Southwestern monsoon and rain - pastel painting

Sometimes you need to go big or go home...

Plateau Showers - #7
18x24 inches - pastel on UArt #400 paper
© 2012, S.Johnson

One of those images that I have been excited to paint, and it needed to be big.  I bought a sheet of this UArt, and decided this would be the piece to use it on.  Since I'm not used to using an aggressive sanded surface like this, it was a bit of a challenge, especially for the clouds.  I lost track of how many layers of pastel I piled on there, blended, removed, re-blended.

The location, as we continue west along Hwy 160, is now west of Kayenta, AZ, and approaching what is hands-down my favorite section of the drive:  the Organ Rock monocline.  Those who were following my blog when I did the first Four Corners roadtrip series in late '10 will remember it.

To my mind, there are few things more visually stunning and emblematic of the southwest than a huge cumulonimbus cloud spanning a section of plateau country and an isolated sweep of rain in the distance. Discreet shadows cast by the cloud help define the elements of the land.

Regarding this paper, I can't say I like it.  I know it's really popular with pastelists, and maybe I'll try a finer grit in the future, but I found that it took so much longer to paint this than it should have - I had to use a ton of pastel and the light touch I'm used to using on my smooth black Strathmore just doesn't work so well here.  I found it necessary to finger blend almost everything to eliminate the harsh edges produced by the grit and texture.  However, it's still far better than Colourfix paper, which I cannot stand.

It actually started out as a failed painting from the winter series I was doing in Dec and Jan:

Nope, it's not a really bad abstract painting....

My true wish is that the company that makes GatorGrit wet-dry black sandpaper would produce it for the pastel market - as far as sandpaper goes, I've not found anything that matches it.

Anyway, I am going to switch back to oils for this series now.

Comb Ridge, moving forward....

Comb Ridge - nearing maturity

"...Downhill, maybe a mile, in one great switchback, the roadway descended through a gap to to the built-up fill across the floor of Comb Wash." -Edward Abbey in The Monkey Wrench Gang

So, after almost a week of silence, here we are.  Plans to work on this and finish it went astray as other projects and distractions came up.  This is where it is as of yesterday, and two painting sessions [the first of which was not worth posting about] from the last post on it.  

Paint finally covers the entire board, but there are areas that remain unresolved to my satisfaction - namely, the sandstone cliff regions (too light in value and there is this new Escher-esque thing happening with a section of them that needs to be addressed....do you see it?  How exactly does that happen, I wonder?).  My attempts to cool down the red slope to the right resulted in a tad over-correction of color.  It's not quite as garish as it looks in the photo here, but still no es bueno. 

I will have to cogitate a bit and decide how best to bring this painting to full adulthood.

And, what you may ask, is the relevance of the quote from Mr. Abbey above?  I happen to be reading this modern fiction classic involving the mischief and mayhem of a quartet of colorful characters bound and determined to stop interlopers with bulldozers, coal trains and such from defacing the land.  

I read this passage the other night, and realized that it describes my painting.  This is the great switchback that descends through the gap in Comb Ridge.  Comb Wash is where the bright green cottonwoods are in the painting.  Anyway, I thought it was neat and apropos.  Ed might not love the road, but he'd be glad to know that the area remains relatively untrammeled.  

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In an unrelated but exciting event, I found out yesterday that this painting

Serenity

12x18

pastel on black Strathmore

was accepted into the Durango Art Center's annual juried member show!   I helped hang the show yesterday, and while two other pieces I entered did not get in, I can not complain:  93 artists entered 190 pieces of art.  Only 60 were chosen.  Several established gallery artists, including a previous BOS winner, did not have work accepted.  Many artists had no works accepted, and I think of the list I had, only 2-3 artists had all 3 entries accepted.  One was a sculptor.  

The reception is happening shortly, and the juror (an art instructor at the local college) said he will give a talk about the works.  I'm very interested to hear what he has to say.

I decided to enter Serenity on a lark the day before the entry date; I gutted another framed and matted pastel I had in my personal collection.  This happens to be one of my personal favorites, so I'm delighted that it was accepted.

-off to the show reception now!

A painting and its life stages: I-III

Here now I thought I'd do something I don't think I've done before, and that's post a painting in-progress.  In the past, when I've shown anything of this sort, it was either a pastel underpainting or the loose burnt sienna underpainting for an oil.

I'm taking a risk posting this painting - it won't be that enticing as a thumbnail on anyone's blogroll list or on their dashboard, but that's the way it goes...

Comb Ridge Shadows Stage I - newborn underpainting

18x24 inches

oil on alkyd-primed MDF board

I've been wanting to try a larger canvas size for paintings for a while now, but for various reasons, have not.  I made one attempt this past winter, but it stumbled right out of the blocks, and promptly got axed.  In fact, this is the same panel with another coat of alkyd primer over it, and you can see a faint ghost image of the old painting through the white in the top left.

Anyway, readers may recognize this from a photo I posted about 6 weeks ago from our trip to Comb Ridge and Cedar Mesa, UT.  I decided this was a good subject to try and go "big" on.  Me and my never-ending fixation with roads and highways.

And, coincidentally, this weeks DailyPaintWorks challenge, hosted by Carol Marine, was the Value Challenge using nothing but burnt umber and the white of the canvas to create a full range of values, emphasizing the importance of value in a composition.   Unlike some of the other entries in the challenge, this one is nothing to write home about; it looks exactly like what it is:  a scrappy underpainting.  I just find it difficult to achieve anything more with Turpenoid and burnt umber - it dries very quickly and doesn't handle well.  

But, it works well as a road map for defining values and composition.

Comb Ridge Shadows Stage 2 - walking upright

I guess I've done enough oil paintings now where I know what techniques work reasonably well and what doesn't work at all.  These underpaintings work well for me.  And while I generally prefer to finish a painting in one session if I can, with a painting this size, and starting late in the afternoon yesterday with the oils, it wasn't going to happen.

I don't have the patience to paint in multiple thin layers or glazes anymore, at least for any 2D works, so I try to lay down paint quickly and just finesse things as I go, wet-in-wet.  For this painting, I decided to try the Gamblin Neo Meglip that I bought last week.  The spec sheet says it adds body to the paint.  I did find adding some to paint which was on the thicker side did much to improve its texture and spreadability.  However, it seemed to behave similar to Liquin, in that it made the paint tacky pretty quickly, making it difficult to add or rework areas after 30 min or so without pulling the paint off.  It's still sticky wet this morning on the board.  It did give a nice texture to the paint, though.

I think many artists can relate to the "ugly stage" that an awful lot of paintings go through.  It's like parts of adolescence, I think, as the painting struggles for identity and purpose at times.  Awkward and gangly and rebellious, leaving parent and teen wondering:  "will this end well?"

Comb Ridge Shadows Stage III - Teenage years

The road and sky are essentially finished.  I may come in and tweak a few parts with another layer, but no major reworking needed.   Paint now covers most of the board, save for the pale sandstone sections within the main cliffs, and the distal monocline to the far left of the horizon.  

I don't care for the burnt sienna-based red for the slopes.  Too warm.  Thinking back to the last time I was painting similar subject matter in oils, I recalled that alizarin crimson was a constant in my palette.  I left it out for this, but I see it needs to be brought in to cool down those reds; the purple lake isn't enough to do the job.  I find some annoying detail wanting to creep in there that needs to be banished as well.

We are doing our quarterly road trip to Aztec and Farmington, NM today, so the painting will have to sit in its gangly state for the rest of the day.  I hope to get more work done on it perhaps this evening, and I promise not to drag out multiple posts on its progress.  Probably one more to show its final stages and conclusion.