Wasatch Plein Air Paradise 2012

Summer Shade, 11" x 14" Oil on Canvas Panel

At the beginning of last year's plein air competition in Midway, Utah, a local rancher pulled his pickup over to where I was painting by the side of the road. He looked at me, rolled down his window and asked, "Is it that time of year again?"

Once again it's that time of year. Contestants in the main competition have all turned in their finished plein air paintings and the show opens this evening. One of my two entries is shown at the top of this blog post. You can find out more about Wasatch Plein Air Paradise 2012 at this link:

http://www.midwayartassociation.info/

Besides the main competition and show there will be "paint outs" Monday and Tuesday, and a "quick draw" competition and auction Wednesday the 4th. These three events will take place in specific places around Heber Valley. All of the paintings created during Wasatch Plein Air Paradise will be exhibited at the Midway Town Hall at 120 West Main Street in Midway, Utah. Be sure to check out the Midway Art Association's website to see what else is going on. This is my third year in Midway's plein air event. It's a great show with works by a lot of well known regional plein air painters. Besides that, the Heber Valley area is such a wonderful place to paint!

Elderly Southwest Indian Woman

12" x 9" Pastel on Paper

Here's another portrait sketch from the weekly sessions. In keeping with the Southwest theme of the last couple of posts, this sketch is of an older Southwest Indian woman. This portrait was done in pastel on textured gray paper made specifically for pastels. The edge lighting in this portrait was especially fun to do and the dark tone of the paper helped achieve that effect.

For more about drawing sessions, go to "Labels" on the side bar and click on "sketching" or "drawing."

New Mexico Trip

Las Golondrinas Adobe Church, 8" x 10" Oil on Panel

Last weekend I traveled to New Mexico to do some painting and pick up a painting from a show in Albuquerque. There I had an enjoyable visit with Albuquerque painter Jeff Potter. The opportunity to paint in the Sandia Mountains was hampered by cloud cover and haze from nearby wildfires so Jeff and I headed north in his pickup truck looking for weather more conducive to plein air painting. We went to a living history museum near Santa Fe called El Rancho de las Golondrinas where we set up and painted on opposite sides of an old adobe church. The painting shown at the top of this post is the one I did there. After painting we took a brief tour of some of the other places on the old ranch where park guides told us a little about the history of El Rancho de las Golondrinas. I wish I could spend more time there. History is a big deal to me. It not only provides a standard to test modern progress by but gives insight into attitudes and problem solving methods quite different from what exists today. Some of those attitudes and problem solving methods could be very useful in these times.

Later that day the weather around Albuquerque improved and I was able to go to a place near Jeff's house and do a quick painting of the Sandias. 

Sandia Canal, 8" x 10" Oil on Panel

The trip home took me through a lot of typical New Mexico landscapes of long mesas and big skies. I look forward to my next painting trip there!

Mojave Revisited

Mojave Byway  8" x 10" Oil on Panel

Last Weekend I painted in the desert near Littlefield, Arizona. This is the same area I visited last year and wrote about here.

After parking at the same place as last year I crossed the dry wash and explored around the joshua trees looking for a likely subject. Settling on one joshua tree I set to painting. As the painting progressed, the dry desert wind increased making painting difficult. Near the end of this joshua tree painting a paint rag blew from my pochade box. I got careless and stepped away from the pochade box to retrieve the paint rag. That's when a sudden gust of wind took my setup and contemptuously flung it into the dirt! Paint tubes and brushes flew everywhere. The brush washer crashed to the ground spilling all of it's solvent onto the ground and all over everything else. The painting had dirt and sticks stuck to it, extra smears of paint on it and - worst of all - solvent splashed all over it! The painting was destroyed. Why must I re-learn these lessons? After uttering some unkind comments about the situation I picked up everything and cleaned up the mess, which included wiping the wet painting down to the panel.

Being kind of late in the day and with the wind increasing, I really didn't feel like starting a new painting. Loading the painting gear back into the car, I threw on a day pack with extra water in it and hiked down the dry wash. After exploring around a little I found a better place to camp. Later I moved camp to the new spot. I was glad I found the new camping place. There was, after all, a dead cow too close to the earlier camp.

I did manage a small landscape pencil sketch of a joshua tree before sunset. Then I settled in for the night. The day had been hot and the night was warm, so I fell asleep without any need for a blanket. 

Later that night I awoke. There was a slight chill in the air so I grabbed a light blanket. Looking out into the desert night I saw the moon had risen. Silvery light from a waning moon flooded the Mojave Desert near and far, casting a seemingly supernatural glow onto the landscape. Shadows like hydras lay on the ground stretching from the bases of joshua trees, grotesque as if frozen in mid-writhe. It did indeed seem like a place spoken of anciently, where "...wild beasts of the desert shall lie there; and...doleful creatures; and owls shall dwell there, and satyrs shall dance there." (Isaiah 13:21 AKJV) I really wish I could have taken a night hike then. It would have been a wonderful experience. But I had worked hard and hadn't had a full night's sleep in days. I was beyond tired. Because of physical weakness I wouldn't go out and cavort with the owls and satyrs. I rolled over and returned to sleep. They would have to dance without me...this time.

In the morning I awoke while the sun was still behind the eastern mountains. By the time I drove away the sun was well up. The morning breezes were gentle and the lighting to the west caught my attention as I drove down a dirt road, so I stopped and made the painting shown at the very top of this post. It was painted on the panel that had been wiped the day before. As this morning's painting progressed the winds began again to pick up and become feisty. Near the end of this plein air session I heard a noise behind me. I turned and watched as a dust devil passed about a hundred feet from me. If it had hit me it would have destroyed the morning's work. That provided motivation to quickly finish the painting and pack everything into the car. From there I drove to some red rock near St. George, Utah, where I hiked and did another painting. Maybe that'll be the subject of another post.

Charcoal Sketch - Native American Woman

Charcoal Pencil on Gray Paper

Here's another in a continuing series of weekly drawing class sketches. This sketch is another one that was done a while ago. She modeled for us a few times and was a pleasure to draw. As usual I spent most of the session concentrating on her face. Time ran out before I could finish the drawing so her clothing is indicated by only a few lines.

For more about drawing sessions, go to "Labels" on the side bar and click on "sketching" or "drawing."

Some Paintings from May

8" x 10" Oil on Panel

It's late May and the valley trees are beginning to reach their sumer fullness. All that green can cause problems for landscape painters. Call us particular but It's preferable our paintings don't look like they could be titled, "Green #1", "Green #2", "Green #3", etc. Not only is it a challenge to find variety in green but it can be fun, too! It's also easier when the backdrop in every painting is the Wasatch Mountains!

The painting above was painted at a marsh by the lake, looking back toward Rock Canyon. I set up my pochade box at the end of a paved bike path. It's a natural place for people to pause while turning around to head back the way they came. It's also easy then for them to take a look at what I'm doing and visit briefly. I enjoy talking with people as I paint, as long as it doesn't take too much time. I gotta work.

8" x 10" Oil on Panel

The second painting was done on a hazy, partly-to-mostly-cloudy day. I was set up in a parking lot for the bike trail that parallels the river. It was another place for people to see me as they pass. I get to hand out a lot of business cards that way. The cloud cover thickened into a solid overcast and began to threaten rain so after finishing this painting I packed up and headed home. A little later the weather improved so I headed back to the same place. There for the second painting of the day I painted a tree that was just to the right of the one I did earlier.

10" x 8" Oil on Panel

The last painting was done three days later in another part of the valley. It was painted in a spread-out rural area away from local towns and cities. I've painted here before, but have rarely been visited by anyone as I work.

9" x 12" Oil on Canvas Panel

You, however, are welcome to visit this blog for as long as you like and as often as you like! And if you see me out painting someday feel free to stop and say hi!

Photo Courtesy of Scott Froerer

Solar Eclipse / Another Use for Sketchbooks

The computer image above is a little something I did to show how last Sunday's solar eclipse went where I live. I went to a street by a friend's house where he, his daughter, some curious neighbors and I took turns observing the eclipse through his welder's mask. I showed how an eclipse can be viewed using two pieces of cardboard. A pinhole is made in one piece of cardboard and the image shown through that onto the other piece of cardboard where the eclipse appears upside-down. That's another way to view the eclipse without injuring your eyes.

Observing an eclipse is more than just seeing the changes in the apparent shape of the sun. It's also seeing the change of lighting on the landscape around you, feeling the drop in temperature, and noticing the unusual stillness that settles in the air during the peak of eclipse. Eclipses are just so cool!

I wrote about sketching during a lunar eclipse here.

Last Sunday's eclipse reminded me of another partial eclipse I viewed a number of years ago. With my old '67 Plymouth Belvedere loaded with camping gear, sketching supplies and water, I traveled to a desert canyon in Southern Utah. Parking at the trail head, I backpacked into the canyon and made camp. (That was back before government bureaucrats put the kabosh on that sort of thing.) That day I explored and sketched. The next day I hiked up the canyon to a large panel of Indian rock art. There I flipped to an available page in my sketchbook, one that had colored pencil color studies. Using a needle from my sewing repair kit, I poked a tiny hole in that sketchbook page. That pinhole was then used to shine an image of the solar eclipse onto a flat rock there below the pictographs and petroglyphs on that towering red rock cliff. That's how I viewed the eclipse that day.

A page in my sketchbook used to view a solar eclipse.

A closeup of the pinhole and sketches showing the partial eclipse.

That day the solar eclipse eased the usually overbearing heat of the Southwest desert in summer. A man from Ohio (who now taught school on the Navajo Reservation) arrived with his view camera to photograph the rock art. I told him about the eclipse and showed him how I projected the image through the sketchbook page's pinhole onto the flat rock. He had not been aware of the eclipse and remarked,

"So that must be why it's not too hot today!"