El Dorado

We recently spent a wonderful week at Moab, Utah. This oil painting is of a rock formation in Arches National Park. The formation near the left of the picture is Balanced Rock. I named this painting El Dorado, as I imagined the conquistadors riding across the desert and seeing this formation shimmering in the sun like a lost fortress made of gold. I am entering this painting in the Paint the Parks 100 competition.

In the Garden of Flowering Fragrance

And now for something completely different...This is the new Chinese garden at the Huntington Gardens, Pasadena, California. They brought Chinese master craftsmen over in shifts to construct the bones of the garden. I wanted to achieve a dreamy effect and just let the paint flow.

Delicate Arch

More red rock from Arches National park. This is a formation called Delicate Arch. It is said to look like a cowboy's chaps from this angle. This is on a height which gave a great vista off to the east toward the Rockies in the distance. The canyon was tinted a pale green with the spring shrubs which had not yet shriveled to brown. Rain passed through which make the sky more interesting to paint. This is an 8x10, done in a more realistic style. I plan to enter it into the Paint the Parks competition.

Speckled Iris

My watercolor teacher is vacationing in England. A couple of the students got together to paint, and this was the result. This is taken from a photo shot by Tony of the iris blooming in our front yard. The petals really are speckled as shown. It is always a challenge to get the deep tones for shadows.

Book Cliffs

Grand Junction Colorado is bordered by large, worn-down mesas. This is a portion of the Book Cliffs, which runs for miles on the north side of the valley. The colors are very delicate, this picture is a little brighter than the original. We stayed at the Gallery, a local bed and breakfast. I painted this the night we stayed, and showed it to the proprietors as a sample of my work in the morning. They have agreed to hang my work for sale!!

The Three Gossips

We visited Arches National Park during our family trip to Utah in 2008. The scenery is so amazing that you actually get jaded after a few days because everywhere you look is a great view. We hiked around the base of massive red rock outcroppings. I sketched this in the field and painted it later. Despite the strong colors, this is a watercolor miniature 3x5 inches. I may do this again as an oil painting.

The Windmill

I completed this painting during a recent vacation to Colorado and Utah. There is an agricultural area by Grand Junction, the "wine country of Colorado".