Red Rock Canyon Open Space

6" x 8" oil on board
nfs

Yesterday my plein air group painted at Red Rock Canyon Open Space.  This area used to be a county dump and before that a quarry.  A small percent (I think 1%) of Colorado's lottery money goes to buy land for parks.  This park is a great result of that money!  Red Rock Canyon is a southern continuation of the rock formation found in the Garden of the Gods.

I plan to use this as a study for a larger piece.

This is the tip of Pikes Peak, still very snow covered.

These almost vertical formations used to be horizontal (millions of years ago) and were pushed up from ground by earth quakes and geologic movement.

You can see the Garden of the Gods in the middle of the background.

Owochomo Bridge

18" x 24" oil on stretched canvas
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This is another piece from our trip to Natural Bridges National Monument in Utah.  Owachomo Bridge is the 3rd bridge while driving through the park (the road heads you in one direction.)  This was the easiest bridge to reach, just a short walk from the parking lot.  Owachomo means "rock mound" in Hopi.

As I've done for several of my recent large pieces, I started this w/ a value study in sketch and wash pencil.  

I then did a value study in oil using transparent oxide red w/ a little ultramarine blue for the darkest shadows.  I used these 2 studies, and several photos, for the final painting.  The hardest part of the final piece was the foreground.  In my studies, I just roughed this area in very loosely.  I should have paid a little more attention, as the foreground area is about 9" x 18", bigger than many of my whole paintings.
 

This is the start of the trail.  It may look like it goes off the edge, but it's really a gentle, short walk.

My painting is from the bottom, far-side of this bridge.

Canyonland Values

16" x 20" oil on stretched canvas
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This is another piece from Canyonlands National Park, Utah.  I would say that we've gotten our money's worth out of our annual National Park Pass.  My husband has used it 11 times; I've been to 7 parks this year.

I've really been working to be aware of values.   It's so easy to just darken the darks, and lighten the lights.  I used to tell my students that painting was like doing the laundry (darks and lights.)  But, then I realized that most middle school students didn't do their own laundry, so that didn't mean much to them.  Anyway, w/in the darks, there are lots of different colors in the same value range.  The same is true of the lights.  In this piece, I wanted the center of interest and focal point to be the canyon on the right, but I worked the most on the shadow values in the front.

The southwest is filled with pictographs and petroglyphs.  This wall of petroglyphs is Newspaper Rock, on the south side of the Park.

If you click on this picture you can read about the ancient rocks.

Kachina Bridge

8" x 10" oil on board
$195.00 + $10. s/h
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This is another painting from Natural Bridges National Monument, Utah.

It was  about a 2 mile trail down to the bottom of the canyon.  Part of it was down these stairs built into the side of the cliff.  I was unable to make it down the Sipapu Bridge Trail.  It was not much longer, but much more challenging.  I made it along the trail that was precariously on the side of the cliff w/ no guard rails; I made it down the metallic stair case that was bolted into the side of the cliff; but, when it came to climbing down a two story ladder made of tree trunks, my fear of heights took over.  Yes, it was bolted into the cliff, but I couldn't get down it.  I've climbed up a 2 story ladder at Mesa Verde; but there was something about stepping over and down that held me back.  So, we hiked the other 2 trails instead.

To give some perspective to the size of these bridges, here I am!  Looking back at this photo I see I made the foreground a little more red/orange.  Maybe I'll warm it up a bit.

Natural Bridges National Monument

8" x 10" oil on gessoed masonite
$195.00 + $10. s/h
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My husband and I recently visited Natural Bridges National Monument in Utah.  As I've posted before, the National Parks in Utah are unbelievable.  There are so many of them; they're so large and scenic. If you want to just drive through them, or hike, or paint, or 4-wheel, or see the geology, or archeology, there really is something for everyone.   Utah should be on everyone's bucket list.  Anyway, Natural Bridges Park has 3 large bridges.  This is a view of Kachina Bridge from the bottom of the canyon.  Even though it is massive, it is considered the youngest of the 3 bridges because of the thickness of its span.

I did a quick value study of this with a "Sketch & Wash" pencil.   The graphite in these is "washable", so when done shading, you wash over it w/ water  to exaggerate the values.

It's hard to get the feel of how big these bridges really are.  These boulders resulted from a rock fall in 1992, when approximately 4,000 tons of rock broke off the bridge.

The bridge is named for the Kachina dancers that play a central role in Hopi religious tradition.

One More Time

5" x 7" oil on gessoed masonite
$100.00 + $10. s/h
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For me, painting the same subject matter several times is a great lesson.  I tried not to compare the three sky holes as I painted them to see how similarly the values and colors were mixed.

Another View

5" x 7" oil on gessoed masonite
$100.00 + $10. s/h
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Really focusing in on the rock wall is a great value study lesson.

Monument Valley Sky Hole

5" x 7" oil on gessoed masonite

$100.00 + $10. s/h

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The natural forces of wind, rain and temperature have spent the last 50 million years cutting and peeling away the surfaces of the Monument Valley plateau.  These forces have created incredible geologic formations.  There were several of these sky holes in the valley.  They seemed like such a great painting. I've painted canyon walls, canyon vistas, small rocks, and now sky holes.  Am I painting the sky holes or the canyon wall very close up?