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| Sacrifice by J. Binford-Bell 36 x 21 mixed media on canvas $1700 |
September of 2012 I went on a trip to photograph the colors in the Chama area. One of the great discoveries of that trip was Las Mesitas San Isadore Church on the New Mexico/Colorado border. I love photographing churches and ruins of churches and have used them as a basis for paintings a lot.
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| San Isadore Church ruin |
The above photograph was the basis for the painting, Sacrifice. I have several other pictures of this church and so was able to provide a footing for the structure so I could have figures walk through it.
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| Sky painted in |
On of the things I always disliked a bit about the photograph is the clouds. Not enough to be interesting. So I decided to delete them from the painting which has very little sky.
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| Ghosts not painted in |
Decided early on that since the church is a ruin the figures were going to be ghosts which always brings up the question of how to paint a ghost. Shadow like.
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| Canvas covered |
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| Ghosts more solid? |
Once the ghosts were roughed in fairly well I became discontent with empty space like the celestial window and the sky above the Sangre de Christo mountains. I always put my ravens in last and was debating the filling of the sky pieces with the arch and windows with flying ravens.
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| Painted Desert Raven in place |
The rising moon over the mountains echos the light of the candles the ghosts carry and I had taken a photo of a raven at painted desert which I did a painting of. He seemed perfect for the celestial window but the moon too small. I added details to the foreground and the candles and the ghosts and enlarged the moon for the finished painting in the opening of this blog.
