Tumamoc Sketches

Here is some green for Saint Patricks Day! Desert Green. In most landscapes the leaves are green, but here in the Sonoran desert, the Saguaros and other cacti are green and the Palo Verde tree is green all over. These are both on-location sketches from the north slope of Tumamoc Hill. My main goal in these is to quickly capture the lighting, colors and forms before I have time to think about it. So I try to compete these in around an hour.

Palo Verde

Encaustic on Paper

9 x 12 inch

Another painting with my new Encaustic Wax paints. I love these scenes of plants symbiotically growing above, below, around and next to each other. In most of these Tumamoc studies Im trying to absorb the harmony of these clusters of plants. 

Desert Storms

Acrylic on Paper

9 x 12 inch

This was painted on a beautiful afternoon with storm clouds coming and going and a few sprinkles on me and the painting.  Lots of plants in bloom - especially the brittle bush which literally covers the entire mountain with bright yellow. For this sketch I used the same acrylics that I used to paint the Presidio Mural. Ive found that they are actually great for these quick paintings, although there is a bit of value shift from wet to dry colors. The biggest issue I have is getting an strong opaque yellow without using the toxic cadmiums.