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Saturday, January 3, 2009

Settling Into Sedona

For those of you who get my bi-monthly newsletter, you know that we've reached Sedona at last. (Read the newsletter here.) After nearly 5000 miles and a month on the road, it feels good to settle in. And since we came with only what our Subaru Outback could carry, it didn't take long! I took the most time with the painting gear, ordering it so I could head out to paint at a moment's notice.

On our first day, even before I had arranged my gear, I decided to paint. What better way to settle in than to do a painting? I took out the medium closest to hand - the pastels. Pastel is, in my mind, the perfect impromptu medium.

Our porch offers wonderful views of Cockscomb Mountain and other features to the west. The sun was on its way down, and a dramatic light played on the hills. I wanted to do only a small, quick piece, so I taped off a 5x7 rectangle on a sheet of grey Wallis sanded paper and went to work. I found I needed an umbrella to keep the sun, which is intense here even in winter, off my work area. Here's a picture Trina took of me in situ:


I was pleased with this little piece. But I doubt I'll be working much this small. One of my goals over the next three months, besides the workshops , is to paint larger. My idea of large may still be small to some - 16x20. These will be large enough that it'll take more than one session to finish them. Fortunately, the weather in Sedona is predictable enough that one can plan on going out day after day.

"Sedona Patterns"
5x7, pastel


(By the way, I am having trouble getting Blogger to handle images correctly. If you try to click on an image in my recent posts, you'll see you don't get a larger version. You'll get the little hand icon, but nothing happens when you click. I've tried Firefox, Opera and Internet Explorer to no avail. If anyone knows a way around this, please e-mail me!)