My First Art Sunday featuring me

On Y!360 there used to be an Art Sunday tour. I began participating like many of the others with the art of the great masters. As an art history student I found that quite gratifying, but eventually wanted to show my own work. So on an Art Sunday Post in May 2007 I finally did.I find it interesting that my art has changed so much. I think this was also one of the first times I ever did multi-photos in a blog.

Art Sunday - Canyons of My Mind (May 2007 on Y!360)

In the past few blogs for Art Sunday I have featured my pen and inks of people and my more colorful work of churches in northern New Mexico and my mind. I have never promised to faithfully copy an existing Spanish mission church. And given the lack of faithful renovation it isn't even something to be strived for. But that is an entirely different blog.

I want to cover my first love to paint - canyons. As I have said previously these are my spiritual centers. And in the painting Awaiting Dawn below I see Egyptian figures facing the dawn.

The colors in this art work came from a complete accident. I was printing out the photograph I had taken of this scenic overlook in Arches National Park Utah and something had gone wrong with the photo ink cartridge making the bottom half of the photo purple and the top yellow. So I used the same color scheme in my painting of this awesome view.

I more closely followed nature's color scheme with this representation of Delicate Arch also at Arches National Park. But a photographer wanting a certain effect had some years before blackened its base by lighting a fire. I chose to make that scar purple rather than black. And to put pink clouds in the sky. Hey, if you are going to leave it just as it is then just print the photograph. This painting, which my sister currently owns, was my first extensive use of India inks in black, sepia and burnt umber as under-painting. It is actually a Chinese technique.

By the time I painted Awakenings above I had totally suspended any adherence to supposed reality. Don't you see figures in clouds? Well, I see them in rock. The initial inspiration is Mesa Arch at Canyonlands National Park in Utah. And because I did not want to frame in the spirit of the painting I just painted the frame too.

This probably gets me mature content with the Yahoo Blog police. But art is for intellectually mature individuals. You bring to a painting your experience and I bring mine. Hopefully we meet in the middle.

Note the opening picture is Flight of Fantasy. I changed my perspective from the photograph to share space with the hawk.

Maybe this week I will post on Creative Journey a group of current paintings to compare with these some two years later. I certainly think I have developed as an artist.