Category: Desert Painting

  • Petrified Forest Residency, Almost Finished: Oct. 16, 2010

    October 16, 2010: Last painting finished in the Petrified Forest. Yesterday we toured Holbrook, where we “did” Jim Gray’s Rock Shop, a serious classic of its kind, checked out the Museum Courthouse, walked through and photographed the Centennial Historic Register District, and got home by 1 PM. Oh and we had a Dairy Queen. Then…

  • Petrified Forest Residency, Day Whatever, Oct. 14, 2010

    I have lost track of time. A bit of disorientation in space as well, but  mostly of time. After returning from the Lightning Field, I had to sleep a lot, and I had to re-orient my head to painting. We found a hardworking crew, putting up a fence around our back “patio” space. They start…

  • Petrified Forest Residency: The Lightning Field by Walter de Maria

    The Lightning Field experience is as far removed from Drive-by Tourism as it’s possible to get. Well, that’s not true — a two-month Park residency is perhaps a bit further along that continuum. But to go to the Lightning Field takes some effort, and money. Reservations are made far in advance, as the cabin in…

  • Petrified Forest Residency, Day 14, Oct 9, 2010

    Blue Mesa Badlands, Petrified National Forest, 2010. Having survived the demos, I am taking the day off from painting. Which didn’t exactly mean sleeping in. We got up at our usual time, but this morning, instead of pulling myself up and pulling things together and pulling myself to the car to get to the painting…

  • Petrified Forest Residency, Day 13, October 8, 2010

    Another day, another demo. Weather favorable. Painted the Bidahochi outcrop on the rim behind the Painted Desert Inn. The vertical, devoid of human artifacts, has now been completed. This afternoon, I did the demo, also behind the PDI, trying to improve my skill at painting adobe. It hasn’t improved. Bidahochi Rim from Painted Desert Inn,…

  • Petrified Forest Residency, Day 12, Oct 7, 2010

    I painted, (on masonite, not on stuccoed walls) the Painted Desert Inn this morning, and I demoed painting at the Painted Desert Inn this afternoon. Turns out demoing is a bit easier than painting, although in both cases the wind played havoc with the work at hand. No boards danced off into the badlands, but…

  • Petrified Forest Residency, Day 11, Oct 6, 2010

    I have no painting to show today, what with rain, hail, and demos at the Painted Desert Inn. Not to mention tourists freaked out by flooding and wild weather at the Grand Canyon and tornadoes at Flagstaff.  All in all, I was grateful for my “studio” in the enclosed and roofed upper patio space at…

  • Petrified Forest Residency, Day 10, Oct. 5, 2010

    After all that fussing about climbing down the wilderness trail, we woke up to rain. Not much, but a very cloudy sky and big fat drops. No wilderness trail hiking/painting for this cautious (or lazy) couple. We rescued paintings from the back patio, where we thought they were safe under shelter (not quite), did lots…

  • Petrified Forest Residency, Day 9, October 4, 2010

    October 4, 2010, Day 9 of the Petrified Forest Adventure. I’m fairly brain-dead tonight. If I had any thoughts, they have fled to bed. I painted at the Long Logs trail in the south end of the park. I needed a long horizontal landscape for the putative rectangular presentation and had already done one of…

  • Petrified Forest, Day 8, October 3, 2010

    This was our day off, a day which I intended to be so lazy that I would awake at 10, take 3 naps, and be in bed before 8. Good luck! I woke up as the sky was lightening, but closed my eyes fiercely against the temptation. Then I opened them again as the sky…