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| In the Shadows, 9x12 oil/panel Painted at the Narrows Paintout Available |
Plein air painting season has arrived! To celebrate the first day of Spring, I hosted an outing with Plein Air Painters of New Mexico. Although I've been painting throughout the winter, the group has been idle, partly because of the season, partly because of COVID. It was good to get out with the group again.
Several of us gathered to paint south of Grants at what's called “the Narrows”—a narrow slot of open land, hemmed in by lava fields on one side and sandstone mesas on the other. It's a beautiful, mostly wild area occupied by three different governmental divisions: the Acoma Indian Reservation, the Bureau of Land Management's El Malpais National Conservation Area and the National Park Service's El Malpais National Monument. It's hard to describe the area, as the terrain is so varied. To the west, the lava fields stretch out like an endless, broken, heaved-up parking lot with black outcrops of 4,000-year-old lava flows, sprinkled with ponderosa pine and scrub oak. To the east, a series of 7,000-foot sandstone cliffs tower over the lava, providing views to Mount Taylor, the Zuni Mountains and the now-dormant Chain of Craters. Arches and towers decorate the sides of the cliffs, culminating in La Ventana, the biggest arch of them all.
The land looks ancient, and it is. The Acoma and Zuni Indians, as well as their ancestors, hiked between the two pueblos across the malpais for trade. Later, the Spanish picked their way on horseback around the lava, preferring to avoid it. They called it “El Malpais”—the badlands—for a good reason. Today, the 16-mile Zuni-Acoma Trail wanders through the lava, but the sharp edges slash hiking boots, and although the trail is marked by cairns, hikers can get lost easily if they miss one.
Nine of us gathered at the South Narrows Picnic Area to paint. Some stayed in the parking area, protected from New Mexico's frequent springtime wind by a small canyon, to paint intimate views of the lower cliffs; others took the short hike to the top where twisted junipers provided little relief from the wind. After lunch, we wandered over to La Ventana. The arch has a span of 120 feet, but it seems to rise up a lot taller than that. In the morning, the arch is in shadow, but by mid-day, light begins to spill behind the arch, illuminating the wall beneath and behind it, making for a striking subject. By the time we got there, the lighting was perfect, but the wind had gotten serious. Although some of us found a less-gusty spot behind a juniper, the rest just took photos. (Like most plein air painters, I can paint under just about any condition—baking sun, chill rain, freezing snow or blinding fog, but not heavy wind.) I recommended that painters, on the way home, stop at Sandstone Bluffs, which offers not just broad views of the malpais but also fantastic rock formations.
If you live in or near New Mexico, considering joining us next time. You can visit www.papnm.org for more information.
By the way, there is still time to take advantage of a good discount on Plein Air Live. I will be demonstrating in gouache on Beginner's Day. For more information or to register, go here.
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| Painting down in the canyon below the Narrows |
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| La Ventana Arch |
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| Looking from Sandstone Bluffs across the malpais to Mt Taylor |
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| Raku the Firecloud Rez Dog visits me while I'm sketching in gouache |
