Back to my roots

Well, some of my roots. I was raised as a rolling stone but an important part of my early life was in the American southwest. Sometimes I still feel like I'm still getting used to low round hills with grass and trees, and all these people out here in California!

Grand Canyon, winter sunset 8X10

There are so many aspects of the Canyon, times of day, seasons of the year, it's never the same. I wanted to paint COLOR. Sorry, didn't mean to shout. Too often I get caught up in accuracy of detail, so this time the rich red of the sandstone in the low angle light kept me on track. There were times I sure wished I'd picked a simpler shape, or at least simplified the shape of the central butte.

Navajo Shepherd family 8X10

This has less color, it's from an old photograph, and it's Monument Valley. My mom was from Arizona, and this is more as she would have remembered it. Her early memories were of a small mining town a long way from anywhere. In fact it took a long time to get nowhere, then you went from there to somewhere. When they moved to Miami, AZ it was like moving to the big city. Yes Virginia, there is  a Miami, AZ.
Back to the picture. Some of the sheep are quite brown, so they show up against the snow. It was a bigger flock, I took out my Artistic License and used it to pick and choose which sheep to include. Snow is an interesting challenge, and I need more practice, I've just never seen much of it. Lucky me?