Quick painting

I've been working on quick little paintings from nature. These are fast paintings done in under two hours. This one was done in about 50 minutes. This really helps me focus on getting the core values, colors, lighting, form and composition before I have time to think about it and over work it. I painted this one on my back patio.

"View from the patio"

Acrylic

6 x 8 inch 

paper

Tumamoc Courtyard

Tucson is getting hotter now, so I found a shady spot on the patio of the Research Center on Tumamoc Hill and painted the courtyard. I've painted this area several times in different seasons. As we move into the hottest, driest time of the year, I notice a lot of plants are shriveling up and going into drought dormancy. The brittle bush which was vibrant with flowers just a few weeks ago, are now just brown leafless twigs. The Foothills Palo Verde trees are in the final weeks of flowering as are the cholla.

Tumamoc Courtyard 5-9-16

Acrylic on canvas

8x10 inch

Palo Verde Bloom

The Palo Trees are blooming again in Tucson. The Blue Palo Verde is in full bloom in Tucson and the valley floors, and the Foothills Palo Verde is just starting to bloom on the hillsides. I did this one inspired by the intense yellow flowers in an almost "Jackson Pollock" abstract manner.

Bloom

Acrylic on canvas 

9x12 inch

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. 

Pima Canyon

A small oil painting from one of my many hikes up into Pima Canyon, in the Catalina Mountains just north of Tucson.

Pima Canyon

Oil on Canvas

8x10 inch

Fairy Dusters

I finished this one last night. Inspired by my walks on Tumamoc and the Tucson mountains.

Fairy Dusters

Acrylic on panel

8x10 inch

Tumamoc sketches in casein and encaustic

Here are a couple of my recent plein-aire painting sketches from Tumamoc Hill. This first one was painted with casein in about half an hour as it was still cold up there - you can see the snow on the Catalina Mountains in the distance.

Tumamoc 1-11-16

Casein on paper

5x7 inch

This one was painted in a little over an hour with my "new" paints: water based encaustics from Cuni http://www.encausticcuni.com This is first time I've used these paints. I really like them. I've always wanted to try encaustics, but never wanted to mess with heating up wax to paint. These paints however work straight out of the tube. It is thought that this is same formula used by the ancient greeks and romans to paint the famous Fayum mummy portraits, which are still in perfect condition after almost 2,000 years. 

Tumamoc 1-18-16

Encaustic on paper

9x12 inch