Night of the Snow Blind Moon - Creative Process Blog

Night of the Snow Blind Moon
24 x 30 Mixed Media on Artists Canvas
$1650

One of the wonderful things about not being on the art fair circuit any more is I can paint what I want to paint when I want to paint it.  Or not paint. This winter seemed to be most about not painting. I was knitting. Something you can do wrapped in an afghan in front of the fire. And before that it was little paintings. And note cards and things suitable for a Christmas market.

Rain on the Mesa broke the spell. I was back to my canyons. And it would follow I was back to thinking of a theme for my on-the-edge series. I begin with a drawing. And as I stretch my own canvas the drawing determines size and proportions.

Minimalist sketch for elk of the snow blind moon - working title

Sky and moon floated and elk masked off in preparation of painting the canyon walls

I pour my skies, float my moons and suns. I do it first as it helps determine what colors I use in the rest of the composition. I had an idea of what colors I was going to use but I seldom do a color sketch. And I had no idea how I was going to paint the elk other than they would not be realistic. I was aiming for a petroglyph appearance.

Working from the back to the front

Next layer forward. Masking removed from the elk in front of painted canyons

At this point viewers started seeing a cat jumping over the moon

The canyons were also poured and the foreground. On the lower right you can even see some drips. It is at this stage I start refining the pours, and defining outlines. Still haven't a clue on what color the elk. Painting totally original pieces, not another church, leaves more questions as to where a painting is going. That can be the really fun part because the painting begins to call the shots.

Cat jumping over the moon gone and first layer of color on elk

Tweaking begins. Refined the sky and got rid of the cat.

Time to play around with the details

The on-the-edge series plays around with the mystical. All my canyon paintings do to some extent with spirals around stars in night skies and ravens in the sky in day skies.  This painting uses heart lines on the elk and spirals on their antlers.  And for days I debated the ravens. It was a night painting. When a flight of ravens is in the sky there is always somewhere a raven all alone and away. That detail was inspired by the missing man formations of airplanes. I debated just the lone raven but in the end put a distant flight across the sky.

Birds and Beast of 2018

My number one

I enjoy photographic contests if only with me. What if someone asked you of all the photos you took this year which are your favorite? Or to narrow it down what are your favorite bird photos. Those questions to myself were one of my favorite aspects of the 365 day challenges.

 And I doubt I will abandon that if for no other reason than I belong to the a garden club affiliated with a state and national organization of garden clubs which holds a yearly photography contest. So recently I had to cull through my photographs looking for the best bird photo. And best wildlife. The turkey above could be both or either. But I entered a turkey last year as a bird. And I had a wildlife entry I was more fond of.

Elk at Eagle Nest Lake

And why did I like this one? Because of the landscape. It was only a portion of a huge herd of cow elk. One photo of almost 50 I took. Such a dilemma - wide angle to get most of the herd or telephoto to get a closeup of even less of the herd. Without a super wide angle lens I have no way of getting the whole herd in the frame. There must have been almost 200 elk. I settled for this representative sample in their environment. Like the turkey which could be bird or beast, this photo could be landscape or wildlife. But I had a more loved landscape photo. Well about six best landscapes.

Burn scar of the 1996 Hondo Fire

This landscape of the mountain outside Questa, where I once lived, made a statement I wanted to make. It has been 22 years since that fire which dominated 22 days of my life and became the deciding reason for my divorce, and move to the wet side of the mountain range. Forest fires have consequences. And they don't heal themselves over night.

But back to birds and beasts.

Eye to eye with a Rufus

I had two humming bird photographs, but doesn't everyone. And a goose coming in for a landing on a mirror surfaced pond.

Every spring for several years I have watched the debate over ownership of this particular bit of water. I know these geese well. And better yet they know me and allow me to point cameras at them. But goose pictures are a dime a dozen. And it isn't everyday you can get a photo of a cold junco in a snow storm. They are very nervous birds. Who knew the snow sticks to their beaks.

Junco at the suet feeder

I took this photo and the one I eventually entered for the bird category from inside my studio and ergo through the window with my telephoto lens. I didn't want to get too close to the glass and scare them. It was an experiment the results of which surprised me.

Shelter from the storm

I finally opted for this one because of the sunflower husk. It is after all for the garden club. And this was the remains of a wonderful year of growing sunflowers. I used it as a fall decoration in my house while it dried and when the snow storm came I put it outside on the bird feeder where it was enjoyed for its seeds and for its ability to block the wind.

For me a good photograph is not just about the clarity and focus and composition and what F stop I used. If a photograph is worth a 1000 words there needs to be a story it tells. When I sit down to select my best for the year it has to be first a good photograph and it has to have a good story. The photograph below is a very personal story.

Mare and foal in the wild flowers

I watched that foal from within 10 minutes of her birth as she grew under the watchful eye of her mother. The owners moved them to a field closer to their house but until then they were mine and I came to believe mother was posing for me. But they are neither bird no beast if beast is wildlife. So just one of my all time favorite photographs.

Week 9 - 2018 in Photographs

Day 57

 Life must be getting too busy. Even when I get out to take photographs I am forgetting to post them daily. And when posting them I am forgetting to do the weekly blog post. Did not realize until I went to post Week 10 that I had not posted Week 9. And there is another week missing from this year. Have you spotted it?

Day 58

 And this week has some of my favorite photos on it. I personally love the Buddha holding the pink quartz. 

Day 59

Day 60

Day 61

And I like the banana better in black and white than the natural green. And more elk this week. Same elk just different frames. A wild life photographer wants to get up close and capture the elk. A landscape photographer wants to capture the landscape with the elk. Either of the two below would be great printed on canvas, but especially the panorama.

Day 62

Day 63

Week 8 - 2017 in Photographs

Day 50

 The week began with still life studies in black and white. Then driving back through the Moreno Valley I sighted the elk beside Eagle Nest lake.

Day 51

I am not a wildlife photographer. I leave that to National Geographic and photographers willing to sit in blinds and wait. I am a landscape photographer who sees the wildlife as belonging to the landscape. I have taken lots of pictures of elk but these 400 were in such a beautiful place to be photographed. 

Day 52

Day 53

Day 54

Day 55

Day 56

Week 15 - 2015 in Photographs

Day 99 - They're back

Black Lake/Moreno Valley area is primarily summer pasture for cattle. Round up crews and cattle trucks arrive in October to haul cattle away and come spring the trucks come back with the breeding stock and yearlings to put weight on. It is a good time to get interested in landscape again. There is a hint of green in the meadows, snow still on the mountain tops, spring storm clouds, and cattle, horses and elk.

Day 103 - Elk cows returning to the meadows

The elk are the ones on the stilts. The elk cows are pregnant as are the cows in the herds of cattle. The cattle are already starting to calve. The elk will wait until May or June. It is highly likely it will snow again, but the ponds have thawed and the streams are running. What more could a landscape photographer ask for?

Day 100

Dry trails and no snow drifts to have to traverse to get the detail shots. I love the willows and aspens at this time of year. The sap is running and the willow stalks begin to change color. The buds are puffing up. And here and there is a seed stalk from last year. But green has not dominated the landscape yet. Green is not my favorite color in photography or painting. There are so many other prettier colors. And green can be rude on a cliff face.

Day 101 - the Palisades

Now is the time to capture the Palisades in Cimarron Canyon if you want the photo go be about the rocks and not the vegetation which manages to hang on to life there.

Day 102 - Shack on Church Row

I love this old shack but it seems every time I drive by there is snow or wind or mud. This week just the wind. They just finished church number two up the road from this old cabin is disrepair. No doubt the parishioners of one or both churches will think it is time for it to go so as to not disgrace their creations to their gods. Frankly, I think this building in the sage at the foot of the top of the Cristos is better than any sermon which might be uttered at the two churches up the road.

Day 104 - in memory of fire

Speaking of sermons and pray seems a good time to remind myself and others of the fire danger ahead. A few years back Cimarron Canyon had a fire. Forest management leaves some of the reminders of those events around. It is good for the soil and new growth and good to remind the campers to be careful of fire.

Day 105

I have been trying to find out who is Rick. In New Mexico the cross by the road to mark a fatal accident is not unusual but this cross and this rock are not right by the road. Instead they stand by the Cimarron River. I would say it is his favorite fishing spot but the willows at just this spot block access to the river. And it does not look like a comfortable place to sit.

Week 18 - 2014 in Review

Day 120

This was the week my desktop was still plagued by an apphang issue which did not allow my Corel Paintshop Pro photo editing software to open. I was uploading my photos from my camera to my aged laptop which had Adobe 5 on it. For those not in the know on photo editing software Adobe 5 heralds from 2006. Suffice it to say that Adobe and software photo editing programs in general have advanced a lot. I did, however, find several of my old favorite options I got to re-explore.

Because I had absolutely no idea when the desktop would be totally functional again I uploaded my photos from the laptop to a draft of this blog. I have seldom taken full advantage of the draft option on Blogspot. May use it more extensively in the future.

Day 121 - Happy May Day in New Mexico

With the desktop incapacitated and my right eye on the mend I was looking at the world rather differently. And besides it was spring. Elk are playing in the meadows and geese mating in the ponds and snow gracing the high mountain peaks (and occasionally low).  I was enthralled I could see 20/20 in my right eye and aware the left eye would soon need the same surgery.

Day 122

The elk and the geese in the same photo was a gift. No, this one was not photoshopped. And both allowed me to roll down the window (elk and geese hate that sound) and snap the photo below with my new 55-300 mm lens. As I drive this way daily the animals are very used to my car.

Day 123

And more geese. Well, actually the same geese but edited with my Corel program. I just wanted to see what the difference would be. And not that much really. Yes, the computer got fixed. Turned out it was an Internet Explorer issue. No, I do not use Internet Explorer and for this very reason. But it seems a lot of my software uses parts of it as a step up. Only with the flaw in IE software the step was gone. I had a total of five programs that were effected including the Windows Fix program I got for this very issue. Good news, is they fixed it.

Day 124

My sister is the master of macro photos but now and again I must try my hand or camera at one. This one was taken with my 55-300 mm lens. I had discovered in my film days that a long zoom lens often takes very good macro photos if you can get far enough away from your subject. My old long lens was 70-300 which often required a real long way off. Did not have to sit in the potted plants behind me to get this one with the new lens.

Day 125

This was one of the photos I redid the editing of. I never save over the original for a multitude of reasons. Taking a second pass on the editing is just one of those reasons. I knew when I edited it on Adobe 5 I could do it better on Corel 5x. The photo below is of a distant volcanic peak on the eastern plains of New Mexico near Raton

Day 126

New camera, new lens, new eye and back to my favorite programs on the cleaned up desktop. If you want to see the day by day postings of my photos check out Binford-Bell Studio on Facebook.

Week 17 - 2014 in Images

Day 113 - Picnic Anyone?

By April 23rd my vision in my right eye was definitely inhibited by the cataract which was scheduled for removal on the 25th. Instructions were to not spend time on the computer post surgery for a week or more. So I set up a week of photos ahead. And good I did because on the 23rd a corrupted Windows 7 file began to prevent me opening several of my software programs including photo editing.

Day 114 - Laundry day in Cimarron

Fortunately I had enjoyed a couple weeks of great photography and edited far more than I had posted. Always good to clean up your photo files but do not make them too clean.

Day 115 - Spring?

My friend and I had great weather down to Santa Fe and back but then it began snowing again. Yes, it is very late April but we are finally getting moisture in the high country. The photo above, however, was taken from the snow of the week before.

Day 116 - Dawn's early light

Day 117

Day 118

By the 26th my vision had cleared and I was out with my camera but the computer still is not functioning correctly. It is off to the computer doctor today. But fortunately I still have my laptop with Adobe 5 on it for some computer editing. I love this capture with the elk and geese in the same frame.

Day 119 - Elk and Geese

It was a great welcome back to the world of clear vision if not advanced photo editing.