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.

Mar 01, 2010 10:58PM

Contrabando

I have been gone for a week of fabulous plein air painting with the Outdoor Painters Society at Big Bend.
On our first day there, it was in the 80's and we set up on the Rio Grande, right outside of Lajitas in the Texas State Park.
Our subject was Contrabando, a 25 year old movie set that's been featured in 9 movies, and that was under water last year during a flood! There was a building about where we were set up that was washed away and the remaining structures were very damaged, adding to their authenticity.
The Rio Grande is just feet behind us, 6 feet higher than normal level because Mexico was releasing water. It made the river milky green and ferocious; scared my doggie!
The buildings that I chose to paint were the church and a small casa that was half buried in sand. Right behind them was an odd hill of the brightest red. The satellite view shows a red streak coming right through town, like someone painted it! We had to catch that local color by painting Terlingua red later that evening.

Feb 18, 2010 09:26PM

Catey