Week 26 - 2018 in Photographs

Day 175

Ocate to Wagon Mound is definitely a road less traveled for me. My post office is in Ocate. I don't have to go there to get my mail because I am on a rural route but I find that valley of ranchers magnetic and take to get to La Cuerva where the Raspberry ranch and green houses are. But on this occasion I took it because the fire closed the short route and I had someone to meet in Wagon Mound. I, of course, stopped to take photographs. A couple in Ocate I had not taken before and then Ojo Feliz and the south edge of the Clayton-Raton Volcanic Field.

Day 176

  
This crumbling house on the eastern edge of Ocate I have photographed before. But on this particular day I was drawn by the way it framed Laughlin Peak in the background. And I have photographed that volcano more than once. I have even painted it.

The travelers on the Santa Fe trail used the volcanic peaks which are scattered across the high plain as sign posts. Settlers used them later to mark where they lived and their neighbors ranch gate should be. You become familiar with the shape of a peak from any direction.  I believe that is Laughlin Peak again between the two volcanic mesas. One day I must find a view of it from the south.

Day 177

Day 178

There is a tree in the saddle of these two remnants of a more violent era. It sits on the right slope. Oh, yes there are other trees on the front and right of that butte. But that one tree in the saddle seems alone. I find myself wondering if just out of view there is a grove of trees. If not how did that one tree come to be there alone.

In what is no longer the town of Ojo Feliz there is this marvelous old shotgun adobe which like that tree in the saddle drew my attention. There was no convenient place to pull off the road so most of these are taken from the window of my pickup truck: creep by photography. It has its advantages. The window can be raised or lowered to just the right spot to be a tripod. And the cab can be a screen from the glare of the sun. You need to know how to fold in your rear view mirror to get it out of the way or serve as another tripod.

While creeping along you have to watch for other traffic on the road, of course. Good idea to have your flashers on. When you have taken the photos you want continue to creep looking for a place to pull off and park for the next trip. Record that in you notebook beside you in the seat with a mention of time of day. If I want to photograph the other side of this building it will have to be in the late afternoon. I wrote that down.

I will go back to Ojo Feliz and maybe this time make it all the way into Wagon Mound.

Day 179

Day 180

Day 181

Laughlin Peak - A Creative Process Blog

Laughlin Peak from the Ocate Side

Laughlin Peak is one of three volcanic cones in the Raton/Clayton Volcanic Field which creates the Fat Grass country of northeastern New Mexico. Its two sister mountains are Eagle Tail and Tinaja Mountain . All on private land now they can still be seen US 64 and once were main navigation points for travelers on the Santa Fe Trail.

As my sister and I four wheeled in her jeep along the ridges of the mountains in my back yard Laughlin Peak was the distant Cinderella Cone I didn't know the name of. It drew my attention whenever it was visible and I had traveled past it on my way from Ocate to La Cuerva to pick raspberries or just avoid Mora on a trip to Las Vegas.

Last summer an artist friend of mine, Carl Swanson, took me on a trip through the fat grass country and I got to see the other side of the mountain.

Laughlin Peak from the east.

It is easy to see why the travelers on the Santa Fe Trail used it as a navigation point and why some chose to go no further but to settle at its base. The grass is tall and springs abound around the mountain's base. The photographic trip I took last June inspired my fat grass series of paintings and this spring a trip through Ocate made me decide to paint Laughlin Peak from the west.

Photography has long been an instrument for me to aid my painting. So taking the picture which opened this blog I modified it to black and white to better draw the mountain. And the road which led up to it.

In black and white

Laughlin Peak is more imposing from the west but the road which seems to lead straight up it to the middle of the mountain was what in my opinion made the painting. My first drawings for the mountain made it a lot taller as if I was drawing its distant past before time and weather lowered it. Part of me was drawing its outline from the west. So the final sketch ended up being a compromise between the two sides of it.

West side colors laid in

In keeping with my style the peak ended up more colorful. I also identified more with its west face than the green east side. And no way was I going to do the pure blue sky of the photograph. There is something about Laughlin which seems stormy even on the best of days.

Raven Road
18 x 28 watercolor on artists canvas
$1250

And in the final painting it is all about the road.

As I prepared to do this process blog I found other photographs I had taken of this imposing part of the landscape of the high plains of New Mexico. And one in particular I want to paint.

Laughlin Peak from another angle

The rocks in the foreground are a volcanic burp. And in the middle foreground is a volcanic rift. Laughlin and its sister mountains look really peaceful these days.

I realize this isn't my normal process blog. But not all of the creative process is about the application of paint. Some of it is just a head trip. Why does an artist pick that subject and that angle on the subject is part of the process. 

Week 21 - 2016 in Photographs

Day 141

 Three photographs in color and four in black and white. I used to do no black and white processing. I am a color person. My paintings are full of color and my photography followed suit. But I had a whole period of art in which I did pen and ink in black and white and added just one accent color.


Black and white is also a good way of reducing a painting to the bare essentials so I can produce a drawing from it to use as a basis for sketch for a painting. And I used to do photography just as a way to research paintings.

Day 142

 The photograph below is in color for this week but I have it in the folder for next week as a black and white.

Day 144

 It is a difficult leap to take a photograph with deep blues and desaturate it black and white but the whites of the aspen barks are stark elements in the photograph below.

Day 145

And the old building in Ocate was almost over-powdered by the colors. I tried it in black and white just to see what I would get and also to make it an easier subject to draw.

Day 143

Day 146

 And the old building with the three wash tubs was so fractured with discordant colors I wanted to see it in black and white. Again to draw it and then to paint it with my own choice of colors.

Day 147

Another look at the building in Day 143. Generally I do not do back and white of a photograph with a quiet sky but there isn't much sky.

Windows Again

La Cuerva by J. Binford-Bell

I love windows. I love looking through them. And I love photographing them. I love windows that are not windows any more and those that are barred.

Reflections by J. Binford-Bell

And those that are boarded up.

Ocate Pathwork by J. Binford-Bell

Or stuffed with stuff.

Mora by J. Binford-Bell

Window to window by J. Binford-Bell

Or those open to windows on the other side.