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.

Mesa magic

"Mesa Magic at Day's End," 7 x 10 no-brush watercolor, 140 lb. cold press paper

Part of the magic of the West, especially the Southwest in New Mexico, is that you can see time.
 Geology's open book entrances me, as I consider the geologic forces and deep time that formed the dramatic  landscapes. Add the brilliant light, and the colors, the landforms jump at you, if you only look and imagine.
Those landscapes always remind me of how small, and insignificant homo sapiens is, of how brief our existences and life spans are.
Thus the magic of the landscapes is more than just the beauty and imagination, but it also allows us to travel in time, the rock strata mere time zones.
Thus today's no-brush watercolor, the colors and light and dramatic forms of the Southwest near the end of another day.
Another in my series of peaceful magic and color during pandemic pandemonium

(The word "mesa" is Spanish for "table," and these landscapes were named by the Conquistadores, a brief 500 years ago.)