Southern Utah in fall, pastel, 9x12

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 

Kitten and his toy - DPW challenge, 6x6 oil

My Favorite Toy

6x6"

oil on 1/4" board

As a devoted cat lover, I couldn't resist painting this week's Daily Paintworks challenge subject of this adorable tabby kitten, posted and hosted by Dreama Tolle Perry.   Dreama says this could qualify as a still life as cats spend so much time sleeping!  I would be inclined to agree.  And, the legless "bread loaf" position is always a favorite resting position for felines.   Cats are simpler to paint when they look like a bedroom slipper.

Nelson has his favorite toy, which he carries around and brings up on the bed with him.  So, I decided to use one of the toys in the other image she included for the challenge and add it to my version.

On a semi-related note, I went to our local art store yesterday and purchased some Grumbacher refined linseed oil.  This, as per my previous post/rant about the paint problems I was having.  I used it for this painting, and I believe I may have solved my problems with the tacky, sticky paint; a small amount worked very well to soften the stiff W&N Artisan oils, and never tacked up.  I was even able to do some minor adjustments to the painting this morning as the paint was still wet.   So, I will conclude that the walnut oil I was using was probably the culprit in my troubles.

I also purchased a small jar of Gamblin Neo Meglip, as it sounds like something I'd like.  It is a synthetic, modern replacement for the original meglip medium, a soft gel produced from boiling lead in linseed oil combined with mastic varnish and used by painters like Turner to achieve the luminous quality of his work.  Unlike other glazing mediums, such as Liquin, this maintains the body of the paint.  I'm excited to try it, and will report my impressions here when I use it.

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And, since we are on the theme of animals, here are some photos of Canyonlands creatures, from our trip.  No mammals or birds, unfortunately, but the warm weather brings out the little reptiles of the desert out for basking and feeding

Unidentified species, posing for a photo
Lizards always delight me when I see them on hikes.   Some dash off immediately, and others, like this one,  maintain a cautious eye while maintaining their position.

Bee Fly - Heterostylum
I saw several of these fascinating insects on our hike, and I became somewhat obsessed with getting photos of them.  They have these incredibly long pollen or nectar-gathering proboscis, and never actually land on the flowers; their long legs appear to stabilize them while they are feeding.  As scary as these look, they are harmless and do not sting.  

Common Sideblotched Lizard (Uta stansburiana)

Unidentified species of lizard

What on earth is this??
While checking out the one and only location of water along the hike, I noticed what first appeared to be a piece of grass or a thin twig floating in the water (not flowing), but then watched as it began to move and twist itself into loops and knots!  It was close to 12" long and 2mm in diameter.  I did an internet search, but can find nothing.  It was the only one of its kind in the water.  Some type of desert worm?  

Eastern Fence Lizard (Sceloporus Undulatus)

A trip to Canyonlands NP in pastel and photos

Curves Ahead

9x12 inches

pastel on black Strathmore

-from snapshot taken in the car on the road leading to CNP

Well, our planned three-day car camping trip to Canyonlands was cut short by a day and a half due to this intense pacific storm that is currently hitting the entire region.  We planned the trip last week starting with a perfect weather forecast, and as it got closer and closer to the date, the forecast continued to worsen to a "20% chance of rain on Tues night".  That ended up turning to a "100% chance of rain on early Tuesday morning" as we discovered waking up to the light patter of drizzling rain hitting our tent.  

I also got skunked for the 3rd month in a row with plans to shoot moonrise photos due to cloud cover.  A bummer, because watching the moonrise up over Canyonlands would have been almost magical.

However, we did get in a good solid day of hiking on Monday, having left Durango at 6:45 a.m. for the trip.  The primary reason for this was to procure a camping site within the park (sites go fast at this time of the year, and it's first-come, first-served).  We lucked out there, and it allowed us extra time to do our one and only hike on the trip.  

Destination hike:  Chesler Park, and center of the Needles District of the park.  Should you ever venture to Canyonlands and are an avid hiker, put this on your "to do" list.  The hike was incredibly scenic - one of our favorites.  The weather ranged from sunny and warm to overcast and chilly to downright windy.  

Wildflowers were in abundance, and small lizards of various species darted across the trail and rocks, occasionally posing long enough for a photo.  With regards to photography on these hikes, I've begun bringing both my general purpose zoom (18-70mm) and my telephoto (55-200mm) along allows the best range of photos.  I usually start with the telephoto and switch to the general zoom on the way back to get wide-angle landscape shots.  

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Here are a handful of photos from the hike; I'll share some wildlife and floral photos in subsequent posts.

Enjoy!

Along the Trail

Sandstone formations pano in black and white
4-part vertical oriented pano @55mm created with Double Take stitching software

Trail leading through a joint in the rock

Chesler Park panorama
5-part horizontally oriented pano @38mm
click on photo to see larger version with more detail

Wayne on the trail leading through Chesler Park with The Needles behind him

Trail leading to Devil's Kitchen, Cyclone Canyon and The Grabens

Colorized photo of a long fin of layered sandstone as the trail gets ready to drop off slickrock and into a canyon

Sandstone, pinyon and juniper against a cloud-filled sky along Elephant Hill Canyon 

Utah canyon country landscape - pastel

tags:  southwestern landscape painting - pastel painting - original art - 9x12 - Canyonlands NP - southern Utah

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Wingate Colors Against a Turquoise Sky

12x9 inches

pastel on Wallis sanded paper

Based on a photo taken from our trip to Canyonlands National Park last October, this depicts the arcing cliffs of wingate sandstone that line the canyon and road leading towards the park.  The amazing array of colors found on the eroded face of this rock result from both the mineral composition of the sandstone itself, as well a biochemical process with manganese oxide, water and bacteria to form the deep purple-grays of desert varnish.  The fissures and fracture lines form a series of abstract shapes that always appeal to my aesthetics.

I couldn't resist a turquoise sky for this piece, although it doesn't photograph as well as I'd hoped.  Cirrus clouds were added as a diagonal thrust to balance the curves of the sandstone.  Chamisa (Chrysothamnus sp., aka Rabbitbrush), sage and juniper make up some of the foreground botanicals.  

For this piece, I pulled out some tube watercolors I bought for sketching and did an underpainting to block in basic shapes over a loose graphite drawing, with none of the original underpainting showing through:

Another memory painting

Memory of Canyonlands

6x8 inches - oil on canvas panel

This is the second "memory" painting, based on a photo taken from our mid-October trip there last year.  We spent a night camping outside of the actual park boundary, in a BLM-managed site called "Hamburger Rock" campground.  We sat in our chairs watching the sun set over the distal silhouetted buttes and mesas of the Island in the Sky district of the park.  The sky was a beautiful pale peach fading to an eggshell-colored blue towards the zenith, with streaks of cirrus clouds cutting across it.  

I had to make a few adjustments to the middle ground after the painting was done from memory, a thumbnail sketch, and notes as to colors in areas.  I know sunsets are considered trite and a cliche' by many critics, but what can I say?  I love them!  When I see this, it reminds me of the stillness and calm of that fall evening, and the joy I feel every time I watch a sunset in a beautiful place.

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Here are a few more photos from that same late afternoon and evening at the campground:

Long Shadows

A lone juniper cast shadows across a patch of sandstone slickrock

View to the east

A few remaining spires of Wingate sandstone form small buttes east of the park

Island in the Sky

This wide-angle view, taken atop the "Hamburger Rock", looks towards the distal mesa defining the edge of this district to the north.

Sun Pillar

I had never seen this before.  It is classified as a type of halo phenomenon, but unlike sundogs, these are not caused by light passing through ice crystals, but merely reflecting off of the faces of flat crystals as they fall through the atmosphere.

Series intermission

I didn't manage to get any painting done yesterday - just a page of thumbnail sketches.   I was originally planning on working in oils today, as I don't have sheets prepared for the aspen on black series yet.

Then, I decided that I wanted to just pull out the old standby - 400-grit sandpaper - and do some "for the heck of it" pastels.   There were two ideas bouncing around in my head for paintings, and so those are now actualized.

First up is an idea that I've long been wanting to do for a while - an abstracted landscape based on the dark, brooding storm sky against a bright, sunlit foreground.  Inspiration came from multiple sources, including pastelist Wolf Kahn's work, my blogger friend Jala's abstracted paintings, the work of Marla Baggetta, and my observations and photos.   In fact, the trees in this piece were based on a snapshot I took from the car during our drive back from Aztec, NM, about 2 weeks ago.   This was done with no photo reference directly handy - just a mental idea of what I wanted.

Plus, I love the compliments of blue and orange together.

Forboding

11x9 inches

pastel on 400-grit sandpaper

Foreground is all NuPastels; sky is all MV Thunderstorm Grays, and the trees are Sennelier and Unison. Looking at it now, I think it would be improved with some of the foreground cropped away.  

The second piece is a more traditional landscape, but with effort to avoid extraneous detail.  Interestingly, it's also based on a photo taken during a drive back from Aztec about 2 months ago - the clouds were glorious, so it was time to get a sky fix in.  I knew at the time I took the photo I needed to paint it.  Plus, I really like painting roads [even though I can't seem to get the divider stripes to turn out the way I want].  I left out the telephone poles and some buildings.  The fence and group of trees stayed.

South of Town

9x11 inches

pastel on 400-grit sandpaper

Here are a few more photos from our Canyonlands trip:

Left:  faded flowers of some Rabbitbrush in front of the sandstone walls on the drive towards the park.  Right:  A lone pinyon pine stands against the sandstone cliff outside the park.

A juniper casts long shadows across sandstone slickrock by our campsite at Hamburger Rock.

Another view from our campsite, looking to the east.  A twisted juniper is wedged in the sandstone dome I stood on to take the photo.

Aspen in Black - #7 & 8

After a day immersed in the beauty of Canyonlands NP, hiking, driving and taking hundreds of photos, I'm back to studio work.

Two more of the aspen series.  Different black acrylic paint here - chalkboard paint - after I ran out of the existing black acrylic paint.  I figured that if it were used to create chalkboards, it might have some grit or at least a more matte finish to it.  The dried surface was actually pretty slick, leading me to wonder if it would even hold pastel at all.  It does, but it's not what I'd hoped for.  Plus, it required two coats to adequately darken the paper.

I'm not overly thrilled with either of these; the second is a re-do of the "Fail." piece posted a few days ago.  However, despite that, the practice painting trees was useful, so they were definitely not a waste of time.   Even a failed painting is practice and a learning experience, and the path to better paintings in the future; I think as artists we have to remind ourselves of that, and be okay with the fact that not everything that we create works the way we anticipated it would.

Also, if you're the teacher who left the comment that for some reason went into the "moderate" box, I apologize:  I hit "publish comment", but it never showed up under the post it was linked to.  Thank you for the comment, and I'm glad these aspen paintings are an inspiration for you to use with your students!

Aspen #7

12x9 inches

pastel on black toned w/c paper

Aspen #8

Here are a few images from our trip to Canyonlands NP.  For those that haven't been there, it's composed of three "districts"- the Needles; the Maze and the Island in the Sky.  The Needles district is to the east, and bordered by the Colorado River, and is probably the most popular/visited district of the park, and where we spent this visit.  

It is like Disneyland for hikers, backpackers and geology nerds, so I was in heaven.  I decided it is now my second favorite canyon area behind the Grand Canyon.   It only edges out Zion NP because of the scope and size.  

A view to the northeast along Hwy 211 towards the park.  Red Wingate sandstone forming an imposing vertical cliff is topped with a horizontal bed of Kayenta sandstone, and overlies a slope of Chinle formation.  

Continuing west along the highway.

A colorful cottonwood within a wash amongst the fanciful eroded forms of Cedar Mesa sandstone within the park.

A view to the north along the short Slickrock Trail loop hike, showing the La Sal mountains in the distance.

Another view along the trail, with the view to the west.  Mid-day light is a buzzkill for great photos, but this gives you a sense of the amazing landscape.