Sun and Shadows

Sun and Shadows

6x8in oil on canvas board $100.

This morning I joined the Las Cruces Plein Air Painters at a beautiful location called Dripping Springs. I decided to try the Daily Painters Rectangle Challenge. The goal is to use a rectangle stroke ONLY - any direction - and to change the color or value with EVERY stroke. Great fun and more difficult than it sounds. The result is a painting which does not look like one of my landscapes but you can tell there is a bush, a mountain, reflections, stones, ground, sun and shadows.

Go to Daily Paintworks and check out all the entries the Challenge. There are some really neat ones.

High Desert, NM

High Desert, Chama, NM

8x10 oil on canvas 150.

I love the desert because the absence of grass allows the formation of the land to be clearly seen.

Here, the sloping hillside shows how the rains create culverts which in turn provide wonderful shadow patterns.

Natures colors are pretty amazing. The cool blues of the distant hills, ochres and reds of the earth, the cool, light turquoise of the rabbit grass, rich greens of the pinon bushes, topped off with the purples of the shadows. No wonder artists love it here.