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| Hoodoos, columns, pinnacles and more |
This past weekend, I had the opportunity to travel with Trina on a Sedona Camera Club outing to Chiricahua National Monument. We both needed a break between setting up our winter home studio and teaching workshops, so this was the perfect adventure. I went as "key grip" to help with camera equipment, but I packed along my new Travel Painter Art Box as well.
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| Sunset |
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| Waning moon over the rocks |
We arrived Friday afternoon in Willcox, Arizona, and then hurried off to the park to shoot the sunset, followed by a little astrophotography. Saturday morning, we met at 4:45 am -- no hotel breakfast for us! -- and went off to shoot the sunrise. Next we worked the cramps out of our legs by taking a long hike, followed by daytime photography and then a second sunset shoot to round out the day. Sunday, we had to forego the sunrise shoot to head back to New Mexico to pack for a workshop I'm teaching in Sedona this week and then one for the Tucson Pastel Society next weekend. Whew!
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| The Travel Painter Art Box in action |
I was happy to see how well the new paint box worked, and how handy it was to carry on the trails. I only had time for a couple of quick sketches, but it was worth it. The first sketch I made in a wash in the noontime shade of alligator junipers; the second, toward sunset up on Masai Point. These sketches will become reference material for a future studio painting.
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| Six Years After the Fire 6x8 oil sketch |
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| Hoodoo 6x8 oil sketch (Palette for both of these was yellow ochre, transparent earth red and Prussian blue, all Gamblin paints) |
By the way, this was our second trip to Chiricahua. Our first trip was about 15 years ago, and I remember being very impressed with the green lushness of the park. But in 2011, a major fire swept through, charring much of the landscape. Now, six years later, the grasses have returned, but so many of the hills and canyon sides are filled with broken, charred stumps. This explains the title of my first sketch. The amazingly strange rocks, of course, are untouched and just as weird as ever.
