High Desert Beauty

12x7 inches / pastel on sandpaper

Getting out the pastels was wonderful. I haven't worked with them for over a year as I've been making friends with oils (we know each other better now but not quite best friends.) Yes, there's the pastel dust and the stained fingers and the many trays of pastels spread around and the fun with glass and framing and iffiness about shipping... but I love them anyway.

 

Beyond the Patio

12x12 inches / oil on canvas

Here is another painting started a few weeks ago and finished yesterday. I painted it standing on my front porch looking North just beyond the patio. I have fantastic vistas everywhere I turn, but this particular view was full of so many different greens I was baffled at first. I remember, "Just keep going!" as my dear friend Mezzo once told me and sometimes, somehow, it comes together. Each completed painting feels like cause for a celebration these days.
 

Iron Springs Road, AZ - SOLD

30x24 inches / oil on canvas

I'm one of those people who take photos as I'm driving and I took this on my return from a shopping trip to Prescott through Scull Valley on Iron Springs Road. As the high desert sun is sinking low it turns the ancient granite into majestic illuminated wonderment. I've always loved this particular formation. This painting was started quite a while back and was finally finished today. Yea.

High Desert Clouds and Shadows

 7x5 inches - oil on board

 
 5x7 inches - oil on board

 
 7x5 inches - oil on board

 I see my last post was February. Since then I have painted, written music, moved on top of a hill in Peeples Valley, Arizona, joined a book club and made a lot of new friends. Another thing I've been doing a lot of is looking around. The vistas outside my windows call me (and my little dog Zig) to step outside and experience these awesome high desert landscapes. Last week clouds were added to my delight and I got inspired to get outside and do some quick studies. That's what these three small paintings are about. I was standing on my front porch which faces the East. The third one was about the colors as the sun is starting to set behind the house, and turns the clouds a sweet pink.