Starting Shadows with Cool - or Hot?

Sedona's red rocks can really glow when the light hits them just right. But better yet, it's even more dramatic when the light bounces off the rocks into a shadowed plane, warming up an area that usually would appear quite cool.  The effect is most stunning when the rocks are lit from behind and you can't see the illuminated planes, just the shadowed ones.  Those shadows can look downright hot!

I've painted Munds Mountain many times over the years, and from the parking lot where I paint it, its mass is nearly always backlit.  Toward the afternoon hours, a little bit of rim lighting sneaks in.  I'm always fascinated by the light bouncing off one plane and creating that wonderful warm glow in the shadows.  The trick to painting this glow, as you probably know, is to keep the glow dark enough so it doesn't look like sunlight.  I've seen some beginners paint the glow so light you'd think someone was shining a Klieg light into it.

Recently, I did two small studies of an outcrop on Munds Mountain that shows this effect nearly every day.   It's what I call a "fin," and it  juts out from the surrounding rock.  Although it's in shadow all day, it gets a great deal of bounced light on its flat, shadowed side.  For these two studies, I decided to take two different approaches to painting the glow.  In the first one, I started with all cool shadows - mostly ultramarine blue, alizarin crimson and a little of Gamblin's Chromatic Black to dull the color.  Then I snuck up on the warmth by adding a little cadmium red light to the mixture, adjusting the warmth until I felt I had it right.

Fin 1 - 5x7, oil

In the second, I did a crazy thing.  I painted the glow backwards.  That is, I started right off the bat by painting the shadow with pure cadmium red light.  Then I added blue and alizarin crimson to cool things down a bit.  I never paint shadows this way, but I wanted to try it and see if I could get away with it.  I had a lot of fun doing it.

Fin 2, 7x5, oil

So what do you think?  Please note that drawing wasn't my prime concern, so the shape of the fin looks a little different in each piece.  (By the way, they're $60 each or $100 for the pair, plus $10 shipping. Contact me.)

Small Study for the Big One

Schnebly Hill Study, 8x10, oil

We're at the tail end of a snowstorm that socked Flagstaff in overnight.  We didn't get much down here along Oak Creek and in Sedona, but today we're getting wind and snow squalls.  I've painted in snow squalls before, and it's a challenge, sifting through the sleet on your palette to mix paint!

I thought I show you the little study I did up on Schnebly Hill a couple of weeks ago.  As you recall, I went out repeatedly to the site with the 24x30 canvas, but one day I went out to do an 8x10 in which I focused on the line between light and shadow.  I was trying to determine exactly how bright the sunlit trees were in relation to the shadowed hills.

Although the color temperature is somewhat different from the finished piece, you can see how useful it was to go back out into the field to collect additional information.  It's a good trick - I mean, why drag out that big piece back up the hill yet again?

My Most Popular Blog Posts

"Quiet Watcher" 9x12 oil - $200, free shipping - contact Michael

Blogger has given bloggers a new gadget to put on their blogs - a list of the most popular posts. I took a look at mine, and it's interesting to see what's on the list. Below are the top ten:

• Painting on Matboard
• Painting Flowers and About Gloves
• Gamblin FastMatte Alkyd Colors
• Grab-n-Go Paintings
• How to Prepare for a Plein Air Workshop
• More Buildings, More Perspective - and a Video!
• Not Painting Exactly What We See
• Encounter: Nicolai Fechin
• Starting with Vivid Color
• Sedona Plein Air Festival Wrap-Up and Pumphouse Studio Gallery

Nicolai Fechin is a well-known painter, so lots of people are probably doing searches on him. But how do you explain, for example, the popularity of "Grab-n-Go Paintings"?

By the way, my total number of posts is 553. That's a lot to weed through. Fortunately, Blogger also gives us some gadgets that allow us to sort posts by topic or label, and also a chronological archive and a search feature. I just added the full topic list, and I've always had the archive. If you're new to the blog, you might enjoy spending part of your holiday surfing through previous posts. These gadgets follow below.

New Video - Composing in the Field

I've finished and uploaded the latest video in my Plein Air Essentials series. This one is Composing in the Field, a 7-minute video of how I go about isolating my subject, creating a design around it, making thumbnail sketches and more. Price - only $1.49!

(And if you haven't seen the others, I've got a nice little collection of these mini-videos available. The whole series would make a nice Christmas present for an aspiring plein air painter!)

Go to my Lulu store for them: http://www.lulu.com/miragenm

Getting the Big Picture: Large-Format

"December Morning in the Desert" 24x30, oil/canvas - Finished Version

Followers of my blog will remember that, about two weeks ago, I dragged a 24x30 canvas, along with my Beauport easel, a bag of paints and my Classic EasyL box, up to the Schnebly Hill parking lot. In the field, I worked on the piece over two separate three-hour sessions, and then I posted a photo of "our story so far."

Since then, I have gone back up to Schnebly Hill, but to do an 8x10 study of the scene. I wanted to zoom in on the terminator between light and shadow at the foot of the distant mountain. I needed to refresh my memory of how dark the shadow was in relationship to the light and of the quality of temperature contrast between the two.

I also invited a friend over to take a look and give me some feedback. M.L. Coleman (www.mlcolemanart.com) suggested I break up the large, green area of vegetation between the chasm and the mountains a bit more. He said, "The painting is more about rock than about greenery." I completely agreed with him.

So, over a couple of afternoons this week, I made my adjustments. Using my study as a reference, I increased the contrast between light and dark along the distant terminator; pushed the mountains farther away with lighter blues and purples; and dug up some shrubs in the middle ground and exposed more rock. I also added highlights here and there to "punch up" the center of interest and pathway for the eye.

Now, as you know, I'm a committed plein air painter. Most of what I do is outside, and to be outside is always my preference. I'd say this piece, even though about one-third of my time was spent in the studio, still qualifies as plein air. What do you think?