The Magic of Dawn

"Dawn," 5 x 5 acrylic on canvas

First light. A magic time when colors return to our landscapes. Dawn of a new day for hopes, challenges, learning.

Usually this is a time for parents and children to be excited about the new school year, but this year it is tempered by fears and uncertainty as a lack of leadership in this state and others combines to threaten the lives of our children and grandchildren.

But I still hope for each new day, for some magic of creativity to offset the doom and gloom. That's what my second lesson in acrylics is about today.

Mauve Morning

"Mauve Morning," 5 x 7, 140 lb d'Arches cold press paper

When you leave the New Mexico mountains, heading east into the Great Plains for the long drive to Oklahoma, it is best to start early.

Early as in before sun-up, but not before there is some light when the colors of dawn dominate  the horizon. Before that, deer on the road would mean disaster at 70 mph. 

But as the sky brightens, the multi-colored dawn makes the dramatic Southwestern landscape even more enchanted minute by minute, and there is almost no traffic for about 80 miles. 

In another hour, the sun will be up, and the land east of Raton, New Mexico,  will flatten and the trip becomes one of endurance, of the Texan Llano Estacado, of fields of crops and pastures, of almost constant wind and heavy truck traffic.

So it was recently for us, and I wish we would have stopped to take photos of the rugged volcanic landscape, wide open vistas,  and the sky, the sky. But we were hurrying home.

Today's little watercolor comes from my imagination and general impression of those magic moments--"When dawn spreads its paintbrush on the plains," in the words of the theme song of the old TV show, Wagon Train, quoted  in my blog title. (Incidentally, that photo  at the top of the blog was taken about the same time of day, east of Cimarron a few years ago).

This painting was a discovery for me, as was the drive that morning, trying to mix colors to get "mauve," the overriding colors of dawn. two earlier and largest attempts were unsuccessful

Southwest Dawn

"Southwest Dawn," 14 1/2" x 21 1/2", 300 lb. d'Arches cold press paper

Out where I grew up, you can almost see forever. The American Southwest is a land of far horizons and vistas, of every changing colors and light...where humans are small.
I've tried capturing that spirit many times, but only on a small scale, not quite fitting the vastness of the dramatic landscape. 
I'm not really set up at home to paint  large paintings, but that is also an excuse, because they intimidate me and I get up tight rather than letting the freedom of looseness that makes watercolor so much fun. 
So today, after studies, and sketches, and spreading out a table to paint on, and shutting the door to keep the cats out, I tried again.
"Out here is the sky," is my mantra, because in the West and Great Plains it adds to the vastness, the drama, the color of the Southwest, and affects my painting. 

My palette today

I'm stumped on a title, even with a small Navajo hogan that I've featured before, and I love painting dawn and sunset subjects because they include so much color...color we especially need in these months of pandemic pandemonium and political craziness. 
This is a half sheet...roughly 15" by 22", and it required a big palette. I used a 14" by 18"  porcelain butcher's tray to get plenty of color ahead of time, with a fairly limited palette of color, as you can see.

Dawn Dreams

"Dawn in Mesa Country," 11 x 14 watercolor, 300 lb. cold press d'Arches paper

Dawn has increasingly be a subject of my watercolor landscapes, not intentionally, but it just seems to happen.
Why? Not sure. The older I get, the less often I actually see early mornings since I'm not chained to job schedules.
Maybe it's because I miss them. I consider  the early mornings perhaps the best part of the day, especially as the days grow longer, and warmer.
The light seems purer, the colors richer, the bird song  more vibrant, whether I'm walking, or sitting on the back porch with coffee.
Years ago, I tried to be up at the "crack of dawn," and on the water in a canoe, watching the world wake up.
And now, as I attempt to bring more bright color and peace to offset the gloom of this pandemic pandemonium, dawn speaks to me soul.
Today's watercolor is another experience in that series, trying some new techniques on bigger, better paper to express what I feel, what I can do, so there are some faults in it, especially in composition.
But, it brought me back to the wide open spaces of vast landscapes of the mesas in the Southwest, especially New Mexico, and the brilliant colors  as the world wakes up. I'll try a better version of this idea again. 
In the meantime, to add color and thought and peace, here is today's effort in my DIY art school.

By Dawn's Early Light, new day, new month

"Dawn's Early Light," 6 x 9 cold press paper

A new month dawned, with 2020 now one third passed, in the year of the pandemic.
Excitement and hope seems to meet May, though seasoned with much caution, because the pandemic is nowhere eliminated. scientists and health care workers fear the worst could still come.
But at least we're through April, living up to T.S. Eliot's (1888-1965) famous lines:
"April is the cruelest month.
Let's hope so, even if May doesn't live up to 
British author Thomas Dekker 's (1572-1632) poem:
"O the month of May, the merry month of May,..."
Yesterday was the only day of the month I didn't complete a watercolor and post on this blog. Too much unsettled stress to try that antidote, though I did study some watercolor techniques via You Tube.
But--to try something different based on yesterday's studies--to greet the new day and month, today's watercolor attempts to bring more color and hope to offset the pandemic pandemonium.

The colors of restless wanderlust

"Early Start, Dawn on the Santa Fe Trail," 8 x 10, 140 lb Fabriano Artistico cp

Every day of quarantine in this pandemic makes us more restless, especially those of us infected with wanderlust, the urge to travel.
It's even worse when you've grown up in the wide open spaces on the Great Plains, or in the West with big skies and far horizons.
I usually think of those restless adventures who risked their lives on the Old Santa Fe Trail, taking the even more chancy Cimarron Cutoff through what is now the arid Oklahoma Panhandle and northeast New Mexico..
It's no wonder that the photo at the top of this blog is from that area, one I took a few years ago heading east across the old trail, headed for home at early dawn.
Thus today's watercolor, my imagination at work, where you can still see the ruts of the trail, and in your mind's eye, the wagons headed southwest nearing Santa Fe--the colors of wanderlust, "Early Start, Dawn on the Cimarron Cutoff." 

Desert Dawn--When peace like a river--study in pastel colors

"Desert Dawn," 5 x 7 watercolor, 140 lb. Fabriano Artistico cold press paper

"Desert Dawn rise up early and lift your song,
From the breathe of life that rises...."
        --The String Cheese Incident

Pastel colors time, early morning, late evening, when changes bring soft hues to the desert, a sometimes harsh landscape of rigid lines and colors.
In the words of the old Gospel song, it's "when peace like a river attendeth my soul...."
Softness, beauty in the midst, in the need, of the often harsh deserts of life.
This I find in watercolor, in memories of the far horizons, of never-ending, always varied colors...a place of rescue, of solace when most needed.

"Time is gone before you are aware"--another day

"Winter Dawn," today's 5 x 7 #watercolor card

November dawn. Cold yielding to light. 
Thanksgiving for another "sunrise," for warmth, for beauty. For another gift of another day of light and life, from the long nights of November, of  a world of misery in the forms of war, greed, and hatred.
Time slips away...a day to savor each moment.

    "It was the end of November. All the days were short and dark. ...
   "Day unto day uttereth speech. The clouds change. The seasons pass over our woods and fields in their slow and regular procession, and time is gone before you are aware of it."
--Thomas Merton, The Seven Storey Mountain

Misty memories

Misty memories, 9" by 12" watercolor, 140 # Fabriano Artistico, #12 round sable brush

Mountains rise in my memory,  mysteries early in the mornings when mists rise  and reflect dawn's colors.
Spring thoughts from the Great Plains, thinking of times and places far away.

Christmas Dawn

Dawn--5.5 by 8.5 watercolor painting

"...until the day dawns and the morning star arises in your hearts." 

                                                         --2 Peter 1:19

"Is as the light of the morning when the sun rises, A morning without clouds, 

When the tender grass springs out of the earth,... ." 

                                                         --2 Samuel 23:4

Sacred stillness in a Hafer morning

In the stillness of the morning, you find people like yourself,
finding themselves in quiet time, sacred time. After a rain, as the sun comes up, time to walk, time to read, time to fish, time to be alone, time to think.
Sacred time.


"Let light
Rise from the chambers of the east, and bring
The honey'd dew that cometh on waking day.
O radiant morning..."
--William Blake

"In the morning, O Lord, you hear my voice;
in the morning I lay my requests before you
and wait in expectation."
--Psalms 5.

"To everything there is a season..." Ecclesiastes 3