Grand Canyon

After a week of plein air it's hard to go back to studio painting. But the experience of direct observation, on location, makes for better studio efforts.

I didn't have a chance to paint at the Grand Canyon when we were there, but took a lot of reference photos. Someday I'd like to do a large painting of the canyon, but for now I thought I should begin on a smaller scale.



First Light, Grand Canyon, oil 16" x 11"

Oak Creek and Cathedral Rock

While in Sedona I had to go see Cathedral Rock. It's shown all the time in the publicity of the area. My son and I drove late one afternoon to the state park and walked along the creek to find a view. We took our shoes off and waded across to this little rock island where I set up. I painted a couple of hours before I ran out of light. Just had a chance to finish it here at home.
Springtime on Oak Creek, oil, 14" x 10"

More Sedona

Just about every mountain and rock around Sedona has a name. Mostly named after what somebody thought they looked like. There's Coffee Pot Rock, Chimney Rock, Steamboat Rock, Camel Head, and Snoopy Rock. The morning light from the east gave us a nice view from our resort of Snoopy lying on top of his dog house. Oil, 8" x 10"




On another subject, I want to say thanks to Laurel Daniel for passing on to me the "Passion for Painting" award! Laurel's blog is one of my regular visit bookmarks for inspiration.



The rules of this blog award are that the recipient shares 7 things he/she is passionate about, and passes the award on to 7 other deserving bloggers.

7 of my passions in life:
1) My family: my wife, son and daughter (and dog, Chamois)
2) My faith and church
3) Time with friends and good food
4) Trying to depict something in paint with some feeling and emotion
5) The amazing natural world we've been given
6) Preserving and protecting that natural world
7) Tropical places, especially Hawaii
.
7 artists to watch and celebrate, I'm sure some of these have been recognized already, but these are artists that inspire me:
1) Carol Marine
2) Darrell Hill
3) Larry Moore
4) Eric Merrell
5) Bill Cone
6) William Wray
7) Robin Purcell