Bitter Creek
At long last my wife and I are here
in Arizona. We came into Flagstaff by train three nights ago.
* Mike
and Crystal Turner *
Our
host family lives
beside
Bitter Creek, on the north end of Clarkdale, down by the train station
on Miller
Road.
The Turners have renovated the fourth floor of the old
Miller building into living quarters and studio
space.
The couple
had once lived in Carrollton, Missouri and are good
friends. The area along the creek bed is wild and
undeveloped. All kinds of sites are within walking
distance.
This morning I got up at
dawn, slipped into painting clothes, tiptoed into the kitchen, got my
water bottle refilled,
Trail Mix bars packed, slipped on my shoes, and shuffled
quietly
with my big supply pack out of the living quarters,
past
Michael's studio floor, down the stairwell, and out into the morning
air.
Wednesday I had taken some
time to roam the creek. After waiting and preparing myself for this
opportunity
to paint on southwest turf, here I was. One hunch was
right, this part of Arizona had scrappy plants like I have
back home in north central Missouri. Making myself do
studies at a quarry, on a gravel road, or with cows on
a hillside
had helped me to "make do" with the site at hand. I would not be
painting the popular rock formations
around Sedona. Our stay would be short. No time to set up
at the Grand Canyon either.Though those places
were just a two hour drive from here. That would have to
be another trip. No, I would settle for
this sprawled out
creek bed.
What I found was lots of material to work
from. Clusters of rocks, brush, dainty native flowers, and
distant
blue ranges. What I would be painting would be just an introduction. Sort
of like, here is a rock, surrounded by
your pick of greens, dotted yellow flowers, generally
action
that revolves around the main focal point,
say, the sunlit rock. Well, go at it, paint paint
paint, discern discern discern,
practice practice practice, and
become familiar with these expressions.
Continue your journey from afar. The photos you take will bring you
back to this spot for "Course Work Two, Three, and Four."
The instruction of Matt
Smith
came back to me. He had
talked
The information at this site helps
about the value of diagonals and placing elements in
such a
way
me picture rocks in the foreground
across the picture as to lead your eyes further in,
from
the
diagonaling back in a zig zag.
foreground to the mid-ground to the background. He had become
so
familiar with the lay of the land and describing rocks, cactus,
brush, ground cover that he was able to superimpose
and
rearrange these
elements in his head and on his canvas. So it was
about "doing one's
homework." Being here was a start. Picking out
problems I would
like to solve, recording the arrangments with
my camera, and
rendering what I could with the time I was given
.............................this would create a bookmark
I could return to.
The doing of studies would
now be the prize for me.
Thursday I returned to this
spot.
11" x 14" " Ensemble"
Raymar canvas panel
August
10, 2006
Beginning
with the purple blue background,
I selected the middle
rock and a choice of greenery.
From 7:00 to 9:00 am the lighting was great,
and then, what so often happens, I had to stop.
There comes a point when the sunlight moves
and changes the subject significantly, it becomes
entirely different.That is when it is best to stop and
........start something new.
9" x 12" "View Over Clarkdale" Raymar
panel
Tuesday, on the
train ride out, I remembered
taking
August 10, 2006
snapshots of the big puffy white clouds. I thought
of
Thursday after
lunch I tried my hand
Phil
Epp's work, with big
cumulus-like shapes towering at describing a cloud bank
from Turner's roof top.
over the
desert. This was the land of
the
clouds.
I worked from
noon
till 2:00 pm on this. I tried
purple-blue shadows on clouds in motion. It was
difficult to capture the scale and depth in a small
picture area.
One can see in all directions from the roof
top. The elevation is one thousand feet
above sea level.
There are clouds
here I do not have back in Missouri.
14" x 11"
"Mingus" Looking towards
mountain
range Photo closeup of
ridge.
Raymar panel from roof top
August 10, 2006
This work held
three problems, (1)
choosing to depict the mountain range in blue tones,
(2) describing houses on the ridge beneath it, and (3) nailing down the
cloud movement.
Painting clouds was, by far, the most difficult of the three. As I
painted, the sky was full of moving forms.
By the time I
finished rendering a passage, new formations had taken their place. So
I settled on the
collective view of the sky, sort of a time exposure, presenting some of
what
was, and some of what
my eyeballs were
looking at before I wrapped it
up. For a "first time stab," I like the way the houses
turned out, and
the suggestion of the ridge that they rest upon. I worked on this from 2:30 to 4:00 pm.
It's Friday morning, the air is pleasant
and still, the ridge in front of me is draped
in purple
shadow, a pinkish-red boulder sets on top, yellow marigold-like
blossoms dot
the ground, Mike had reminded me to observe the snake burrows, I am
here to bother
no one, careful with my footprints, keeping the area
clean............now where can I find
a diagonal? rocks, brush, fleeting shadows, sunlight creeps over
the ridge.
Skitter skatter small feet rasp across the rock beside my feet. The
lizards dart out of sight.
A flick of a tail is posted on the screensaver of my imagination. I
consider the red rock hunkered
down on the dirt ridge, wondering which of the mesquite clusters to
include or exclude.
The pochade palette gets a misting of fine water.
A gray body comes into view 25 feet ahead. A grey fox stands
motionless. The air is warm
and still. I stand motionless. After a moment, the fox whispers up and
down the dry
plateaus, among the wispy
green veils of mesquite brush, to the far side. I continue to consider
the pink rock. Immediately
I spot a second smaller framed fox. It pauses to listen, and then
breathes like a ghost through
to the other side.
A swig from my
water bottle,
ahhhh.
12" x 9" "Bitter
Creek"
A nibble from the granola
bar.
Raymar panel
Looking for diagonals. Pebbles
and
August 11, 2006
scraggly weeds, this is not
what
I had hoped to paint in
Arizona.
Q: What problems did I choose to solve?
Shawn Cornell was right, I
do
like
What elements did I describe with paint?
my EasyL paint box and tripod.
The brush pattern was rearranged
in my mind to make a diagonal.
Worked on this from 7:00 to
10:30 am.
My wife yells down
from the roof.
"Rain is approching. Time to call it quits."
I scrape down the
palette, clean my brushes out, empty the water container, fold up and
store the tripod,
pack the paint box in my
supply pack, store the water bottle, pack the brushes, gather it all,
and head back
to the steps, trudge up the
stairwell to the fourth floor, and drop my gear.
I am told the banks of the
creek become a torrent of action when the mountain rains over take it
It is monsoon season. The
video Crystal played for my wife and I made it clear, you don't want to
be
standing in the creek when
the flash flood comes crashing down.
home
canvas panels www.raymarart.com
Michael Turner lelandcreations.com
Shawn Cornell
www.missouripleinair.com
outdoor easel
and tripod set www.artworkessentials.com
free web page maker www.mozilla.org/projects/seamonkey
Matt
Smith DVD "Painting on
Location--The Sonoran
Desert" www.canvaspanels.com
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outdoors © 2011