Distilled from a Photo

This composition was inspired by a photo, but quite distilled. The orange against the blue and those chunky green strokes with the yellow just seemed like enough, so I stopped sooner than later.

I'm pleased with the blocky mesa, typical of New Mexico, where I live. There's a sense of sunlight through the broken sky that was incidental, but like any artist I built upon it as it happened.

Watercolor, 2.5" x 3.5" on Strathmore 140 lb hot press paper. I painted it using Daniel Smith color dots (sample colors).

Fall Sisters

A couple of miles up behind my house is a volcanic outcrop where there are a lot of ancient petroglyphs, and beyond that is this lineup of extinct volcanoes we call the Three Sisters. I love seeing the fall grasses on the high mesa dancing in the cool wind. The black volcanic rock pops up out of the sea of grass, sometimes  looking like the buried backbone of a giant mythical creature asleep there.

It's on Arches 300-lb. cold press, which gives it just the right texture to express the miles of grass on the plains.

$50.00

HIGH MESAS--sold

ROCK FACE

MESA--sold

CROSSING