Painting an Evening Beyond Compare

I joined the Pastel Society of the West Coast (PSWC), a very prestigious and talented group of successful artists last August. Unfortunately, I joined just after the deadline and missed the opportunity to enter a painting in their summer show at our own Placer Arts Gallery on Lincoln Way in uptown Auburn.  I was very impressed with the talent and quality of art that was displayed at the show. Some of the paintings in the show were quite large and very beautiful.  The PSWC show is going to be in Stockton this year at the Haggin Museum.  The call for entries has already gone out and the deadline is February 18^th.

This show will be my first opportunity to enter paintings in the PSWC show and so I made a decision to paint Southwest paintings of various sizes for my entries.  While one can submit three or five paintings in the show depending upon the fee of $40.00 or $55.00, each member will only have two maximum in the show.  Since this is to be a juried show, and an important opportunity I thought three paintings of various sizes would be an excellent way to show my artistic ability.  The jurors will examine the digital images we submit and select two from those submitted and notify members of their selection choices. 

In my previous blog, I displayed the other two paintings I have painted for this show, and the pencil sketch of the third one, a scene of the Mittens in Monument Valley. As I mentioned, I visited Monument Valley in early June 1964 as a young man, with my younger brother and have been enthralled with the beauty and wonderful colors of the buttes in and around the Navajo Tribal Parklands ever since. The particular scene I have chosen to paint has thunderheads rolling across the valley above the Mittens.  That first night we had pitched our camp at the campground and were treated to the rolling and crashing of thunder bouncing off the buttes and canyon walls surrounding us. At times we would be in the middle of a heavy rain shower that managed to soak everything down in a matter of minutes as the storm clouds swept overhead.   The rain made the valley sparkle with bright color because it deepened the hues. The sun was hidden behind the canyons to the west, but its light was illuminating the clouds and beginning to make them turn shades of pink and lavender.  My challenge was going to be to capture the magic of that incredible evening I had experienced.

The Kitty Wallis paper I was using for the painting was the Belgian shade, almost the color of red violet so it is a help to have that shade.  When pastel painters are painting a picture as in other mediums, it is necessary to put in some under darker colors first in some of the major areas of the painting, those will be overlain with medium and lighter colors as the painting progresses. Here is an example of the first stage of adding under colors of darker pastel to my painting. 

When I began this painting, the first priority was to  work on the sky and the clouds so that I could make sure that I could capture the intensity of the thunderstorms and also the beautiful soft tints that the clouds picked up from the setting sun.  One of the very fortunate things for me with this painting is there were no visible shadows since the sun was hidden. The rain had made it so bright and colorful, even though the sun was going down. One could see for miles, and there was no haze to obscure the distant canyons or valleys.  Getting the clouds right was going to take layering of colors, and also some blending.  It took quite a while to get the right feel of the billowing cloud formations, and the various shades. Darker underneath where it was raining, lighter where the sun was highlighting them, and softer where the tints were reflected.  Eventually I accomplished the right feel by adding the rain showers and then it was time to work on the buttes themselves.

The three buttes or Mittens in this painting are north of the old Trading Post established by Harry Goulding and his wife Mike in 1923.  While it is called Monument Valley, it really isn’t a valley at all, it is a vast plain with large buttes and mesas that have been eroded over thousands of years by wind and water. It is a very dry area at the 5400 foot elevation with very few trees and a lot of the famous purple sage. Some of the land is rough, jumbled with rocks from collapsing buttes, but much of it is sandy soil with washes that cut it up by water seeking a lower elevation.   The tough part was to make the buttes look much like they do with all of the layers and weathering, and also to portray the uneven and irregular landscape with all of its colors in a realistic way.  There is not a lot of vegetation in this beautiful arid area because of sandy soil and low amount of rainfall.

I had done one version of the landscape under the Mittens with a purple area to the left because it seemed more shaded by the clouds, but it just did not look natural even though it was a very pretty contrast. I went over the purple with various shades and values of Burnt Sienna and Burnt Umber, and a little Quinacridone Magenta  in Rembrandt and Winsor Newton pastels to get the right mix of color. The I spent several more days paying attention to various areas on the buttes and landscape to tweak it until I was satisfied. 

An Evening Beyond Compare

I found that while I am a detail person, a painting this large could drive one crazy with detail, and I realized that I could get away with less, and it would look just fine.  I put my signature on the piece and decided it was time to be done. All that was left was to photographed it and frame it.  As large as this piece is, I will frame it without mats and use a spacer to give it some space from the glass. I am pleased with the results and hope you enjoy my efforts. I believe you will understand my selection of the title now that you understand the background.