Painting wild places...

At the end of May I had the great pleasure of going to Santa Fe, with a friend, for a week of touring and visiting her friends. The southwestern landscape is amazing and I brought a small 8x10 oil painting box with me. After a couple days in the city, we headed to Abiquiu and Ghost Ranch, where Georgia O'Keeffe painted. We couldn't check in and unpack until 3, so I went for a hike, feeling pretty short of air at this 6000+ elevation, but enjoying the stunning views. After getting back and getting settled in our room, we went to the dining hall for dinner and I simply couldn't wait to go paint. I ate as fast as I could and then headed out with my gear. I'd never painted with my little Guerrilla Painter pochade box, but once I got to a shady spot where I had a great view of Kitchen Mesa, I set things up to paint. I had no easel, so I found a tree stump to sit on in the shade, and put the paint box on my lap and got out the small palette. I squeezed out a little dab of each color of my oil paints - I always put them in the same order on my palette, ending up with white. I dug through the tubes of paint.... where was the white? I took them all out and was totally dismayed to discover I'd forgotten the white paint! How could I paint the brilliant li ght blue sky? The closest I had to a white was a pale orangish-yellow so that's what I had to use. I wasn't going to miss this opportunity to paint the sun setting on the mesa. I won't display a picture of what I produced, with a dull, grayish blue sky (orange is the complimentary color to blue, so it grayed the cerulean blue as it made it lighter!). What you see here is how it looked after I got it back to Santa Fe and obtained a tube of white paint!

Disappointed that I could not paint with my oils, the next day I drove back about 8 miles to Abiquiu an went to the one and only general store. I'd seen they had some watercolor sets when we stopped there on our way to the ranch. I bought a pad of paper and a set of tube watercolors and what brushes were available. Not all that great, but they served my purpose. I was able to find the time to hike out to a couple of locations and do some watercolors, sitting in the shade of piñon pines. This is really the way I like to explore a new place - by painting it.

After getting back to Santa Fe, we did some more gallery tours and enjoyed Meow Wolf. On the last day I took the rental car and drove up to Bandelier National Monument - a historic site of ancient Puebloan cliff dwellings. I took my paints but never painted - had too much fun walking around. And I got to see a Diamond-backed Rattlesnake. Fortunately a park ranger was monitoring it, but I was able to get some photos with my zoom lens. All in all, a good trip.