I think this is it

There is another cloud in the sky for balance sake and some lines in the arch to define it more. And another wash over the distant pillars. And a patch of desert green in the front that I thought was just too rude. But all other changes were relatively minor.

I made most of the changes this morning after staring at it with a cup of coffee in my hand and then I walked around it all afternoon. So done. If any painting is done.

My parents had some I had done in college. Every time I went home regardless of the passage of years I could pick out what I would have liked to have changed about everyone of them. Some I wanted to trade out for later works but they loved them.

I'm a perfectionist and I can worry a painting to death if I let myself. I wonder if Michelangelo wanted to change anything about the Sistine Chapel?

Getting Close

This is the Zen part of painting. This is where you ask yourself is it done yet. I am happy with the journey that has gotten me here and the question is whether there is further to go without having pushed too far.

I added the water because that has almost become a signature item for me. And the rain in the distance would flood the valley floors and the narrow canyons and turn the thirsty plants green and give flower to the desert wild poppies and other flowers. And I added the crows because that is a signature for me.

I did a lavender glaze over the clouds and the sky and a white glaze over the monuments and the land before them to give a sense of distance. I then went back and added some definition to the shadows on the towers.

The question remains as to whether to add details in line to the arch itself, and whether I need additional glazes to the horizon to push it further back.

I generally at this point live with the painting for several days. I set it up where I can see it when I enter the studio. It is often the little thing you catch out of the corner of your eye that needs fixed or added to. With all the labor expended to this point it is best not to rush. And I have found the bigger a canvas is the more this part has to be considered. It is easy to spot a mistake or omission in a small painting but big and complex ones hide their secrets well.

More Detail Added

As I said in the previous blog I worked on more of the distant detail yesterday and would post a picture of that before I began glazing it. All the pictures I have looked at in my preparation of this picture feature the arch most predominately. Yeah, they are pictures of the arch. But I also wanted the distant landscape to have a role in this painting. Not easy as the arch is so attention capturing. But I did a lot of tweaking yesterday; adding colors that are in the foreground to the background, making the sky more dramatic with the approaching rain.

Changes to the painting at this point seem minute. You might catch the differences between yesterday's post and this one by scrolling from one to the other.

I became obsessive I think. It is one of my traits that I sometimes think makes me a good artist and other times makes my myopic. It can definitely not be good physically. I exhausted myself yesterday putting on a few strokes of paint, setting the canvas up, walking away from it to study from a distance. Water media has to be painted flat unlike the oil paintings. Whoever said painting was a passive activity needs their head examined.

Anyway today I hope to begin the glazing of the distant landscape and adding detail to the canyon/arch walls. Hope I am not boring anyone here.

Moving Right Along

This is the painting with all the major blocks of color placed. The black around the edge of the arch went in first and then lots of masking to keep it from running into the sky which was next. Then the monuments and the foreground. After years of searching for a perfect high country green I discovered it by accident - Payne's Gray and Burnt Umber. Who would have thought it!

The black is not really black entirely either. It is Carbon Black with a great deal of Indian Red to make it warmer. And while it does not show in this photo when I lifted the masking up around the tear drop shape I ended up with a white canvas line which I then painted in with a black with even more red. Still it is a lot more black than one of my first college art professors would have let me get by with.

Since I took this photo I have done a great more refinement on my clouds and landscape beyond the arch. I will photograph that tomorrow morning when the light is good before I begin any glazing to give a sense of distance. The paint has to be very dry before I do that.

I think I got eager to see how it was going to turn out and painted too much today. My back and legs (painting this one standing up because it is on a low table - too big for my painting desk) are telling me things.

PS: Forgive my photography on this series. Notice the canvas is not even square to the camera.

The Next Step

This is my painting of Teardrop or Keyhole Arch after the first two pours or floats. Working in this large of a format I find it works best to flood the area with water and then drop on the high concentrated liquid watercolors and float them around with a combination of brush and tilting the canvas in the direction I want the "rock faults" to run. You can also "scare" color away from an area with a brush with dish soap and blow on puddles of color to get them to spread out.

I did this in right side and left side. For those that think this kind of handling of paint can speed up the covering of large areas of canvas you are right and wrong. Right in that a lot of paint goes on at once but wrong in that with manipulation of the surface and drying time it becomes a lot longer. I did the right side first and let it dry and then the left. Both have to be completely dry to remove the masking and paint in the black.

Thus far I am pretty happy with my results. The right has more red due to sun striking it but also to give the arch dimension. If both sides were the same colors it would flatten it out.

Tomorrow the black.

The Plan

I promised to post the sketch for this painting. This is done in Conte' crayon of which I just have a basic set of 5 or 6 colors so the colors are more of just a blocking tool here. And when I transferred it to the canvas I moved it to the right about an inch plus so there is more arch wall on the left and less on the right.

I have decided to post progress photos of this painting if I don't ruin it so stay tuned. At this point I have masked off the black and the center so that I can pour the red canyon walls.

Inspiration

The above is one of many photographs to be found on Google Images of Teardrop Arch in Monument Valley, USA. It is not the one I ran across in a book on the southwest I was reading recently. In fact, The Southwest Inside Out by Thomas Wiewandt and Maureen Wilks called it the Keyhole Arch. My Google results with that name were not mentionable.

I was looking through "coffee table books" of the Colorado Plateau in search of a subject I had not photographed. After a very productive few weeks I am down to three huge canvases and was looking for something unique to fill them with. And there it was. This subject will also allow me to utilize my new glaze skills on the distant landscape seen through the arch.

So if I had a perfectly good picture why go Googling to get other pictures of it? To see different light and shadow patterns and get a better view of the distant monuments on the horizon. And see it larger for details. The picture in the book is about 3 x 2. I will be painting it 30 x 24.

Today I worked on the sketch for this painting. And then placement on the canvas. I did not want the teardrop right in the center. And I wanted to pick up some shadows to create a flow that would lead the eye through the painting and not just grab it and hold it in one spot. With an image this dramatic it should be an interesting challenge. I intend to pour the rock of the arch and put in only minor detail on the face of it. I want the viewer's interest to be drawn to the far horizon and beyond.

Tomorrow the sketch which is a marriage of several pictures of this stunning natural formation on the Colorado Plateau.