in a variety of styles and media all in one place.

Saturday, Oct 15:

Final day of the event, and paintings were on display for sale and silent auction throughout the day.

I attended the judges talk in the morning, which was interesting. Terry Ludwig, one of the judges, CO pastel artist and manufacturer of soft pastels, was kind enough to offer critiques and suggestions for those that were interested.

I got to talking with Norbert and Mike, and they were planning on heading out in the afternoon to paint, along with Terry and another CO artist, Mark, who works in oils. They asked if I'd be interested in coming along, and I said "absolutely!". We couldn't pick up our paintings from the show until 6PM, so what else was there to do?

It ended up being just Norbert, Mark and myself out, and we settled on painting at Kane Springs Campground.

Sandstone Sentinel
16x12 inches - Strathmore Artagain
© S.Johnson

I had a great time painting this, and the subtleties of the shadow colors were amazing. It came together easily and I decided to get a little bolder with the colors, and I couldn't resist going with a turquoise sky, which I always like. I was originally going to scumble over that bright yellow on the foreground rocks, but when Norbert came over to have a look, he thought I should leave it, so I did. I finished it up in the studio today, mostly from memory. I find that even though I sometimes take a photo of the location I was painting from, I don't like using it.

Mark and Norbert painting in the shade of a cottonwood

My in-progress painting

We wrapped up our paintings around 5PM, and headed back to the MARC to wait until we could collect them. It was when I was walking out with my gallery paintings that Lowrey came up and told me she loved my painting. She had debated about bidding on it in the show, but having only come on her bicycle, transporting it would have been difficult. I told her I'd be happy to sell it to her unframed (unfortunately, my silver plein air frame, which looked fantastic with the painting, got chipped during the drive up...), and she decided that would be great!

And, so ended my PleinAir Moab trip - I hope you enjoyed the report :)

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Here are some photos taken from my hike up Hunter Canyon and the surrounding area on Thursday:

An amazing balanced rock in Hunter Cyn

Desert Varnish on the canyon walls

A pair of damselflies taking a rest...she is just dangling there!

Hunter Arch

Reflections in Hunter Cyn

Enduring art from a bygone era

PleinAir Moab - Part I

2011-10-17T20:56:00.000-04:00

Back from my 6-day plein air painting adventure in Moab, UT! Actually, I got back late Saturday night, but yesterday was spent catching up around here and because I managed to completely forget to take photos of the paintings done during the week, I couldn't just zap them up on the blog, and all had to be taken out of their frames anyway.

Where to start? Well, it was truly an adventure, with ups and downs and more activity crammed into each day than I am used to. I've decided to break it up into two separate posts of 3 days each so as to not overwhelm readers. This post is long enough as it is, but hopefully, it will be sort of entertaining to read...if not, you can see the photos and move on.

Overall, the experience was great, and I'll probably go back next year, having learned a lot about what to do, what not to do, what to expect and where to focus my efforts painting. Thus, the level of chaos should be reduced significantly. The two highlights of the trip for me were: 1) meeting other artists and making new connections; 2) having my favorite painting strike a chord - not with the judges or other artists - but with a resident of Moab who loved it enough to give it a new home. Honestly, that is what made the expense and effort and moments of frustration worth it.

Here's the painting, posted first even though it wasn't the first one completed. It was the painting I chose to enter in the competition:

Quiet Reflections in Hunter Canyon
16x12 inches - pastel on Artagain
© 2011, S.Johnson

Monday, Oct 10:

After arriving in town and securing my lodging and getting several of my panels stamped for the event at the MARC, I headed to locations recommended by some folks on an outdoor forum I read that is Utah-based. Kane Creek Rd, which heads south out of Moab and passes the portal (where the Colorado River crosses from one canyon, past Moab, and down another canyon) was recommended, and after a couple of brief stops, I found one of the recommended locations - Hunter Canyon. The canyon is about 2 miles in length, and includes a perennial spring and an arch.

Due to the time of year and the relative width of the canyon, much of it was in shade. After about 1/4 mile along the path and a creek crossing, a section of the canyon was in sun. As I looked back along the path, I saw this lone shrub sitting atop a slab of fallen sandstone. It was backlit, and had a glorious reflection in the pool in front. The distal canyon wall and scrub oak were in shadow. I knew instantly that I had my first painting, and I quickly snapped a photo to use in planning the composition of the painting via thumbnail sketches.

About 30' away was this reflection, forming the most beautiful abstract design:

This isn't the sort of image that I feel would translate well into a painting, so I had no intention to paint it. I love it as a photo. Regular readers know my love of water and reflections, so this was right up my alley, so to speak. I shot a few more photos of possible painting subjects, some of which may end up as studio pieces and/or plein air paintings for next year. Hunter Cyn was now officially my favorite painting location in Moab!

After this, I headed back up the road towards town and drove out Hwy 128, which follows the Colorado through a larger canyon for about 15 miles as it heads east of Moab and towards the Fisher Towers (a planned destination for possible sunset photos that evening, and possible painting subject. I saw a handful of artists painting at pull-outs along the highway in the main section of the canyon.

As the highway continues east, it opens up to Professor Valley and the highway diverges from the Colorado such that it is no longer visible. At the time I was heading out, it was around 4PM, and the light to the south was ideal for painting, and the LaSals come into view past the turn-off to Castle Rock. The recent storm that went through the region left a significant amount of snow on their peaks, which added to the beauty of this "big picture" scene:

A bit further east, I noticed a small creek and several bright cottonwoods right off the side of the road...and two painters busy painting away! I pulled off, and not wanting to bother them, I walked a couple hundred yards up the creek bed. A small cluster of young cottonwoods on the edge of the wash were backlit against the shadowed slopes of the wash and some mesas, near and far, in the background. Seemed like a great location to get a quick painting done:

Arroyo Shadows
9x12 inches - pastel on Artagain
©S.Johnson

One thing I discovered quickly is that, despite my efforts to select a palette appropriate to the southern Utah landscape, it always seemed to fall short. Not quite cool and gray enough was the recurrent theme of the trip. That being said, the practice pieces I did were still a big help. After talking with other artists, and pastelists in particular, I discovered that everyone struggled with the same issue (including Terry Ludwig, who was one of the judges...apparently, even he didn't have the right colors!). We further concluded that this landscape was indeed a big challenge to paint.

So, this first small painting didn't turn out quite to my expectations and there are things that bug me about it, but it was worth the effort (and the photos of all these paintings suffer from the same problem of being too bright and contrasty. Ugh). And, it was here that I met fellow artists Bill and Andre who were painting nearby. Andre lives in La Honda, CA, and Bill lives near my old stomping grounds in Sedona, AZ.

Tuesday, Oct 11:

After a rather wretched nights' sleep, I got up with the intent to spend the day painting along Hwy 128. The primary reason for this was that the first of the three quick-draw events was being held at the Red Cliffs Resort & Winery along the same highway and I thought I might like to try and enter that. I also discovered that the quick-draw events were 3 hours in length and not 90 minutes that I originally thought.

I also thought that the general location along Professor Valley and the Onion Creek area would be good to do a large painting - 16x20 - of a big picture scene. Having planned for only one of these sized paintings, I had my single panel and no back-up paper of this size along. Mistake #1. Mistake #2 was deviating from my normal procedure which is to paint with the paper taped to a board. Because I wasn't sure how to handle the whole stamping process, I created panels to paint on...something I never do, which in this case, was paper taped with framer's tape to the boards, with a few swipes of a glue stick where it would actually hold. Turns out, it didn't work well for me, but thankfully, I discovered that some gesso painted on the back of the paper worked great for a stamp location and that you could finish your framing after the stamp was verified by a volunteer at the check-in table.

Mistake #3 was spending far too much time deciding on the "perfect" location for this "perfect" painting and then realizing about 1 1/2 hrs. into it that you bit off more than you could chew and that while the composition and concept were good, the execution was clearly heading south. The view was of the Fisher Towers as seen from Onion Creek. Light was excellent, but the complexity of the scene was a challenge and the pastels were mocking me with their shortcomings. Wind kicking up wasn't helping at all. And, I never even took a photo of this scene.

So, I decided to scrap the painting, and walked down to the creek and in one of those "why did I do that?" moments, proceeded to first brush off the pastel and then wash it off with creek water from my hand. Since parts of the paper were adhered to the panel with a glue stick, and to what was essentially a corrugated surface, I was to find out 2 days later this forever doomed the paper and subsequent painting attempt on it.

Not to be completely discouraged by these failed efforts, I headed back, turned down this intriguing dirt road that led off of the main highway

and beyond an impressively huge ranch to a remote location that had a view that I immediately loved. It was about 1 1/2 hrs. until the quick draw event at the Red Cliffs began, but nonetheless, I set up the easel and began what would be Failed Painting #2. Despite using my viewfinder, it just seemed I couldn't get the basic drawing to work. At that point, I think my right brain just shut off for the day, and I shot two photos for a later studio piece, because there was no way in hell I was driving another 44 miles RT to try it from location again, and so I headed off to Red Cliffs for the quick-draw.

By the time I got there, folks were already setting up and getting their paintings underway. I walked around, looking for a view that would grab me, decided I really wasn't "feeling the love" for anything, and headed back into town. Since painting was done for me for the day, I decided to take a drive down the west side of the Colorado River south and west of Moab, known as Potash Rd. I only drove about 6 miles, and while I saw no locations conducive for painting, I did stop to take some photos of beautiful Datura flowers (also known as "moonflowers"), before heading back to my room for some much-needed sleep.

Datura in full bloom

Datura flower spiral, unfurling

Wed, Oct 12:

Following a solid night's sleep, I got up and headed off by mid-morning to my original chosen location, Hunter Canyon, for at least one and possibly two paintings. I felt good and excited to paint, and thanks to the spiffy backpack conversion kit for my French easel (thanks again, Dan, for telling me about it!), bringing the easel the 1/4 mile down the trail to the location was easy.

When I arrived, everything was still completely in shade. This was fine, as I was able to get the sandstone slab, bush, pool and its edge drawn in and the background (which was in shade the entire time) completed. Having completed about 1/2 of the painting at this point, I realized that: a) I was sort of cold from standing in the shade not moving; b) I was hungry. So, I sat in the sun about 20 feet away on a large rock and ate and enjoyed the warm sun.

It was about this time that a breeze decided to kick up in the canyon, and while I knew my easel wasn't going to be disturbed by this, it didn't occur to me how unsecured both my panel was to the easel and the paper was to the panel, since I'd removed 3/4 of the tape for the painting process and had planned to re-tape it after I was finished. By the time I figured that the breeze could be a problem, it was too late: I watched as a gust came up and the paper and Coroplast separated from each other and the easel and landed face-down into the pool of water!

I guess I could have gotten either really mad or completely discouraged by the fact that my painting was suddenly ruined after about 1 1/2 hrs. of work, but after assessing that it was indeed ruined, I just shrugged, walked back to my car, grabbed my pad of Artagain (that I thankfully had the foresight to bring along), whipped out my trusty piece of sandpaper from my apron pocket, dried off the Coroplast (which thankfully had the stamp on it), and started again.

Using the original painting as a guide, I was able to quickly re-draw everything, and decided to sit while I did this. By the time I was finished with the background, the light was at its "magical moment", and I set about to paint in the window of time while the plant, reflections and sandstone were in the sun. I had to wait a few times for the breeze to settle so I could paint the reflection, but I managed to get it 90% completed. I ended up sitting on the sand for the entire painting.

Feeling energized from a successful painting rising up from the setback, I decided I'd try another one on my way back, this time from the Kane Springs campground a few miles back towards town. The sandstone cliff walls in shadow and the foreground field and mid-ground trees had a relatively simple design, so I was able to get this about 80% completed before it got too late and the sun went behind the cliffs:

Late Afternoon in Kane Springs Camp
11x14 inches
©S.Johnson

The photo of this has the same issue with the overly contrast-y shadow colors on the rocks. Even p.p. adjustments couldn't make it look like the actual painting. While I was painting, another pastel artist and local Moab resident, Victoria Fugit, came up and introduced herself and we had a delightful chat. Later, the campground host came up and told me she felt I captured the feeling of the rocks, their shadows, and the area very well, which was encouraging to hear!

Here's a photo I took from the same area on Monday, earlier in the day, of this most magnificent cottonwood at one of the campsites, off to the right of where I did my painting. The Colorado river lies just on the other side of the row of tamarisk:

After what turned out to be a productive day, the fun times weren't over yet: after driving back into town and pulling into the McDonald's parking lot to call Wayne, I went to start the car afterwards, and much to my dismay, during my 10-minute conversation, it decided not to start. This is the time my sister would say: "I hear circus music!" Indeed, it was playing loudly in my head. I drove Wayne's Civic because it's a reliable car, so what are the odds it would decide to have issues on this trip? Murphy is laughing somewhere, I know.

To make a long story short, despite having to walk back to the hostel in the dark about a mile, thanks to Wayne doing some internet searches and calls, there happened to be a repair place with a tow truck that was just down from the place I was staying. The car was towed there that night.

It turned out to be a dead battery, so I really couldn't blame the little car, and while this all sounds like a bit of a nightmare, indeed it could have been so much worse! I shudder to think what I would have done had the battery decided to go out when I was way down on the remote Onion Springs road the day before, where there was little traffic and no cell phone coverage 27 miles outside of Moab. That I only had to walk a mile back to the place I was staying and the issue was minor was a blessing.

Thus ends Part I of my PleinAir Moab adventure...

Utah cottonwood color - pastel

2011-10-08T19:22:00.000-04:00

Kaleidoscope
12 x 12 inches
pastel on Artagain
© S Johnson

A studio piece that took far longer than it should have to finish (and subsequently, feels a bit over-worked). It didn't quite meet my pre-painting expectations, but I got a lot out of painting it nonetheless.

From a photo taken about 25 miles south of Moab along Hwy 191 last year, at a rest stop situated next to one of those tickey-tacky tourist stops: Hole N''The Rock. Not to be confused with the road of the same name in the Escalante-Grand Staircase NM (also in UT), it started out as a house built into the large outcropping of Navajo sandstone by a Mormon pioneer close to a century ago. That in itself is kind of interesting, but if you click on the link, what immediately assaults your aesthetic sense is the huge white lettering on the side of the rock.

Really? Why?

At any rate, this beautiful Fremont cottonwood showing off its range of leaf color, was mercifully well out of view of the whole [hole?] view of all that. Cottonwoods have these wonderful organic shapes to their trunks and branches, never orderly or predictable, and that is what draws me to them as photography and painting subjects time and time again.

Only one more day to get any painting in before I leave for Moab! Thanks to expedient handling and shipping of an order placed on Monday, my two display easels from Dick Blick arrived yesterday, allowing me to leave on Monday instead of Tuesday. Weather is supposed to be sunny and warm and dry during the event, which after the very winter-like storm that has been hitting our area for the better part of the week, is a relief.

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Photos taken yesterday along a drive up Hwy 550 to go check out the snow and fall color situation:

Aspen stand in full color in a fleeting moment of sunlight

Engineer Mountain as seen from the highway near Andrews Lake (~9,900')

Hermosa Cliffs closer to town (~8,000')

Another landscape near Moab - pastel, 9x12

2011-10-05T20:53:00.000-04:00

Towards Hidden Valley
9x12 inches - pastel on Artagain
© 2011, S.Johnson

Based on a photo taken during our late October trip to Moab last year, this was another good piece to test drive some new palette colors, including the peachy Mt Visions for the sand and cliff highlights and the pale lavender used for the sky. Purple sky? Hey, why not.

Hidden Valley is aptly named; it's not at all visible from HWY 191 that leads into Moab, but it's almost adjacent to the town to the south. This view is where we turned around and headed back - the Colorado River is behind you here, though not visible from this point. I suspect that salt tectonics produced this valley, or graben, as the erosion pattern is vastly different on both sides of the valley, and the rock itself appears different. I always notice this sort of thing when hiking through southern Utah, and find it fascinating (as only a geology geek will).

This was a timed painting - 100 minutes total. I then showed it to Wayne, who pointed out some minor things that bugged him, so I fixed those in about a minute.

Weather is still really crummy here and predicted to be so for a couple more days, so more Utah paintings to come!

I may have posted these last year, but it's been so long that even those that saw them won't remember, but here are a few photos from the Hidden Valley hike:

Trail through Hidden Valley - the town of Moab is to the right (north)

Approaching the end of Hidden Valley - the Colorado River is off in the distance

Desert Varnish on the large sandstone fin (Wingate or Navajo?) seen in the painting (middle of the trio)

Tilted sandstone, I'm guessing Entrada formation (underlying white is probably Navajo sandstone)
on the opposite side

La Sal Mountains as seen to the east through Hidden Valley on the way back to the trailhead

Southern Utah in fall, pastel, 9x12

2011-10-04T20:47:00.000-04:00

Fall Light in Canyonlands
9x12 inches - pastel on Artagain
© 2011, S.Johnson

Today's paint out with the Four Corners group was canceled due to rain, so it was a studio day instead. Based on a photo taken last October during our trip to Canyonlands, it depicts a scene I absolutely love: backlit fall color trees against shadowed canyon walls, in this case - cottonwoods. Next to aspen, they are my favorite tree, and I really enjoy painting them.

Unfortunately, this didn't photograph very well; in real life, the slopes and cliffs of the canyon walls aren't as contrasty. After looking at the photo, I went back down to make adjustments and realized that it was the photo...you'll just have to take my word that it does look much better in person.

I leave for Moab in a week. Our planned trip to go tomorrow is canceled because of - bad weather. I'm disappointed, as I'd intended for this week's trip to be a scouting trip to secure locations to paint ahead of time. Ah well...it's not the first time lousy weather has caused plans to change, so I'll just have to go with the flow.

Test sheet of pastels on scrap of Artagain

Revised plein air set - 175 pieces of pastel goodness
NuPastel, Sennelier, Mt Vision, Unison, Richeson Handmade and Ludwig

Plein air and studio pastels - practice for Moab

2011-10-03T12:16:00.000-04:00

Ranch Near Lavender Canyon
pastel on black Artagain - 9x12 inches
© S.Johnson

A quick studio piece started on Saturday, based on a photo taken last October on our first trip to Canyonlands. The area east of Canyonlands NP was homesteaded back in the mid 1800's, and as you drive along the road leading to the park, most of the ranch properties are still there and inhabited, including this one.

In preparation for Plein Air Moab, I'm completely revamping my plein air pastel set to switch from a summer Rocky Mountain palette to a "fall in Utah canyon country" set, which is - not surprisingly - quite different. Pastels that don't work on the black paper are getting put back in the large studio trays and I'm revisiting others I haven't used much in the past, which is kind of cool.

I spent a good part of yesterday preparing my panels and frames for the event, which turned out to be somewhat time-consuming. I'll post photos later.

Anyway, here's a plein air done on Saturday afternoon, further down La Plata Canyon Rd. It is right across from the parking lot where the PAP4C met on Tuesday to do the group critique. I saw this small cabin tucked between aspen coming into fall color, and knew I had to paint it:

Canyon Cabin
pastel on Artagain - 12x9 inches
© S.Johnson

It's not going to go down as a favorite PA piece, but the effort was satisfactory nonetheless. I got most of it finished in 70 minutes on location, and did some minor tweaking back home.

So, both radically different landscape paintings here, both as part of getting ready for Moab. Today will be another studio Utah piece, and tomorrow is another trip with the Four Corners group. Then, Wed, Wayne and I go to Moab for an overnight trip and two solid days of hiking (and, for me, casing for locations to paint the following week).

Should be a busy few days!

Fall Colors along the San Juan Skyway

2011-10-01T13:14:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was a great day. No painting - instead, it was 13 hours of driving, exploring, photographing and just simply enjoying the amazing fall colors in our area along the San Juan Skyway Scenic Byway loop drive. There have been, of course, numerous photos posted here taken along the section of the Byway between Durango and Silverton, of fall colors, Engineer Mountain and such.

Fall leaf season in the San Juans is short and fleeting, and amongst photographers, artists, locals and tourists, there exists a sense of urgency to try and experience as much as one can before the aspen, oak and cottonwood give up their colorful photosynthesizing units to the earth and we settle for several months of the spruce and pine forests to tide us over until the greens of spring return.

We opted to do the drive counter-clockwise, heading up Hwy 550 towards Silverton and returning through Dolores and Mancos, and thanks to some tips from fellow Durango Photography Club member Kathy, we now had some new places to check out along the Dallas Divide-Mt Sneffels area.

Hopefully, no one is tiring of the fall color theme here on the blog...because I'll probably run with it until the season is spent.

Here is a selection of photos from the trip yesterday, including some non-fall color surprises:

Morning sun lights up the beautiful stands of aspen in full color along the southern slope of the mountains near Red Mountain Pass, approaching Ironton Park

Two horses graze in a meadow against the backlit foliage of large narrowleaf cottonwoods along East Dallas Road. This FS road, which passes by (or through) Ralph Lauren's huge ranch property, leads to the Uncompahgre National Forest and the base of the Sneffels Wilderness Area.

Towering aspen along the road are backlit by the mid-morning sun

A hillside wedge of bright yellow aspen surrounded by the patchwork of scrub oak in a variety of fall colors

A view of the Sneffels range from the NFS land, and one of the countless split rail style fences found throughout. Note the clouds in this photo...

A view from a pullout near the Dallas Divide showing the Sneffels range and patches of color

Note the rapid cloud build-up from the previous photo

A view of the amazing Last Dollar Ranch from Last Dollar road

This property has been featured in ads for Budweiser and Marlboro [ugh], and with its stunning views, it's easy to see why. Unfortunately, shooting into the sun, it was impossible to avoid some lens flare, even with the lens hood

Split-rail fence bordering the Last Dollar property

Despite the fact that this road leads to the Telluride Airport, it was unclear from our map whether the road remained passenger car friendly, so we opted to turn around a few miles up the road

Entering Telluride, with the famous ski area colored by aspen

Clouds covered the sky by the time we got to town, just showing how rapidly the weather can change in the high country

One of the Wilsons (Peak or Mountain...I can never tell which is which) of the San Miguel range south of Telluride. Yes, it is receiving a dusting of snow at over 14,000'

Meanwhile, about 60 miles south and an hour and a half later...beautiful backlit aspen along Hillside Road, another FS road that is east of Dolores

Late afternoon aspen and shadows across Hillside Road

Beautiful old aspen trunks and shadows

Wow - what an unexpected surprise!

While driving towards Dolores, we spotted this youngish bull moose out in a meadow not far off the road. Moose aren't common in Colorado, and the only other time I've seen one was about 34 years ago in the Tetons

Another photo, because he's just so cool. I quickly popped on my telephoto lens and followed him along the roadside fence as he trotted back and forth through the meadow. How exciting that moose have been introduced this far south into CO and what a treat to see and photograph him!

This most amazing cumulonimbus cloud over Mesa Verde on the way to Mancos

We stopped so I could take photos, but this one shot out of the window of the car as we drove along turned out better

The same cloud, about 16 minutes later, as seen from Mancos

The cliffs of Mesa Verde are seen to the left

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A great way to spend a fall day in southern CO, I must say!

Fall in La Plata - plein air, pastel

2011-09-28T19:04:00.001-04:00

Fall Along La Plata Canyon Rd
12x16 inches - pastel on black Artagain
© 2011, S.Johnson

During fall color season, the PAP4C group meets weekly for paint-outs. Today was a return to La Plata Canyon, which is about 10 miles west of town. The first paint-out I did with the group was in the same area, although on a private ranch, back in mid-June. Those paintings can be seen here.

Today was another of those "easy to find a location" paint-outs, right along the side of the road. I've taken photos in this location before, in different seasons, and even before I lived here. The huge Fremont cottonwood made an easy center of interest, and the slope directly behind was covered with scrub oak in their range of rusts and crimson reds. Patches of aspen on the base of the mountains show some color.

I didn't get photos of the rest of the group's paintings today, but I had a funny thing happen while I was painting: A car with two older couples visiting from Germany stopped, and they all came over to see my painting and ask me questions, like where I lived, and where was my work for sale, etc. And, for whatever reason, they wanted to take photos of me standing next to my easel. And, they took several photos of the painting itself, which was about 85% finished at that time. Yes, my painting and I became an international tourist photo prop. The straw cowboy hat I wear when painting probably added to the "wild west" image of everything - ha!

I don't know what it is, but for some reason, people feel compelled to actually *touch* the pastels. They never ask; they just touch one of them, and lo and behold - they get "chalk dust" on their fingertip. Thankfully, that's only happened one other time, but it's sort of amusing.

At any rate, they were friendly and polite and I offered to take their photos with essentially the same view I was painting in the background, and they were delighted. The woman who spoke the most English wished me the best of luck for all my paintings, and then at my suggestion, they headed up the highway to Durango.

Plein air along the Animas, and facing fears

2011-09-27T17:40:00.000-04:00

Sunday's plein air painting, from nearby Santa Rita Park...

Perins Peak and the Riverbank
9x12 inches - pastel on Artagain
© S. Johnson

What does plein air painting have to do with facing one's fears, and the relevance with this painting, you ask? At first glance, not much. In fact, I wouldn't have given it much thought save for a couple of coincidental circumstances that got me thinking about it and how it relates to what we do as artists, and how it all does tie together.

I mentioned in a recent post about an agenda I have that I feel necessitates as much on location painting as possible, and I didn't have time to post about it then, but last week, I bit the bullet, so to speak, and registered for the Plein Air Moab '11 event. This is both exciting and a bit daunting - I have never been to a plein air event, let alone participated in one. In fact, this is really the first season I've done any appreciable landscape paintings on location, so it's not like I have the years of experience that probably most participants will have. But, I really groove out on painting on location, and with the landscape of the southern Utah canyon country being my favorite, I really wanted to give it a go. The fact it's not an invitational event made that possible.

For various logistical reasons, I'm going by myself and am planning on heading up early Tuesday and staying through Saturday until paintings can be released. Part of what I hope to participate in is at least one of the quick draw events. For those not familiar, a quick draw paint-out is usually at a predetermined location, and artists have 90 minutes to complete a painting, which goes immediately on display and into the competition - talk about performance pressure!

While painting with the PAP4C group on Saturday, I inquired if anyone there was planning on attending. No one present was. One of the oil painters, whose name I don't remember, said she can only handle one plein air event a year, and then explained that she gets very anxious participating in the quick draw events, and because of nerves, won't drink coffee that morning. I honestly hadn't given that any thought as a possibility for myself, so I found it really interesting!

The coincidental aspect of her comment is that I happen to be reading a book from our library right now on that very subject, by Taylor Clark - Nerve: Poise under pressure, serenity under stress, and the brave new science of fear and cool. You can read reviews and more about it HERE. I'm finding it an absolutely fascinating read, perhaps because I've never read anything specifically on the subject before, although I can relate to much of what he discusses. For anyone who has ever dealt with fear or phobias or even anxiety from a seemingly innocuous event like public speaking (which polls show many people fear more than death!), I'd recommend this book. Heck, I'd recommend it just because it is such an interesting read, and because you are bound to learn something new.

The book is filled with anecdotal stories of people who both thrive and choke under conditions of stress, fear and anxiety, and delves into the neurophysiology and the evolutionary basis for fear. And while it's not meant to be a self-help book, it goes into examples of individuals who overcame their fears and how they did so. I also realized how it related to my participation in the Moab Plein Air event, and how I am preparing for it.

Why and how? Well, despite the fact I don't have years of experience landscape painting (about 2 years now), let alone plein air painting, I feel comfortable and relatively confident in doing it. Part of the reason for that, I think, is that I seldom have any expectations when I set up to paint on location, other than to paint. Will it be successful or not? Answer: who cares? In my mind, it is the process that is important, more so than the outcome...because, as I like to say: a bad plein air painting is better than no painting at all.

What I don't have a lot of experience with, however, is painting within a time limit, at least on location. So, after I registered for the event, I determined that some "training" for the quick draw was in order. In this case, painting under the watch. This has the effect of both familiarizing me with that particular parameter, and repetition...both of which are effective for combating the fear and anxiety of performance-related events. Practice and training - it's what makes people better at whatever they do. And if you've got a fear of something, the only real way to make it go away is to face it head-on, as uncomfortable and unpleasant as that is.

So, from now until the few days before I head for Moab, I'm going to be doing two things in preparation: 1) doing timed paintings on location; 2) doing more Utah-oriented landscapes in my studio, from photos. This way, I can fine-tune my plein air palette to that landscape without (hopefully) any "I'm missing these colors!" anxiety.

The painting in this post? Done for time - 90 min. To that end, it was a successful painting. I was drawn to the various elements in it (pale yellow grassy hill vs. the eroded bank of the Animas in shadow, the river and exposed rocks, and the distal peak of Perins and the gray shale slopes of the hogback), and working efficiently during the allotted time. Of course, it's got issues, but nary a painting I do doesn't.

Now, I ask you: what are your fears as they pertain to you and your art, and what, if anything, do you do to address them? Fear of failure? Fear of forgetting how to paint? Fear of gallery or juried show rejection? It's really more of a rhetorical question to make you think, but feel free to comment on it if you wish.

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In the meantime, here are some non-fear inducing photos from our hike yesterday, in lieu of painting. Tripod in tow, I scrambled down steep banks and through brush to capture some of the falls and fall color of west Lime Creek in the San Juans:

Enjoy!

Falls revisited from Aug 31 blog/FB post...this time, with wide angle lens and tripod

Wayne along a meadow section of the trail
Hmm...that rock behind him is in an unfortunate position, isn't it?
Sorry, Wayne!

Abandoned mining equipment near the end of the trail

A set of falls earlier on the trail shot on the way back with better light

Twilight Peak with the "Lime Creek Aspen Slope" in full color, as seen from Hwy 550
We've started calling these the "thermonuclear aspen", as they glow an intense yellow-orange even when in shade of the adjacent slope

Fall in the San Juans - plein air, pastel

2011-09-25T13:50:00.000-04:00

I'd hoped to get this posted yesterday, but didn't have time. Yesterday, the PAP4C (Plein Air Painters of the Four Corners) had a paint-out at Andrews Lake, which you may remember from previous blog posts.

(NOTE: this post is very image intensive...it was a full day)

Hillside Aspens
12x16 inches
pastel on black Artagain

The weather was absolutely perfect - mild and sunny, with no wind or chance of rain, and no insects. Aspen are coming into fall color rapidly along Hwy 550 in the higher elevations. It is what early fall in the San Juans is all about. At the lake itself, there are no aspen, and I originally thought about painting the lake because it is so attractive. However, when fellow pastelist Jan and Mary Ellen arrived, they wanted to paint fall colors, which sounded more appealing, so I decided to follow them back down the highway.

I ended up pulling off before they did, at a huge slope of yellow and green aspen right at a large pullout, and while I was originally planning on painting that stand (in photo below), as I climbed up a small hill and looked to the east, I knew immediately I had my painting. Aside from the brilliant yellow stand of distal aspen, the pale gray Leadville limestone pushing up through the dried grasses was the perfect lead-in and clinched the deal.

And, in an unusual moment of foresight, I actually thought to take a few photos of the painting in-progress. I always enjoy it when artists post their painting in its stages, so I thought I'd do the same. They aren't that amazing, but painting on black is different than using a lighter surface as far as approach goes, and maybe some will find it interesting.

Initial block-in: I used a NuPastel in bottle green to sketch in the horizon contour and basic shapes of the main elements. A light gray NuPastel was used to suggest the initial rocks, with a few strokes of earth colors to define some planes and edges, and then I jumped right in with the color.

The surface looks gray because it is in full sun and there is the shadow from the top of the easel (stood for this painting, using my French easel).

Sky was put in to help anchor the painting and values. From that point, I work sort of randomly across the paper, going back and forth with different colors, working on different elements, usually just a few strokes before picking up another color. I find this keeps things from getting too mechanical and maintains the degree of disorder and contained chaos that nature presents.

The finished painting at the end of the plein air session, with final detail added. This is the largest size (12x16") that I've used on location so far, and it took me about 2 1/2 hrs. to complete. After the critique session suggestions, I made some minor adjustments back in the studio that you can see by comparing this to the top painting.

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There were a total of seven of us at the paint-out, and at 1:00 PM, the critique session was held at the small dock at Andrews Lake. Here is the group photo of everyone's work, a few of which weren't finished:

Media, from top L to bottom R:
oil, w/c, pastel, pastel, oil, w/c, oil (almost out of the picture)

After the paint-out critique wrapped up, Wayne (who had come along to hike the Crater Lake trail while I painted) suggested we drive to Silverton, which is about 8 miles away, to get something to eat and check out the fall colors. It turned out to be better than we hoped, with aspen firing off in full color throughout the Silverton area. Here are a few photos, and it's probably easy to see why artists and photographers are just wild about aspen in the fall:

The aspen stand I almost painted, south of Andrews Lake

Quaking color

Aspen quartet outside of Silverton

A stand of orange aspen frame part of Anvil Mtn. west of Silverton along Hwy 550

Beautiful brilliant yellow aspen stand just south of Silverton, flanked by spruce

Looking skyward - aspen along Hwy 550 south of Coal Bank Pass

Trunks and shadows and complimentary colors

Leaf still life on boulder

Early fall in Durango - plein air, pastel

2011-09-23T18:02:00.000-04:00

I've been slacking on location painting lately, partly because of recent bad weather and partly because we have been taking advantage of the current amazing fall weather to get up in the mountains and hike before the season ends.

These paintings are part of an agenda I have, which I'll discuss in a later post. Suffice it to say that my plan is to paint on location as often as possible for the next few weeks.

Dry Fork Cottonwoods
pastel on Strathmore Artagain - 12x9 inches
© 2011, S Johnson

Today's plein air painting, done from the trailhead near Dry Fork, which is west of town a few miles. We hiked there yesterday afternoon, and these small leaf cottonwoods were in nearly full color, and despite taking some reference photos yesterday, I decided this would be the ideal place to paint today...after missing the rendezvous with the Friday plein air group this morning.

Remember the Barnroof Point painting from a few days ago? The eastern edge of its cliffs can be seen in this painting. The orange/rust slope is the scrub oak that form amazing patchworks of color on the steep slopes around town.

Riverside Colors
pastel on Strathmore Artagain - 9x12 inches
© 2011, S Johnson

Painting from Wed late afternoon, along the banks of the Animas. The cottonwoods aren't turning along the river yet, but these bushes were. Plus, it was another excuse to practice painting water and reflections.

Studio stacks

2011-09-21T13:27:00.001-04:00

Something different (and fun, I hope).

I recently discovered Seth Apter's blog - The Altered Page, which is geared towards mixed media artists. I find mixed media fascinating and wonderful, probably because I don't do it and it seems daunting to me. He regularly profiles mixed media artists on his blog, and it's always a good read, regardless of the medium you work in.

In today's post, he invites artists to post photos of their stacks: of art, paper, journals - whatever...because yes, we've all got 'em. I've got stacks of pastel paintings, some carefully stored in a covered storage box, and more recent ones haphazardly stacked atop each other on my shelves. And lots of oil paintings - on canvas paper, board and panels.

So, I rounded much of everything up, including a 20 year old sketchbook, and made stacks on my studio table downstairs. What you don't see is the surrounding clutter and shelves full of art supplies, large unfinished paintings and frames on the floor, and the general miscellany that goes with being an artist.

Studio stacks - the gestalt
Included is an in-progress painting and the computer monitor I use with my laptop,
the bin for my oils and my pastel trays

The pastel stack - over 200 paintings!
Most finished, some not (including several plein air pieces)

Side view of the pastel stack - the scrapbook holds earlier ones
Behind the stack is an old wooden box for still life props
with all the 1:2 format plein air pastels I've done this summer

The stack of oils, my favorite sketchbook, and some small pastels in glassine

Good grief! Now I need to put it all away...

Early fall in the San Juans

2011-09-19T20:43:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was the first sunny, rain-free day we've had since we got back from Boise last week. So, it was up to the mountains for us! With the system that came through the region, we got much lower temps and rain, but the high country got its first snow of the season above 12,600' or so.

I brought my plein air gear (including chair and folding table) along for the ~3 mile RT hike along Cascade Creek. However, the resultant painting was so horribly bad (on the black construction paper...last time I bring that along) that it's going straight in the trash whenever I get around to breaking out my plein air box.

In the meantime, here are some photos from the hike and a drive up to Molas Pass to scope out the fall color situation.

Enjoy!

Engineer Peak as seen along Hwy 550 on the way to Cascade Creek
Lookin' good, as always

Mourning Cloak butterfly

These butterflies are one of the earliest to appear in spring (I saw them on our trip to Cedar Mesa back in early April) and keep right on going well into fall. They are extremely wary, which makes them difficult to approach and photograph. Because I didn't anticipate any butterflies on the hike due to the low temps, I didn't bring my telephoto lens on the hike.

This was shot @70mm holding the camera near the ground, carefully moving it as close to the insect as possible, and shot blindly. Sometimes, that works!

The Cascade Creek trail
My painting location was to the right and closer to the large boulder near the trail

A pair of Clouded Sulfur butterflies (male in front) feed on some late season red clover

3-part pano shot taken at Molas Pass - view is to the northeast
Molas Lake is seen in the middle
(click on photo to see larger view)

Snowdon Peak as seen from the Colorado Trail after it crosses Hwy 550
View is to the south

Back to black - pastels

2011-09-16T21:43:00.002-04:00

Two quickie pieces done today on some black paper picked up yesterday at the Hobby Lobby in the bustling metropolis of Farmington, NM.

It was black, smooth, acid-free, 12x18" and CHEAP (50 sheets/$3.85), so what's the risk in giving it a try? They don't carry any of the fine art black paper in pads I was looking for, so I had to settle for this: construction paper. Yep, the stuff kids use in elementary school to make things.

Mesa Skies
9x12 inches

I used my #220 sandpaper on it, and the resultant texture was much rougher than the Strathmore black papers. If not for the fact it is probably not lightfast and it's not quite as thick as the Strathmore, I'd be content using it. Not that the lightfast issue really matters that much since so little of the paper shows.

Towards Barnroof Point
9x12 inches

Both based on photos, with the goal to work quickly and keep things loose and stick to massed shapes. This paper is really good for that, actually - much better than the colored Strathmore charcoal paper I've been using recently.

I really dislike the blue for the cliff shadows in the second painting, but I just didn't have the right shade of gray I needed. Despite their shortcomings, they were satisfying to produce.

Coincidentally, the local art supply store finally came through with the pad of black Artagain I ordered over 2 weeks ago, so now I can go back to that for my black paper fixes.

Along the Pine - pastel

2011-09-15T19:18:00.000-04:00

Along The Pine
pastel on Strathmore 400-series charcoal paper
9x12 inches

Started last week (on the day I got sick), and finally finished and photographed. Done at my computer with my plein air set, because I've just been too lazy to move the painting operations to my downstairs studio.

I could have titled this: "What I would have painted if I had painted on location", because that's essentially what it is. Over Labor Day weekend, we decided to hike/fish/paint along the Pine River, located east of town about an hour away. In fact, the Pine River (also called "Los Pinos") trailhead is about 1/4 mile from the recent PAP4C paint-out piece I did - "Late Summer in the Pine River Valley".

I brought my streamlined plein air set-up with me (stadium chair, pastel box, foamboard with this 9x12 piece of paper taped to it) intending to paint while Wayne fished. The Granite Peak Ranch (where we painted) is huge, and one must hike about 3 miles along the ranch easement in order to get to FS land and thus fish and camp, but luckily, the trail is is level and a really easy hike, so I didn't mind hiking the gear in that far.

Painting didn't happen - got distracted with photographing flying things, and the rapidly building monsoon clouds eventually killed the light completely. But, I took this one photo of the river and knew I'd paint it. I also discovered that my stadium chair is ideal for protecting my pastel box from getting soaked when hiking back in a rainstorm.

Biggest challenge was that dark forest background and trying to balance abstract shapes with just enough detail. One thing I've noticed is that my darkity-dark-dark pastels are actually *plenty dark* for this tan paper, vs. the black Strathmore, where I was always working to get things dark enough. Gee - who knew? So, I found it much easier to obtain those values.

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Some obligatory photos from the hike:

Unidentified flower, filterized

A section of the trail through an aspen stand

"Me and My Shadow"
A Green Comma butterfly shows off its brilliant topside colors on a dead tree

Green Comma on white thistle
With folded wings, it looks like a dead leaf - perfect camouflage!

Back from Boise and beyond

2011-09-12T19:58:00.003-04:00

What a week.

Illness, travel, spending time with friends, shared creativity, and remembering the tragic events of a decade ago all wrapped into 7 days. I'm not sure what it is about early September, but this sort of mild chaos seems to happen to me around this time of the year.

The "festivities" began last Monday afternoon, when I started feeling ill a few hours after eating something made at home with deli meat purchased shopping an hour earlier. What initially was mild nausea went on to become full-blown food poisoning within the span of 6 hrs. Thankfully, the emetic aspect of the illness only lasted a few hours, but I was left with a headache of epic proportions and a feeling that I was run over by a truck that lasted for the next 36 hrs. Aside from the fact I was unable to do anything other than lay around completely wiped out, the more concerning issue was that we were scheduled to fly to Boise on Wed morning, and it was looking like I might have to skip the trip.

However, by some stroke of healing and luck, on Wed morning, I was 90% recovered, and able to proceed with the travel plans.

Wayne's boss is currently living in Boise, and had invited Wayne out to visit and discuss some company business. When he graciously offered to buy me a ticket as well, I was thrilled, as Boise is not only a great town in itself, but it's also where my good friend and fellow artist Sarah M-B lives. Have a look at her blog to see the amazing sculpture she does.

Before I started working in pastels and 2D landscapes about 2 years ago, I did mixed media realistic equine sculpture. Not so much sculpting, although I have done some smaller pieces, but lots of painting of resincast sculptures by other artists.

"Jax" - slipcast ceramic bas-relief sculpture of jumping horse

~ 9 1/2 x 5 inches

Kiln-fired ceramic glaze finishwork to chestnut sabino: S Johnson

This piece was actually started over 2 years ago when I was last out in Boise. Sarah hosted a mini retreat for myself and another artist, and I got as far as cleaning the greenware (unfired) clay casting, and adding the purple and blue art glazes to the fired bisque. Ever since that visit, I'd been looking forward to finishing it.

Ceramic work, and in particular the underglazing/painting process, is a fascinating and somewhat magical process to me. It is completely unlike anything else I've ever done, art-wise. Unlike cold painting methods, in which the end result is "what you see is what you get", the process of working with earth-based pigments and a ceramics kiln takes much of the control away from the artist, and it's not until you open the kiln lid 8 hours later that you have any idea what the final result will be.

The basic technique involves masking off areas that are to remain white with either tape, cellophane or Miskit. The eye is also masked.

-Next, layers of underglaze pigment mixtures are applied in a directional manner using an airbrush to accentuate shading and subtle tonal shifts, just like you see in a real horse coat, along with the gray skin areas. These pigments handle similar to watercolors, so you can't use a regular paintbrush to paint these areas or it will produce unpleasant streaks. Mistakes are very difficult, if not impossible, to fix - another thing I'm not used to when I work in oils and pastels!

-The masking is removed, and the piece is low-fired in the kiln to lightly "set" the colors, and cooled.

-An Xacto blade is used to selectively remove areas of pigment and form more intricate areas of white, such as this sabino pattern. The hitch is that you cannot handle the piece except along areas where art glaze was applied (the purple/blue rectangle) or white areas since the underglaze pigments are very fragile in this stage.

-The eye is hand-painted, in this case, blue. The hooves have a mix of hand-painting and airbrush (an experimental technique that worked very well). Pink is airbrushed for the nose and areas of white where the fur is thin and the pink often shows through. At this point, the colors are only somewhat suggestive of the flaxen chestnut color I chose, and very dull and chalky.

-Once all the work is done, layers of clear glaze are applied to the entire piece, also with the airbrush. This leaded glaze fires clear but has an opaque dye in it when applied, so that by the time the piece was ready to go into the kiln for the final fire, it was a pale pink with no visible color anywhere save for the background.

-Then, in it goes for the final firing to set the glazes. Sarah has two electric kilns, and the smaller one (named Maury) uses a very low-tech but fascinating means of reaching the proper temperature and firing time: a small stick of material, known as a pyrometric cone, is placed in a holder within the kiln. Upon reaching the required time and temperature parameters for the particular glaze or pottery, it bends and the kiln shuts off. The process usually takes 8-12 hrs. This piece was fired at cone 06, I believe, which is considered low-fire at close to 1800 degrees F. This heat produces a chemical reaction between the clay, underglaze earth pigments and clear lead glaze to fuse them into a single layer with rich colors that are essentially unlike what was originally applied to the surface. The clear lead glaze gives a jewel-like sparkle to the final piece.

"Jax"was finished yesterday morning. Sarah excitedly came in to tell me how cool it looked, and when I saw it in the kiln, I was stunned at how different it looked, and how beautiful it turned out, especially since it is literally only the second ceramics bas-relief I've ever done.

The fact it was done as a collaboration through the strength of friendship and generosity, and came to life out of the fire on the 10th anniversary of 9/11 - an event associated with loss and destruction - gives it symbolic significance that I will never forget.

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On that note, it was odd actually flying home yesterday on that anniversary. In the Boise and Denver airports, it was business as usual, with passengers hustling about to their connection, or engaged in whatever activities they do to pass the time between flights. A bar TV showing the football game of the NY Jets had a memorial tribute during half-time, and it riveted people's attention. A woman sitting behind me cried as she watched it.

Here are a few photos taken during the Boise-Denver flight with Wayne's Coolpix. I like taking these photos, as they are great for taking my mind off of the irrational fears and thoughts generated by my lizard brain (amygdala) that happen while flying, particularly after take-off when the air can be bumpy. Despite this, I always try to get a window seat because I love looking out the window:

Cumulus, viewing

Farms, abstracted

Mountains, folded

Storms, forming

Clouds, entering

Denver, approaching

Highways, curving

Chamisa landscape, pastel

2011-09-03T22:59:00.000-04:00

Chamisa, also known as rabbitbrush, is to the southwestern plateau country what Goldenrod is to the east: the bright yellow flower that rings in fall. Several species inhabit the Colorado Plateau region, some of which are non-native. However, it is an attractive plant and is popular with artists who paint the southwestern landscape.

I've taken several reference photos of blooming chamisa along the lower area hikes I've done recently, including the one this photo is based on - an unnamed trail near the Dry Fork area west of town.

I've run out of my favorite black Strathmore 12x12" paper (and apparently, it is discontinued), so I've resorted to using some Strathmore charcoal paper I've used until I can get a pad of the 12x18" Artagain. It has a laid surface, which I don't care for, but for some reason, I've found it easier to use with these recent paintings. I used the #220 sandpaper on the smoother surface of this warm gray sheet, and it seemed to work out well.

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Some photos from that same hike, which was mostly intended as a butterfly outing:

Melissa Blue male on chamisa flower

A bee fly visits a late summer aster (Eurybia glauca)

A view of the meadow to the north along the trail
When I did this hike the first time in late June, the meadow was filled with lupine in bloom, and was a lush green.
This area made me a bit nervous due to evidence bears had been in the area (several piles of scat on the trail, and flattened bushes. Thankfully, I didn't have an encounter with one.

A female Melissa Blue shows off her beautiful top colors while resting on the spent leaf of a Western Flag iris

Cloud studies

2011-09-02T22:58:00.000-04:00

Clouds - for something different, and because:

1. I have heaps of reference photos

2. Something simple was in order

3. It's been a long time since I've painted clouds as a sole subject

Cloud Study #1

12x9" - Strathmore 500-series paper

Cloud Study #2

9x12" - Strathmore 500-series paper

Plein air, resurrected

2011-09-01T19:58:00.000-04:00

Sometimes things happen when you aren't really expecting them. Like the completion of this painting. I mentioned in a recent post about one of the plein air trips I did about 2 weeks ago where a sudden wind/water vortex developed just yards from where I was standing along the river, unnerving me, and the uncompleted painting that I'd planned to toss. This is that painting.

It has been sitting, along with a few others, off to the side on my studio table, waiting...for what? Who knows - I seldom toss paintings away immediately unless they are just downright atrocious. Anyway, for whatever reason, when I walked by the table today, I had this urge to work on it. Nothing left to lose, I suppose, and no expectations. It was about 75% completed when I abandoned it, so there wasn't much to do. There were already pastels laying about as well, so I didn't even need to pull out my plein air box to finish it.

I didn't even sit, put on my painting apron, or do anything that would indicate a dedicated studio session. Just from memory, which actually was better than I might have thought.

It's not going to go down as a personal favorite, but when I look at it, I'm reminded of what attracted me to the scene originally. And, by golly, I actually finished it! And, it felt really good to do so. It could probably stand some vigorous cropping, and I see a few areas that could be tweaked a bit, but no big deal.

So, I guess maybe the take-home message (if you can call it that) is for those of you who have unfinished paintings, or any abandoned projects lingering around, perhaps destined for the trash...maybe don't toss them just yet. Because you just never know when you might decide to get a proverbial wild hair and spontaneously finish it. After all, you have nothing to lose, and it might just qualify as a success, at least on some level.

A Prelude to Fall - San Juan Mountains

2011-08-31T01:58:00.001-04:00

The summer continues to blaze by, and feels like it's rapidly drawing to a close. There is a sense of urgency to cram in as much outdoor activity as possible in the high country before the season ends.

Two painting excursions - to Lemon and Haviland Lakes - in the past week have resulted in unfinished paintings that may or may not make it to completion. One has promise; the other not so much. Lately, it seems my creative energy has been focused through the lens of my camera rather than my pastels and paper. So, I have to run with it.

Today, a trip back up to hike and fish along west Lime Creek. Since our last trip a month ago, the deerflies have finally been knocked back, the summer alpine meadows are transitioning away from green towards the golden browns of fall, and a new round of mountain wildflowers is making an appearance.

August 30 in photos:

Cascading falls along Lime Creek

Raspberries along the trail - tasting as good as they look

A marmot casts a wary and scornful glance from his look-out point below the trail

A tiny Arctic Blue nourishes itself on a Showy Daisy

Mountain Gentian, filterized

Mushrooms, everywhere!

Monsoon skies

Painting in the Pine River Valley - Four Corners Plein Air

2011-08-24T20:44:00.000-04:00

So a week has passed since my last post...not really sure where the time has gone, but it took that long to get back in the groove of painting, I guess. My sole excursion outdoors last week did net an unfinished painting, but it's not one I'm likely to bring to any conclusion. Add to that an alarming wind gust out of nowhere that produced a wind vortex over the river (it was essentially a dust devil over water) less than 30 feet from my easel was so unnerving that I couldn't finish on location if I wanted to.

Today was the biweekly paint-out for the 4CPAP group, and I decided that I would go and that perhaps I could get my mojo back.

Late Summer in the Pine River Valley

12x12 inches - pastel on black Strathmore

Location was well east of Durango, on a huge private ranch located in an area known as the Pine River Valley. East of Vallecito Lake, along a FS road and tucked away from civilization, it's incredibly scenic. The granite peaks and valley layout have tones of the Sierras.

It took me probably 20 minutes to settle on a location to paint. Not only from being overwhelmed with choices, but at the time we arrived at this location, it was in full shade, which I found unappealing to paint. Despite the presence of a charming little creek running right near the road, I decided that I'd beg off painting water for a bit, and decided to paint this mountain peak. As is often the case, the dirt road clinched the deal. The slope to the right was in full shadow, as was the left side of the granite peak.

Monsoon season is still in full throttle here in southwestern CO, and while the sky was initially clear when I set up, clouds soon started developing, and I couldn't resist adding some.

What the sky looked like around 12:30 PM - yikes!

Thankfully, I was finished by this time

As usual, the group offered up some good suggestions during the critique session, so I came home and made a few adjustments and reworked the blue spruce trees in the middle ground, added some more yellow to the foreground grasses, and called it done.

A few more photos taken from the area where many of us painted:

Sunset along Florida Mesa in photos

2011-08-18T20:46:00.000-04:00

No painting today...so I thought I'd share some photos taken yesterday evening at my favorite location on Florida Mesa before I head off to tonight's photography club meeting.

All: tripod-mount, with Nikkor 18-70mm DX lens.

Enjoy!

Horses and the lone ponderosa

Making her way

The barn along Hwy 550

Field and fencepost

Skies to the north

Heading east on CR 220

Final light along CR 220

Tree against sunset virga

Approaching Teec Nos Pos - graphite on paper

2011-08-15T22:54:00.001-04:00

Approaching Teec Nos Pos

9x12 - graphite on sketchpad

So, today was one of those days I felt inclined to sit down and draw. Drawing skills, aside from being an absolute necessary skill for painters, are something that I suspect many of us don't practice enough. I'm always in awe of the artists whose blogs I follow who regularly post drawings they do, either as the beautiful loose field sketches of Sherrie Y or more detailed renderings in colored pencil, such as William (Bill) Cook.

I'm in a slight lull as far as my sense of direction goes for painting. It's not really an artistic block, but more like being overwhelmed by the possibilities and all the things I want to accomplish. Yesterday, we took an afternoon trip to Haviland Lake, and I brought along my gear (noting to leave the heavy French easel at home), excited about getting out to paint. And, I painted, but it didn't go anywhere, and I felt my concentration sort of slip away as things just didn't come together. But, that was totally okay - it was good practice to try and paint the ever-changing reflections on the lake.

Ever since we got back from AZ, I've been itching to do a new roadrtrip series based on the photos I took. It seems that Hwy 160 is my artistic muse, always beckoning with that constantly changing landscape that draws me in every time. I see the same features, and structures, and even creatures, on each trip, yet they never get old.

So, I thought I'd at least dip a toe in that proverbial bathtub and do a drawing of what will be one of the first paintings in the series...whenever I decide to start them. It is of this long sweeping stretch of highway that is just east of that small Navajo community Teec Nos Pos, and a few miles west of the actual Four Corners monument.

The drawing thing was good. I like it because, unlike painting, I can draw right at my computer, and listen to my favorite songs on my YouTube playlist. After getting into "the zone", it's great. Drawing with pencil is a very disciplined thing - you can't be lazy and use color. It's all about value. Since this particular image doesn't have a great deal of value range, that made it a bit difficult. And, it took me longer to do this drawing, which isn't much to write home about, than it does to do a painting of the same size. It was exceedingly difficult to photograph as well.

But, it was just what I needed today.

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On an unrelated note, I was delighted to find out that all 3 of the photos I entered in the county fair last week won ribbons! And, both of the paintings took blues and reserve champions, but there weren't many entries this year, so it wasn't quite as exciting as the photography wins.

Here are two of the three photos - both entered in the "Wild Animal" category in the Adult Intermediate division:

"Melissa Blue"

10x8 inches

First Place and Reserve Champion in its category

"Bramble Hairstreak"

8x10 inches

Second Place

Both shot with my entry level Nikon D40, Nikkor 55-200mm DX AF lens, and printed at Walmart's 1 hr. photo lab. Just in case anyone thinks it's all about having expensive DSLR's and high-end glass...it's not.

Ice Lake - a hike in photos

2011-08-12T19:21:00.000-04:00

No painting yesterday, and while I'd originally planned to go out with the Friday plein air painters to La Plata Canyon, between getting up too late and the self-imposed beating I took yesterday, that didn't happen.

So, instead, I thought I'd share some of the photos I took on yesterdays hike, where we took advantage of a [supposed] break in the monsoons to hit one of the most scenic locations in the San Juans: Ice Lake.

We've done this hike twice before, but only once have reached the destination of upper Ice Lake itself. Nestled up high in the mountainous basin west of Silverton, it's a hugely popular day hike and backpacking destination for locals and photographers.

As it seems with so many things, the best things never comes easily, and that's quite apropos for this hike, where the spectacular views are proportional to the degree of difficulty required to obtain them. With a trailhead elevation of 9,900', it gets serious right out of the blocks, with 2,400' of elevation gain in 3.5 miles to the first money shot:

Ice Lake - 2-part pano

Yes, the lake is really this color

Wildflowers at alpine tundra elevations are right at the cusp of peak season, so I brought my tripod and both lenses along for this hike rather than the plein air get-up. It requires much more mental energy and concentration to paint rather than set up and take photos.

Getting there is not easy, but scenic the entire way as it passes through forested sections of fir and spruce (the aspen are left behind within the first 1/2 mile or so), and open meadows.

Every hike I take, I obtain several photos of the view along the trail itself - the light and shadow patterns and trees full of character never get old. It's hard to just choose one for these blog posts.

[This is for Dan]

I keep speaking of a series of trail paintings, and it's a certainty I'll never run out of reference material.

At timberline elevations, larkspur, monkshood and these tall white flowers are abundant.

The huge boulders of what appears to be a mix of conglomerate (rock composed of smaller rocks of older and different compositions and origins) and what appears to be volcanic basalt deposition are scattered in the meadows.

Perennial waterfalls are found all along the hike, cascading down through the dark rock and occasionally making crossings difficult.

The pale slopes - mine tailings - are a testament to the history of this area as mining country. The main creek that enters Silverton from this area - Mineral creek - still carries heavy metal contaminates from these old tailings. The water is crystal clear...and is devoid of all life.

I've been on a major butterfly photographing kick this summer, and never pass up the opportunity to get a good photo of these colorful and beautiful creatures.

With the unfortunate closing of Borders, I was able to get Kaufman's field guide to North American butterflies at a great price, which helps to identify this male Shasta Blue. He is very small - about 1" wingspan.

Patience, persistence, practice, location and luck, along with a telephoto lens are what you need to shoot members of the Lepidoptera order.

The final ascent of the trail climbs a particularly rough section of cliff and broken rock, and on the trail map, has the black diamond classification. Llamas and dogs can follow it, but horses will be turned back.

This is the final 200-300 yards, out of the somewhat exposed and most treacherous part of the trail, and as you are hiking, you wonder if the unrelenting trail ever ends and if the lake or the promised views really do exist...

...and then you see this:

Colorful wildflowers explode on the tundra of the basin, and the eastern side of Yellow Mountain is visible; time to swap out the telephoto lens for the regular zoom.

But, it gets better as the deep turquoise blue lake comes into view.

By this time, clouds are building up and to my dismay, I hear some thunder off to the south. However, there is no lightning and to the north and east the skies are still relatively clear...at least for the moment.

So, after taking a break and getting some photos of lower Ice Lake, we decide to push it and head up to the next basin level.

A cluster of beautiful blue columbine sets off the foreground of this photo of a smaller lake and the Yellow Mountains.

This was amazing, and I used my tripod with the aperture stopped down to f/20 for maximum depth of field.

It's one of my favorite of the "money shots".

pano shot of the upper and lower lakes - what a view!

A beautiful stream surrounded by Parry's Primrose and Marsh Marigold (both of which disappeared from lower elevations about 5 weeks ago) make their appearance.

Large boulder erratics sit atop the highest basin below the mountains. View is to the east and shows the ominous dark clouds that sent us heading back soon after.

The old miner's cabin near the upper most lake.

After hearing more thunder, we decided not to push our luck any more than we had already, and quickly beat it back down the trail, hoping to escape any torrential downpour and possible lightning.

It did start to sprinkle, but stopped after we dropped below the lower Ice Lake.

This is the view of the timberline meadow below the steepest section of the trail.

The view after reaching the meadow. Amazingly, we didn't get any more rain for the remaining 3 miles of the hike.

And in fact, the clouds cleared and the sun came out towards the last 1/2 mile of the trail, allowing another view of shadows crossing the trail in the aspen section.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed the photos and the hike.

For those that find these photography-based posts boring and tedious and choose to un-follow the blog...well, sorry, but this is never going to be a painting-only blog. Photography is a much a passion for me as painting, and I enjoy sharing the photos of these beautiful places I visit with you all.

And thank you again to those who are reading this - you are the best!

After The Storm - pastel, 16x20 inches

2011-08-10T22:16:00.000-04:00

After The Storm - 16x20"

pastel on black Strathmore

First studio piece in a few months, because I wanted to go bigger and because: clouds + road + reflections = awesome to paint.

I started it last week before I went on my trip and finished it up today. It was based on a photo taken on the recent Sunday afternoon photo shoot (the post with all the horses) along Florida mesa.

I had some specific things in mind when I did this, and for those that read The Pastel Journal, the article by Albert Handel on painting clouds was one thing that nudged my choice for reference photo. He does some of the best skies, and his comment in the article about using different colors of the same value was apropos to this piece in particular. For all the sky and cloud paintings I've done, I don't think I've done one quite like this. The sky in particular was a blast to paint - subtle color and temperature shifts, lost and found edges - clouds are great for such things.

Another reason was to have a piece to enter in the local county fair. Yeah, laugh if you want, but I've always loved county fairs, having entered them since I was a kid. I don't enter to win anything, but really to just support the fair and community. I also entered three photos, and based on the # of entries, anyone winning a ribbon should be thrilled.

Anyway, I chose 16x20 because I happened to have a couple of frames I refurbished in that size. Normally, I don't care for the 4:5 format for landscapes; it seems too indecisive to me: either square or 1:2 or 3:4 are my preferred formats.

It also gave me a chance to experiment with framing the pastel directly against the glass, which I have never done before. There was a recent article in Pastel Journal that discussed it, and which I couldn't find, but it gave the technique. I use Coroplast for a backing - it is ideal for this method of framing - and framer's tape around the glass-pastel-backing to form a nice sealed package. Pop it into the frame, drive the points in, and you're good to go!

The Grand Canyon, and pushing envelopes

2011-08-09T17:31:00.000-04:00

We are back from our trip, and while it was fun, it is always good to get back home. It was a banner day for reference photos of clouds and skies along the highways and interstate drive to Phoenix on Thursday, with the monsoon season providing the most unbelievable array of clouds that I've ever seen. Most of the 500+ photos I took on the trip are of that drive.

Another treat was a side trip to the Grand Canyon on Sunday. It's been almost a year since I've been there, and even longer - almost 5 years - since I've hiked down into it.

Coronado Butte from the New Hance Trail

6x8 inches - pastel on Strathmore

Since developing a near obsession for painting outdoors this year, I've been continually thinking of new ways to bring my painting operation to more difficult reaches where I used to rely only on photography. And while I'll never leave my camera behind, I've now discovered that I can indeed paint on location in rugged and remote locations. It's exhilarating.

Enter the New Hance trail on the south rim of the Grand Canyon. Most visitors to the Canyon will never know of its existence, let alone hike it (it is not even listed on the official GC NPS site). This is a good thing, as it is arguably one of the most difficult of the named trails within the park - an unforgivingly steep, narrow and unmaintained trail that would (or should) turn back all but experienced Canyon hikers within the first 1/3 mile. I've hiked and backpacked just about every named trail (and a few routes) in the park, and I can firmly attest to its rough nature and reputation.

What trail?

The upper section crosses large slabs of broken Toroweap formation and Coconino sandstone

But, it also gives unique and unparalleled views and for geology geeks like myself, it offers up unique features found no where else in the Canyon. Wayne has never been down it, and I realized it has been a whopping 7 years since I was last on it during a backpacking trip. Figuring (correctly) that we'd likely not see anyone else, it was the easy choice to experience the spiritual nature of the Canyon and avoid the noisy and often annoying tourist crowds that are omnipresent at this time of the year.

A view of Sinking Ship butte to the west along the trail; this is also visible

from the South Rim drive on the eastern part of the park

Back when I used to hike the Canyon regularly, I generally avoided it during the summer. It is a hot, dry desert and only three trails (Bright Angel, Hermit and the North Kaibab on the north rim) have any reliable water. Even on the rim, temperatures were in the mid-80's, and they just get higher the further down you go. Summer hiking is unpleasant at best and potentially deadly at worst.

Looking up to the south rim from the trail, about 1000' down. The trail is out of sight to the left, and follows breaks in the sandstone cliffs [2-part vertical pano]

Because of this, we planned a descent of no more than 1,500' or 3 miles one way - whichever came first, and at the earliest shaded spot with a good view. In this case, the vertical limit was reached in about 1.5 miles, which luckily coincided with both a shaded location under a large pinyon tree and provided this view to the north. The trail continues for another 6.5 miles, eventually dropping down into the aptly named Red Canyon before finally reaching the Colorado River. It amazes me to think that 10 years ago, I did this trail - from rim to river and back - as a day hike.

The early afternoon view from our approximate stopping location

Despite the wonderful panoramic view of the Canyon here, it's a bit overwhelming to paint, particularly with the limitations of my plein air palette. Light and shadow aren't ideal anyway and it's just a really busy scene to try and distill to a small field sketch. Even though I brought my painting gear along (stadium chair, pastel box, tape, gloves, a piece of foamboard and several sheets of 4x6 and 6x8 inch Strathmore paper), I would have been happy to just hang out and not paint - which I have done on most of the trips I've brought it along on a hike - I just like having the option.

After hanging out for about 30 min, I finally decided on a subject to try and paint: adjacent Coronado Butte. It forms the left side of Red Canyon, and the unique perspective from below gave plenty in the way of light and shadow. The reddish-gray sandstones and limestones of these Permian-era rocks are similar in color, but are broken up by grass and juniper-covered slopes and differences in orientation of the layers (vertical jointing vs. horizontal layering and erosional patterns).

Every time I paint on location, I can feel my observational eye developing. I know I sound like a broken record with the chorus of artists and instructors who say the same (and am preaching to the choir for everyone else), but it is impossible to stress the value and importance of location/life painting enough. Even if the paintings aren't successes in themselves, it doesn't matter - it's about the process, and training the eye to see.

A badly cobbled pano shot of the approximate view I painted from

Seriously? Aside from the physical shapes, it looked nothing like this in life, and not

super interesting to paint unless you were there

On hikes, I tend to stick with my 55-200mm tele zoom lens on my camera, since I'm: 1) usually out during the least desirable lighting conditions for decent landscape photos; 2) wildlife, wildflowers and invertebrates are favorite subjects to shoot on hikes, and best done with a tele lens, like this attractive and elusive Canyonland Saytr butterfly that I had a helluva time getting a photo of:

So, almost all these wide views are panos, and shot with the intent to use as possible reference photos and journaling the hike rather than good photos taken for their own sake.

Nonetheless, the photos do a good job of telling the story and also showing how remarkable the shifting light is in the Canyon, and how it can go from "blah":

single shot looking west @ 2:12 pm

To "cool!" in just a few hours (note the smoke from a north rim managed fire to the far right):

5-part vertical pano in same orientation @ 6:02 pm

One of the unavoidable facts of hiking the Grand Canyon is that what goes down must come back up, and it's never easy to have the hardest part be at the end. So, after kicking back for a few hours, we gathered up and headed up and out. The Canyon has much to teach us, including how much about hiking it is mental. Go down 3,500' below the rim, look up, and you'll know instantly what I'm talking about.

the "easy" part of the trail by the creek drainage

It also teaches patience, perseverance and to appreciate and respect what we are capable of - which is much like the process of painting. Like the process of creating art, it humbles and challenges us by exposing our limitations and weaknesses - showing us what we need to work on to improve, so that each experience gets a bit easier and more learned. But, just as we know as artists, it never gets easy, which would be boring, and that's always been part of the appeal to me.

only another 1,100' to climb, Wayne!

Sun silhouetted ponderosa pine

Wind-sculpted juniper along the upper section of the trail

Erosion forms abstract patterns along a sandstone overhang

A view to the north rim - 6:02 p.m, not far from the trailhead

So, this post really isn't so much about the small field painting as it is about musing about the process and the experience, and the path we take to betterment and pushing our personal envelopes. That being said, I love the painting for what it represents in this regard. I hope that it is just the first of many I am able to do from the depths of this most beloved and special place.

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Readers and fellow artists: please feel free to share any similar experiences you've had with experiences that helped shape and push your personal envelopes - I'd love to hear about them. And I appreciate those of you who read and maybe even enjoy these longer posts. Tomorrow's post will be much shorter - I promise!