I just wrapped up a four-day plein air workshop in Kayenta (Ivins, Utah) with a great group of students. I had a full class, with folks hailing from far-flung places such as California, Washington and New York. During our time here in the desert, we enjoyed some good weather - cool nights and warm, sunny days. You couldn't have asked for a nicer spring in the desert. Even some of the cactuses were starting to bloom!
Kayenta is home to Coyote Gulch Art Village, where Blue Raven Studio was hosting the workshop. Besides ready access to coffee at Xetava Gardens Cafe next door, it offered us plenty to paint. A little lake gave us water with some amazing, magenta-colored reflections of the neighboring hills. The Santa Fe-style houses have beautiful gardens, and we even painted my host's irises one day. Looming over the nearby Anasazi Valley trailhead are cliffs covered with petroglyphs, and cottonwoods edge the Santa Clara River, which wanders just past the trailhead. We also painted at Snow Canyon State Park, which has a variety of terrain from lava fields to sandstone hills to sand dunes. Four days wasn't really enough to paint all of this, and I'm looking forward to returning in the fall of 2012. Below are a few photos from the week, as well as a few demos I did.
On a final, unrelated note, I just found out that I've been invited to paint in this year's Plein Air Invitational at Zion National Park. (Click here for a link to last year's event.) This is a great honor, and I'm very pleased to be invited. The event runs from October 31 through November 4, with the exhibition continuing until December 1. It'll also be my third paint out event in the fall, preceded by the ones at the Grand Canyon and Sedona. I'll post more on these events as we get closer. If you're going to be near one of these locations, I hope you'll attend!
Snow Canyon Sketch (mountain shadow demo), 9x12 oil (sold)
Snow Canyon Cottonwood (tree demo), 7x5, oil
Lanelle's Irises (flower demo), 12x9, oil (sold)
