I hope to go back and paint on the spot in addition to photographing everything within sight (the artist should be able to find beauty in everything....I'm trying to live up to that).
Thumb Butte rises up out of the Arizona landscape and can be see from quite a long way off. You can hike up to the base of the vertical rock and if you are a climber (I am not) you can do a little rock climbing (my sons did some trad climbing up that big crack).
It is such a distinct shape and I decided to try a quick study from memory and the photos I took while there.
Prescott, AZ sits a little south of Sedona where the rock is red and so many westerns have been filmed. It was easy to imagine John Wayne riding up from across the valley. Wyatt Earp and his brothers hung out in Prescott for a while.
The rock of Thumb Butte is not red, but I'm the artist and if I want it to be red, it will be!
An underwash of red will give it a red glow. I sketched the shapes in with straight Cadmium red light.
Blocking out the shadows in cool colors will help to give the rocks dimension. I washed in the sky last to "cut" out the shapes along the top edge.
The blue in the shadows doesn't look as intense to my eyes as it does in this photo. One example of how the camera can distort reality.
Again, the blues in this photo are really intense! Not so much when I look at the actual painting.
I will need to adjust some of those values, though.
By now the painting is so wet that any paint I add just sinks into the color below. So I am going to walk away for several hours and let it dry a bit. I will finish later.
*Tip: Your eyes may need a rest, too. Come back later and you will more easily see what needs to be done.
The finished painting will be in my next post.... ("Happy Easter All")
Time to do some housekeeping (yuk!).
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