Hello again painting fans.
This week I will be continuing with the Grand Canyon painting. I’m not working from a photo this time, just from the images left in my mind’s eye from both our visit to the north rim and the gallery images.
When last seen the painting appeared as it does in the photo seen directly below.
Since that time I have continued to work on the painting.
Starting at the top, I have finished the sky, adding clouds in a yellowish color. Below that, the buttes have been revised, especially the area to the right side. The blue shadowed area has also been completed. Those 2 twisted junipers have been revised, with some green contrasting nicely with the darker underpaint. The foreground area has been overpainted with a bit of light and shadow. Finally, the foreground underbrush is now lighter green. The painting is now finished.
The current and final state of the painting is seen in the photo directly below.
I’ll have another painting to show you next week. See you then.
Earlier paintings in this series can be seen here.
Open it is.
Since you painted from memory, it has a much more abstract quality to it. Not sure it quite falls in the impressionist category, but it is in that general vicinity.
Or at least on the same continent.
Tomorrow will be my 10th day on the road. So far we have seen Sand Dunes National Park, Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, and Mesa Verde National Park. All worth seeing, all worth protecting and preserving. Tomorrow we do a quick ‘from the car’ look at Arches National Park, then Vegas on Tuesday so my sister can fly home. MAYBE hit Zion National Park if we have time.
I’ve been on the road all this time and I can honestly say every single person we have met…every single one, has been friendly, chatty, helpful, and seemed happy. Every gas station, every food stop, every Park visitor, every Park ranger. Shoot, every slow driver pulls over to let fast drivers past! Outside of California they know the left lane is THE PASSIING LANE.
It’s been amazing and extraordinarily enlightening.
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During our last trip to SoCal, while we were driving the freeways, I pointed out the speed limit signs to one of my offspring. “See those?” I asked. Once I had confirmation that those had been noticed, I said, “Those signs are meaningless. If you’re on the road, keep with the flow of traffic, no matter how fast they are going. During a traffic jam (which we did see plenty of those) we’ll never get anywhere near the speed limit. But if the roads are clear enough, doing the speed limit will be viewed as obstructing traffic – even if you’re in the slow lane – and if you’re lucky, you’ll only get flipped off.”
As an example of what I am talking about I was driving Highway 50 in Colorado, from Salida to Gunnison. It’s a really twisty road, and there were a couple of trucks pulling trailers on a downgrade…rather than follow them in an eight car line I pulled off into one of those dirt pull outs, figuring to stretch my lags and give that group some distance. A car back from me followed us in, and some big tattooed guy gets out from his car with a big grin and says ‘you here for the water too?’ I pointed at my plates and said ‘California, I barely know where I am’. It turned out it had a famous water spigot drilled right into the rock, with water constantly coming out, and while we were there about five cars pulled in to fill jugs with water…some from out of state. A party practically broke out! Middle of nowhere, and I’m getting advice on what to see in Colorado. Where to go, where to eat, ‘and make sure you take some of that water…ice cold and delicious!’
It was incredible.
And it WAS ice cold and delicious, and no….it did not make us sick.
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Definitely a different driving culture. I notice something similar when I get off the interstate freeways out in western Oklahoma, western Kansas, eastern NM and eastern Colorado. Just a whole different vibe. To give an example, if you were to visit the Black Mesa area in the westernmost edge of the Oklahoma panhandle, you’ll pass through the nearly abandoned town of Kenton. Its museum is worth a visit, although its very elderly curators keep odd hours. There’s a good chance that if one of the remaining residents in Kenton notices you, they’ll chat with you for a bit, and will even help you locate the museum curators if you wish to visit the museum still. As I said, a completely different vibe.