Friday, April 15, 2011

THREE PAINTERS THREE VISIONS EARLY VIEW












"One Hour of Glory" 18' x 36" oil/canvas

This will be the largest painting I put into the "Three Painters
Three Visions" show in a couple of weeks. This is from my
trip to the Grand Canyon last August. The Grand Canyon is
an unbelievable spectacle of color all day long and as I
found out on my trip, if you start painting in the morning...
by early afternoon you are worn out. The back hurts, the feet
ache and your cheeks are burnt red from the sun and reflected light bouncing everywhere.

I'm a little slow on the uptake sometimes (okay....most times) so it took me two days of painting before I realized I was tuckering myself out before the best time of the day to paint. On the third day I did two 9" x 12" studies by noontime. Then I took a long lunch and rehydrated myself. I spent a couple of hours visiting with the other artists who were there painting with me and then at about 4:00 I moseyed (Texan for "moved") to a spot on the rim, sat in the shade and waited for the Golden Hour to start. I'm being generous when I say "hour" because it felt like ten minutes once the paint started hitting the canvas.

At the end of the day I got what I waited for, a nice study to paint from back in the studio. Today I did the piece you see above. I think it will look nice in a black frame.

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