Painting in Durango - plein air pastel

It's nice when you don't have to travel far to find something to paint.

Sky From 3rd Ave - 12x12"
pastel on light brown cardstock
© S.Johnson

And, after hiking up Engineer trail this morning, I was feeling too lazy to drive anywhere, so I just walked half-way across our street to the grassy median, and painted from there.  Sitting, of course.

I've sort of been wanting to paint this house for a while, so this seemed like the perfect time, especially since the next 4C paint out is in Silverton, and that's all about the buildings and architecture.  Good practice for that.

------------
Photos from the hike, which was about 8 miles and topped out above timberline at 11,900'.  This is a top-notch hike for wildflowers, and they were stunning this year - surprising, given the lack of rain and light snowpack.

No landscape photos, because about 1/2 mile from the junction to hike up Engineer, a cloud positioned itself right in front of the sun, and proceeded to grow to epic proportions in the windless sky, killing the light.  Disappointing from a photographer's standpoint, but that's the way it goes.

Instead, I bring you a batch of butterflies and paintbrushes:

Coronis Fritillary

Western Paintbrush - while the sun was still out

Rocky Mountain Parnassian
This, and the butterfly below, were stationary on flowers while the sun was behind
the clouds above timberline.  They require the warmth from the sun in order to fly.

Arctic Blue on Sneezeweed

Rosy Paintbrush

West Coast Lady - first of these I've ever seen

Purplish Fritillary

Painted Lady - underside

Milbert's Tortoiseshell

A trio of paintings along Cascade creek - plein air, pastel

Finishing touches and photographs, finally, for the paintings done over the weekend's trip.

Orange Lichen and the Green Pool - 12x12" - plein air
pastel on dark brown cardstock
© S.Johnson

Thursday afternoon's painting, done about 30' from our campsite right along the creek.  There were so many fun things going on here that I had no trouble deciding on this as my first painting.  Some new challenges for painting water as well, such as being able to convey the effect of underwater bubbles and turbulence produced by the little fall of water passing through the channel of boulders.  The foreground pool appealed to my abstract gene, and then there is the river itself.

And the boulder, with its fissures and color variations, including some bright orange lichen, which ultimately inspired the sort of unusual title for this painting.

Embankment Aspen and Shadows - 11x8.5"
pastel on maroon cardstock
© S.Johnson

Another view right from the campsite, looking up and across the creek.  This is aspen country, so it was a given that they had to figure into at least one painting.  This was Friday morning's painting, done before breakfast.  I was reminded again of what a challenge it is to try and depict the massed greens of a forest - in this case, aspen, spruce, fir and probably some ponderosa pine.  

Fallen Rock and Tree - 8.5x11"
pastel on turquoise cardstock
© S.Johnson

Friday afternoon's painting, done a mere 15' from last weekend's painting "Creek Cascade".  Wayne and I had both been fascinated by the fact this full-grown tree was coming right up out of a large slab of limestone.  Strong shadows and patches of rust-colored moss - along with that tangle of roots - made it a fun challenge to paint.  The hardest part was dealing with the shadows, which changed by the minute:  by the time I'd finished the painting, the blue shadows had covered most of the creek.

We had great weather on Thursday and Friday, and because of the long hike we did on Friday, I'd planned to spend Saturday painting some aspen and road views I'd scouted out.  Alas, clouds rolled in early and stayed late, killing the light and dramatic shadows I wanted to paint.  So, I went out with my camera instead and spent a few hours photographing the creek..

...Wait:  hadn't I recently mentioned that I seldom take photos of moving water because they just don't do justice and aren't inspiring to paint from?   That's true.   That wasn't the intent with these photos, as you'll see in tomorrow's post, which I will dedicate just to this subject.

Here are a few flora and fauna photos from the weekend's hikes:

Blue and White Columbine in profile - one can never have enough photos
of this beautiful wildflower

Another native orchid!  Species unidentified

Fritillary species

Common Ringlet

male blue - unidentified species

Common Arctic - they seldom land and are very wary, so this was a luck shot indeed

Cascade Creek - plein air painting and more

Yesterday was the kind of day that reminds me of why I love summer here in southwestern CO.

Creek Cascade - 8.5x11" - plein air
pastel on sapphire blue cardstock
© S.Johnson

At my suggestion, we decided to take advantage of a perfect summer day and head up to Cascade Creek north of town to hike, paint and fish.  We hiked this trail a few times last summer, but not more than about  5 miles RT.  I'm sort of on a roll with the river rock paintings, and was in the mood to paint, so I brought my streamlined plein air set-up along (pastel boxes, apron, and stadium chair), figuring the odds were good I'd find something to paint.

As is typical for most of the trails along mountain watersheds in this area, it basically parallels the creek, passing through sections of forest and open meadow, and periodically returning closer to the water when the topography allows for it.  We pulled off the trail around the 3.3 mile mark, and I had no problem finding this subject to paint.  I was drawn to both the large limestone boulder on the edge of the shore, as well as the water cascading down the sequence of rocks.   A perfect fishing hole was about ten feet behind me, and Wayne caught (and released) three Brook trout he caught in it.

The more plein air work I do of moving water, the more I realize I probably won't ever be able to paint it from photos.   Which is a shame, really, because there just isn't enough time to paint all the scenes I'd love to on location.  I did take photos of other areas, but ended up deleting all of them, because the photos fall so short of what you actually see, and I can't see myself wanting to paint from any of the photos I took.

I imagine that the idea of painting moving water is intimidating to many artists, which is understandable.  After all, it seems like a parlor trick to make dry pastel pigment look like wet water.  Really, though, the same principles apply to painting whitewater and underwater rocks as everything else:  you aren't painting "rocks under moving water", you are painting abstract bits of color, that, when placed together, look like rocks under moving water .  Release yourself from left-brained thinking, and it's actually pretty straightforward.  Not to say that it's "easy", but it's not a complex magic trick, either.

After finishing up with the painting and fishing, we decided to hike a bit further up the trail, and the views just got even better.

------
Some photos from the day:

My new favorite photo of our lovely state flower:  Blue and White Columbine

Painted Lady butterfly visiting a dandelion

Aspen cluster and shadows along a forested section of the trail

Shooting Star Columbine

Photo highlight of the trip:  finding this lovely Calypso Orchid - a CO native!

Brook trout just before its release

Canadian Violet

Grizzly Peak - the view five miles into the hike

Arrowhead Blue

Animas River, plein air pastel, 12x12 inches

From yesterday, a late afternoon painting at Santa Rita park.

Perins and the River Split - plein air
12x12", pastel on black cardstock

A quickie piece, sort of, from my decision to head out at 4:30 PM to try and paint.  

The Animas river divides for a short section right at the park.  I painted a section of the little island bank, in winter, here.  Anyway, looking upstream and west afforded this view of a backlit cottonwood, the shaded side of Smelter Mtn. and Perins Peak off in the distance.  

I got it 90% finished on location, came home, and finished the remaining areas before it went on the "not finished" pile.  Took a photo, which was horrid, and showed what I felt were small, but glaring, issues that seem to only be visible in photos, and fixed those.  

Looks better now.

My original plan was to paint at the Dry Fork area a few miles west of town yesterday, while Wayne hiked.  We've been having these monsoon-like clouds and storms build up over the past several days, and I hadn't given any thought that while they are great to paint from a distance, when they are overhead, they kill the light.

Duh.

So, I turned it into a photo session and hike instead, which was rewarding on its own.

------

Western Flag - native iris

the view I'll paint next time 

A Silvery Blue - one of the earliest blues to appear in spring - on unfolding iris

Gambel's oak leafing out along the trail

Silvery Lupine 

Colorful member of the Pea family 

Beautiful, and apparently very rare, Purple Lily 

Impressive clouds to the east, but no rain

A trip to the Botanical Gardens and Butterfly exhibit

Back from Phoenix.  No painting on this trip - the landscape there didn't inspire at all.  

The highlight of our trip was spending a day at the Desert Botanical Gardens in Phoenix.  Thanks to a recent post on a crafter/photography blog I follow, I learned of the Butterfly Pavillion there, so of course, I had to go for that, as butterflies are quite possibly my favorite subject to photograph.

However, as seems befitting of my luck at such times, the autofocus on my telephoto lens decided this was a perfect time to crap out.   Trying to shoot small, detailed moving objects with manual focus and vision that isn't what it used to be resulted in a large percentage of out of focus and otherwise poor photos.   Now that my less-than-three-year-old Nikkor lens is a glorified paperweight, I'm going to upgrade to a better version.

Some interesting things we learned about the Butterfly Pavillion:  it is classified as a containment exhibit, which means that none of the butterflies, including those indigenous to the region, are raised there.  All come from butterfly farms, and are overnighted to the facility after they emerge from their pupas, in chilled containers.  In fact, a shipment arrived while we were there, and everyone who wanted was able to participate in the release of the butterflies.

They arrive in glassine envelopes, wings folded, usually two per envelope for smaller species.  To release them, the edge of the envelope is torn off, the top and other side opened.  As the sun warms them, they begin to move and will either fly or crawl out to a nearby flower.  Volunteers with synthetic feather dusters go around and pick up those that fly to the ground so they don't get stepped on.

Anyway, until I finish up my latest studio painting, here are some photos of the butterfly exhibit.  I'll post some of the botanical images later.

Male Queen butterfly on unopened yellow columbine

Pair of Julia Heliconians - a tropical longwing - on a bromeliad

Zebra Heliconinan - a tropical butterfly native to southern FL

Common Buckeye - a striking member of the Brushfoot family found throughout much of the southern US

Painted Lady butterfly - one of the most common butterflies in the US

Male Pipevine Swallowtail on petunia

Zebra Heliconinan - top view 

Female Pipevine Swallowtail

Canyon of the Ancients - plein air painting and photos

Took advantage of another fantastic day to head out for some hiking and painting...

Overlooking Sand Canyon - plein air
9x12 inches, pastel on black cardstock
 © S.Johnson

West of Cortez is a BLM-managed area known as "Canyon of the Ancients NM".  It has several Anasazi pueblo ruins within the main canyon - Sand Canyon.  A 6.5 mile trail runs along the canyon from north to south, and today, we opted to check out the northern end, as there is a large puebloan ruin site right near the road.  Unfortunately, it's nothing but rubble, having either been excavated and filled back in or not excavated at all.  Not even photo-worthy.

But, the hike was!  I decided to bring along my lightest plein air set-up along, just in case I found something worth painting.  That consists of my pastel box, a piece of foamboard with a 9x12 paper taped to it, and a stadium chair, which I can strap to my daypack.

We hiked a bit over 5 miles, and this view was at about 1.5 miles.  I saw it and knew I had to paint it on the way back.   After hiking another mile and dropping about 600' in elevation to the wide bench, we hung out for a bit and then came back up to this area.  Wayne read a book in the shade while I painted.

The snow-covered mountain there?  That's Sleeping Ute, as seen from the north and much bigger than the painting I did of it last month.

Anyway, aside from some really treacherous areas of mud (I keep forgetting that it is mud season here for a bit longer), the hike was great.  Spring is definitely on the way - here are some photos:

A species of phlox, I believe

Southwestern Orangetip - one of the earliest butterflies of spring

Another sign temps are warming up:  the lizards come out to sun themselves

And, an interesting shot across the canyon along the bench - an exposed section of sandstone, showing an interesting gridded erosion pattern: