Scapes, Land and Sky

Clouds have always captured my attention, the shifting shapes, movement...

Scapes, Land and Sky

Technically I am not continuing with a painting a day. But I did want to start a series of small landscapes that don't quite fit in my abstract series. These are landscapes from photos that I took driving from California to New Mexico. The big sky of New Mexico still intrigues me as you can see here.

Day 13

I took a needed break from these daily practices. I was working on a 3' x 3' canvas, abstract. I might go back to this when it dries. 

Day 12

This rain storm painting took much longer than I anticipated, this is a glazing and wet on wet technique, thus longer drying time in-between glazes.
The rain storms here in Santa Fe can be quite dramatic, with incredible thunder and lightening. We are in severe drought alert and I am hoping that the latest storms coming in will help the water tables.

Day 11

This is the first Abstract on this Painting a Day and truly is play. I really enjoyed it, playing around with technique. I actually think I will use some of the subtractive techniques I used here on a larger piece, a 3' x3'.

Day 10

I traveled through five states to find my new home, California, Oregon, Washington, Arizona and ended up in New Mexico. Perhaps in the back of my mind I always wanted to end up here but my real intentions was to go to Asheville, North Carolina. I'm pretty happy I ended up here. But I wish I had the experience of driving across the country. Maybe someday.

Day 9

This is a Santa Fe dessert poppy and the background a stylized Santa Fe sky. I'm starting to play around with the imagery a bit more, giving perhaps to invoke new feelings to something as ordinary as a poppy.

Day 8

Woke up early this morning to finish this 8" x 10", also Abiquiu. It is a sleepy little town with many passerbyers, tourists driving through to see Georgia O'Keeffe country. To thoroughly enjoy you must get out of the car and take it in.

Here is a tidbit of info on the Abiquiu area I found interesting:

In June 1975, two hitch hikers were stranded at Abiquiu while attempting to reach Pagosa Springs, Colorado. Short on water and shade, Reeb and Larry were given cool water by a lady passing by on the road. Later, they saw photographs of the lady at an art show. That lady is now presumed to have been Georgia O'Keefe.

Abiquiú is also the location where the opening shot of the 4th Indiana Jones movie Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was shot. As per the Production Timeline in the Extras section of the movie's Blu-ray Disc: "On June 16, 2007 even before the start of principal photography, the production's second unit crew was on location near Abiquiu, New Mexico, filming the traditional Indiana Jones opening shot of a "mountain" (in this case a prairie dog mound.)" Other notable films shot in Abiquiu are Cowboys & Aliens, City Slickers, Red Dawn, Wyatt Earp, The Last Outlaw,[2] and the TV series Earth 2.[citation needed]_Wikipedia

Day 7

The original photograph was taken flying in from Roswell to Santa Fe. This was taken on a flight from my first job in Santa Fe, over all a bad experience, the job. During that period I had very few opportunities to paint,. Thankfully I moved on and am back painting.

Day 6

I never experienced a full monsoon season, perhaps I got the tail end last September. The other night the wind and rain hit really hard and the thunder and lightening was unusually loud. 

Day 5

I believe this is the Prickly Pear Flower, protected by long threatening spines. I understand the petals  and pads are edible. This painting is 10" x 10", oil on canvas. This one took me a bit longer than my allotted 2 hours, flowers are personally a bit more challenging. I usually paint directly onto the canvas, in this instance I lightly drew on the canvas and then painted. I waited a second to finish letting the first coat to dry.

Day 4

Plein air painting finished in the studio. This is also a 10' x 10" oil painting. I think the next time I will paint larger or attempt a simple landscape.

Day 3

This is also a 10" x 10" oil on canvas. Again I tried to keep the painting time down to 2 hours and nearly succeeded. I f I didn't put this time constraint on the piece I would not have gone much further, perhaps just darken the sky a bit.

Day 2

This is from the same road trip just north of Santa Fe, Abiquiu. We are at the start of monsoon season and the skies are absolutely breath taking. 

Day 1

This is from a photograph I took during my first Monsoon season in Santa Fe. This particular image was taken on a road trip with a visiting artist to Abiquiu, we planned on painting plein air. Admittedly I was skeptical, I generally paint abstract images, though I have painted or drawn a few landscapes previously, but never plein air. I guess I am always up to a good challenge, art wise but not necessarily physically because I took to it much better than i thought I would. For some reason the sky captivates me, perhaps it’s the light or the beautiful luminous formations; I just know I am drawn to it. I do know I will be painting more clouds and eventually paint a sky series.
And so here you have it the sky of New Mexico.