Mar 12, 2010 02:48PM

Waiting For the Light

Mar 12, 2010 12:59AM

Santa Elena Canyon

This is another painting from our Big Bend trip. We had seen Santa Elena Canyon before this day but always with the sun behind it. We resolved to spend a morning with it to try to capture its grandeur fully lit. The right side of the canyon is the US, the left side of the canyon is Mexico, and between them is the Rio Grande. The river was unusually high, as Mexico had just released a huge amount of water, raising the level up to 10 feet, we were told. The color of the water was milky green and even looking right down into it, it had no discernible transparency. We were visited a lot while painting, having picked such a nice perch. The day before this, while viewing it at sunset, we shared the perch with a Disney film crew! They were doing a documentary on Big Bend. They got some fantastic shots but all of their work captured successive moments. This painting is trying to capture a morning. I hope you like it.

Mar 05, 2010 11:58PM

Split Rock

One time, while I was in the art school at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, we had an assignment: illustrate grandeur. That took some thought. The way I met my challenge was to draw soaring cathedral arches in juxtaposition with very tiny figures. It worked.

Mar 05, 2010 01:03AM

Cartero Pass

Cartero Pass is a 6x8 inch painting that was originally a 10x8. The top part of the painting virtually painted itself and was sheer joy.
The bottom half-ish was a rock river bed that shadows were quickly creeping across and I was struggling with. At a certain point, I realized that I had over-worked it and lost the freshness. In a fit of impulsive problem-solving, I hacked off the bottom half of the panel and all my problems were solved!
We found this pass near a dirt road in Big Bend. It was beautiful and hauntingly quiet. All afternoon, only 2 cars passed. Their dust is in this painting.

Mar 04, 2010 12:51AM

Contrabando Church

Well, I've already pretty much told you about this scene in the previous post but there are some things that I haven't told you.
For instance, sometimes when you see my plein air paintings, you might see scratches and teeth marks on the ends or some odd circles in the corners. Have you ever wondered about that?
In the last post, you can see me attaching a device to the bottom of the painting. It's a clamp to hold wet paintings, and it holds them with sharp teeth, which leave marks.
The corner marks are from little sticky felt pads that I use for my panels when I travel: I stack them about 6 at a time with wax paper in between, then bind them with masking tape and stick them in a bag. They can then be carried right in my suitcase, even wet!
Once they're framed, all the road scars are hidden forever and it stays just our little secret.