"Canyon Buttes" 12" x 16" oil/linen
I did this painting as a demo for the Richardson Civic Art Society earlier this month. I decided it would be a really nice larger painting for one of my galleries and fresh off my "big canvas....big brushes" experiment I thought it would be good to see if my hard work over the last three weeks will pay off when needed.
The thing that attracts me to this image is all of the reflected light bouncing up from the canyon below. The hot colors in the rock formation in contrast to the blues and purples of the distant buttes make for an interesting contrast.
"Canyon Buttes" 24" x 36" oil/linen
I approached the painting like my recent practice paintings by using nothing smaller than a #10 flat. I really wanted to capture the feeling of the reflected lights and the atmospheric conditions of the haze covering the rest of the canyon. Like all Grand Canyon paintings there is a lot of drawing and if you don't understand how to paint objects in perspective, the Grand Canyon is to be avoided. Total time in this painting is 5 and half hours and I bet half that time was spent correcting the drawing.
I like the painting. For the first time in a long time I felt I had command of the painting from beginning to end. It is always a bit nerve racking to look at a large blank canvas, but once I hit the canvas with my first stroke of paint it went smooth all the way to the end.
Next up is the largest painting I have ever done...a 36" x 60" of Mt. Wilson outside Sedona. I may video the process just for grins.
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