Sunset and sandstone

"Sunset and Sandstone," 8 x 10 acrylic on canvas panel

In the Southwest, where the geology is an open book  on the past, on time, sandstone dominates much of the landscapes.

 Laid down layer by layer as sand in ancient seas, the strata takes multitudes of landforms and colors, up close or on far horizons. The rocks themselves, plus the ever-changing skies and weather captivate me attention, telling uncounted stories.

Today's painting, started last week outside during downtown Edmond's First Thursdays VIBES art event, needed finishing touches to fit the mood of wide-open spaces and dramatic  colors. 

Painted out of memories of New Mexico, it will soon to be framed and available at In Your Eye Studio & Gallery in Paseo Arts District.

Desert Drama

"Desert Drama," 5 x 7 acrylic study on canvas panel

The drama of far distances and spacious skies of the arid Southwest overwhelms the senses with an infinity of colors and light--and the sense of size. 

To me, rain storms are among the most dramatic, both as a contrast to the arid land and air, and because they dominate the wide open spaces, clouds always changing, always moving, and rain falling transparently across the landscapes.

The Navajo consider torrential rain from thunderstorms male rains and slow moving clouds and gentle rains and mist  female.

I'm captivated by those rains, their shapes and colors. Today's painting, a study for a larger piece, is another of my desert series, also an unintended work in complementary colors.

Adobe and Blues, for OVAC

"Adobe and Blues," acrylic on 12 x 12 gallery wrapped canvas

Every year the Oklahoma Visual Arts Coalition hosts its 12 x 12 fundraiser  and this is the third year in a row I'm proud to be one of 175 participating artists for the Sept. 16 auction.

Artists offer art measuring no more than 12" x 12"  for bidding, starting at $200 and OVAC gets a percentage to help fund its many activities.

I returned to a favorite subject, the colors of the Southwest, always multi-hued, so here it is, soon to be delivered to OVAC. 

The Colors of Western Skies

"Western Skies, " 8 x 10 acrylic on canvas panel, palette knives, brushes

"I love mixing paint," I told a friend recently.

Long ago in my first watercolor class, one of the first lessons was that you don't need many colors, that you can mix the ones you need.

Then an artist in an oil painting workshop I attended said he could have entire lessons on mixing colors.

When I started trying to teach myself acrylics, mixing colors became essential, but there was a difference--palette knives.

I've always admired palette knife paintings, but picking one up and mixing colors became a new tactile experience. You can get lost in trying to get the colors you want, and feel for a painting, even before touching the canvas..

Just as when you're painting, the rest of the world goes away. These are problems to be solved, to my satisfaction.

Those a some of the stories behind this painting, trying to capture the mood of the skies in my beloved Southwest. And then, something else happened  that I didn't intend, but came from mixing colors because you never know exactly what you'll get. . As with previous paintings, I ended up using complementary colors, emphasizing opposites--yellows and purples, blues and oranges.

This has resulted in brighter colors and contrasts, and will also influence my future watercolors as well. No wonder I love mixing colors.  

A Willa Cather sky

"Willa Cather Sky," 8 x 10 acrylic on canvas panel

"The sky was as full of motion and change as the desert beneath it was monotonous and still, — and there was so much sky, more than at sea, more than anywhere else in the world."

“Elsewhere the sky is the roof of the world; but here the earth was the floor of the sky.”

            --Willa Cather, Death Comes for The Archbishop

"Out here there's the sky," is my mantra as I paint. It's no wonder, when you grow up in the Southwest or live in Oklahoma,  Texas,  or elsewhere on the Great Plains.

Thus this painting today.

The play of light

"The Play of Light," 9 x 6 watercolor, 140 lb. d'Arches cold press paper

Today's little watercolor is an experiment, playing with color and light, the idea from one of my do it yourself art school projects.

It's an idea from on of watercolor artist Don Andrews' zoom workshops today. So I was really playing around, seeing what would happen. This will happen again in more experiments.

But you know the canyon country, the geology of the Southwest had to grab my attention. That is long overdue this month, where my creativity has been dryer than the country depicted here. 

The moods of rain

"Rainy Day<' 5 x 7 140 lb. Fabriano Artistico rough press 

Today I heard Willie Nelson's plaintive voice singing "Blue eyes crying the the rain."

Rain brings many moods, and memories of as many songs to me. And the Bible is full of references to life-giving rain.

As the skies clouded up again today, with more rain promised, several of them ran though my head, some romantic,  some nostalgic, a few happy, and many more sad.

When you grow up in the arid southwest, you always notice rain, and look forward to the building clouds and rain of the early fall monsoon season. Those too bring memories and moods.

Much of the country has had too much or too little rain this year. Here in Oklahoma, on the eastern Great Plains, I'm thankful for the cooler temperatures, and abundant rainfall...and the multiple memories.

Today's little watercolor, out of response to those memories and moods.

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.

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.)

Desert magic

"Desert Magic," 7.5 x 11.5, no-brush water

"What draws us into the desert is the search for something intimate in the remote." 

                   --Ed Abbey
When you grow up in an arid climate, you learn the value of water. Where there is water, there is life, usually marked by greenery of some sort.
But you also learn to value of wide open spaces, of vast skies, of far horizons. There is magic there, far beyond just the scenery and the imagination.
The desert teaches you humility and perspective as a human. And that leads to its atmospheric, geographic, geologic and especially spiritual power, its magic.
The word "desert" isn't just the stereotypical sight of sand dunes, though those are part of it.

• Consider that the largest desert on earth, the Sahara in North Africa, is as large as the United States, and less than 15,000 years ago it was green.
• Consider that some of our greatest knowledge comes from people of the deserts--algebra from the Arabs of the Sahara, respect for of the cosmos from them and also the Anasazi at Chaco Canyon in New Mexico, for instance. 
• Did you ever wonder why  Jesus was led into the desert after baptism to prepare him for his coming ordeals.? "Then Jesus was led by the spirit into the desert," Matthew 4:1

"Polish comes from the cities; wisdom from the desert," wrote Frank Herbert, author of "Dune."
Remember that not long ago, the Great Plains of North America were labeled as "the Great American Desert.

Just as I hunger in this pandemic to go back to the mountains, I also yearn to travel back to the Southwest, to the deserts of New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, for the scenery of course, but also because the quietude and the space gives me room to think, to find magic.

Thus today's no-brush watercolor, "Desert Magic."

Study in adobe country

"Adobe morning," today's 5 x 7 watercolor study, 140 lb. Fabriano Artistico cold press paper

This is a quick study for a larger painting than I usually attempt. 

Small paintings bring me lots less stress than larger ones, because I'm daunted with ruining a good piece of paper, or failing to translate the images in my mind. Not being able to accomplish what I'm after makes me get tighter and nit-picky, which is almost a guarantee of failure or any art. The lesson to me is to be as loose with larger works than I am on these small efforts. 

Excuses, excuses. 

This little one has lots of faults in it, but I learned something. Next task, a 10 x 29 on 300 lb. paper, for a frame and mat given me.

But I didn't dare try to approach that one, till I'd at least tried this. 

It speaks to my spirit, of the southwest, of the earth, of the far vistas and the brilliant skies.

"Time Zones," watercolor sermon

"Time Zones," 10 1/2 by 13 watercolor, 300 lb. d'Arches cold press paper

Obsessed with time? Watching the seconds of life tick away? Hurrying toward eternity when the present, eternity is all we have, and thus miss it.
Think we're important and significant in the brief moments we inhabit the present, divided into "time zones" instead of "life zones"?
Not when you grow up like I did where geology shows you how small and brief humans are amid all of creation, and we dare to think we're in charge, and dominant, and control creation? Arrogance and ignorance of little people, and if you're a believer, blasphemy--that is literally "taking gods' names in vain," not profanity. 
I think that every time I view the magnificent geology, the strata, the raw landscapes of the Southwest and West, open books into "time."
Thus today's watercolor, "Time Zones."
Consider:
"You don’t even know what tomorrow will bring—what your life will be! For you are like smoke that appears for a little while, then vanishes."-- James 4:14
 "When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars...what is man that you are mindful of him...."--Psalms 8: 3-4

Stories in strata

Strata's Stories, 8 x 10 watercolor, 300 lb. d'Arches cold-press paper

Strata makes me happy. I love the Southwest and New Mexico where you can see so many relatively raw geologic land forms and the strata that compose them, rather than the softer landscapes molded by moisture and often hidden by vegetation.
Strata tells so many stories, indicates so much history and pre-history, prompts the imagination, reminds you of how brief our lives are against the span of eons of creation.  
The more strata, the more interesting the shapes, the older the landforms, and wider diversity of colors. 
What a metaphor for our lives. We all build up strata, and have it eroded, through the years, different levels and colors, molded by travels, experiences, locations, people, memories.
I've always been captivated, and been challenged by the great paintings of masters like Charlie Russell and others who often used this contrast of sunlight and shadow to make paintings jump off  the canvas. 
I wanted to experiment with the shapes and colors of day's end--an aging day against aging rocks--another metaphor indeed. Varied strata fascinates me, always catches my attention with its beauty, making me happy. First attempt.

(Daily #worldwatercolorgroup January paint happy things challenge.)

Earthiness-Adobe dreams

"Adobe Dreams," 5 1/2 by 7 1/2 watercolor, 300 lb. d'Arches cold press paper

Adobe makes me happy... the sight, the touch, the smell, the thought of it, the earthiness of it.
It's sensual, the product of fleshly dust working with the dust of the earth, joined by touch, where everything fuses over time, adobe .
Like  flesh, adobe always changes, always decays, always must be replenished. Like flesh, it assumes the  constantly changing colors and textures of its birth and everyday existence. And sooner or later, it will melt back into the mother earth from which it came.
Adobe-sensual earthiness, like flesh--metaphors, or lessons for living,  abundant in reflected color, and absent perfect or jagged, unforgiving edges. Beauty comes from simplicity and usefulness.
In the Southwest, in New Mexico, adobe is common, and imitated, but not taken for granted by those who work it, live in it. Today's painting--if I had a cabin, where colors and life blend imperceptibly together.

(Daily #worldwatercolorgroup January happy things challenge)

December Deliberations

"Southwest Memories," 5 by 7 watercolor card

The Southwest is deliberate--dry air, far horizons, immense skies, high altitudes, intense light...thus the landscapes are sharp-edged, the colors saturated. No wonder the country gets inside of you and lingers. 
As the year ends, while some memories of people and places and events fade into the humidity of cluttered life and time, more are as deliberate and vivid as New Mexico.
The silhouette of the Sandias at sunset, just south of Santa Fe, from a recent visit with friends Zina and Lori, captures that experienced landscape and memories.
"Every moment and every event of every man's life on earth plants something in his soul." --Thomas Merton

(Done earlier this year--Day 29 of 31 December paintings.)

December Stars--Christmas Eve

"Christmas Eve," 8" by 10" watercolor, 140 lb. d'Arches cold pressed paper

Christmas eve--in the remote villages of the Southwest, Catholic mass at the adobe churches brings physical and spiritual warmth in a cold world.
December means light and hope for those of faith, peace that passes understanding in spite of poverty, and crime and war in a world devoid of peace.

(Day 24 of 31 December paintings)

Blue palette--Ultamarine, Cobalt, Phalo.

Desert dreams

Desert Sunset, 11" by 14" watercolor, 300 lb. d'Arches coldpress

When you grow up in an arid country, a land of dry air, the light and land can overpower your senses. 
Your world is full of vast skies and sharp-edged landscapes, undiluted by humidity. Scarce moisture arrives only in spurts, from clouds as dramatic as the land  underneath, quickly changing its rugged contours. Then the intense sun and wind return to the work of ages, sculpting the desert.
Many consider the desert as "god-forsaken," but when you live there, it becomes part of you, just like the weathered wrinkles on your face and hands.
In studying watercolor, I find many books and teachers come from humidity-rich locales, and they are souls of those worlds as I am of the Southwest and Great Plains. As a lover of skies, I still learn from them in painting atmosphere, but I'm more at home, in life and with a palette, with my desert dreams. 

Southwestern sunset, watercolor

Southwestern Sunset, watercolor, 6" by 11.5", 140 lb. d'Arches 

Inspiration, like love, comes you seek it, when you work, most of all, I think, when you need.

Today's watercolor, the first of the month after July's daily challenge, comes on a rainy day, when I knew I needed to paint, for me. After a week of "vacation"--minimal writing, no blogging, no painting, but drinking in love and family and landscapes on a 2,500 mile road trip, it was time. 

Inspiration is internal. I find it many places, including the broad vistas of my beloved Southwest of rich colors and dry air, in travels, in love, and from my father.

I'd found this old pencil sketch of my Dad's, Terrence Miller Clark, done no telling how many years ago, of something he saw in his road trip travels. He saw beauty everywhere, and he could capture that beauty, in landscape, in portraits, with a talent that stuns me. I'm thankful I have a smidgen of his spirit and soul. 

This one's for you, Dad. Thanks. May we one day paint together again.

Pencil sketch, 3" by 9.5"--Terrence Miller Clark

Reflections of New York City

Reflections, New York City--5 by 7 birthday card

Only been there twice--both were magical. Have former students living there. 
Love to visit. Want to go back. But I like wide-open spaces, the big skies, the far horizons, the stars, few people. Great Plains. The Southwest.
But here's a little birthday card-today's watercolor.