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

A quick sketch

I had a little less than an hour before leaving for breakfast from our condo here in Sedona this morning, so I did this quick one from our balcony. I think I got the darks a bit too dark. Hope to go to another location and set up for a little more time tomorrow.
Morning view, oil 6" x 8"

Practice

It's not nice enough for painting outside here yet, so for practice I pulled out some reference photos (from the thousands I've taken). And since I'm still missing being in Hawaii, I put on KPOA --live through the internet from Maui--and painted these.

The palms is kind of a combination of images. There was no distant island in the photos, but I thought the composition needed it. I'm learning to simplify palm fronds. It's always a temptation to over paint them. Palm study, oil, 19" x 6"

The surfer had just finished and was leaving the beach where we were boogie boarding on Oahu. Enough for today, oil, 8" x 6"

Next week: Sedona, Arizona.

Two more from Kauai

This taro fields painting was the last for my workshop. Friday morning started out with very iffy weather. First light revealed clouds and passing showers. Our group assembled on the West side of Hanalei at an open field with views of the mountains to the South. I wasn't very excited by the location, but after wondering around for a half hour while deciding if the weather would hold, we set-up. The sun came out and I found this spot to paint. After about an hour we had one more ten minute rain and the rest of the day was great. All the rain on this island makes for constant, picturesque waterfalls. This took about four hours. After three the worker showed up at just the right moment.















Taro fields and tea leaves, oil 16" x 10"

My last day on Kauai, I wanted to paint palm trees. I found this house with a view of Hanalei Bay and stood in the beach park to paint it. Hanalei Home, 12" x 9"

Hanalei Outriggers

This is a fun subject for some like me who loves Hawaii. I think it has a strong composition, but I'm not sure I got the colors just right. Maybe a little tweaking in the studio. Hanalei outriggers, oil, 12" x 16"