Friday, March 5, 2010

Cartero Pass

Cartero Pass is a 6x8 inch painting that was originally a 10x8. The top part of the painting virtually painted itself and was sheer joy.
The bottom half-ish was a rock river bed that shadows were quickly creeping across and I was struggling with. At a certain point, I realized that I had over-worked it and lost the freshness. In a fit of impulsive problem-solving, I hacked off the bottom half of the panel and all my problems were solved!
We found this pass near a dirt road in Big Bend. It was beautiful and hauntingly quiet. All afternoon, only 2 cars passed. Their dust is in this painting.

2 comments:

  1. My immediate thought here was that this was the reference photo, I mean that in a good way. The way you nailed the background hill reads as true, and the dark values of the rock are right on.

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  2. I laughed out loud at the "I mean that in a good way" part! Thank you so much. The sun came around while I was painting the river bed and started highlighting some of the roughness of the dark rocks and it was REALLY hard to leave them alone and not add the highlights. I feel rewarded now, thanks.

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