The West Texas paintings came from a road trip with Dorothy in January of 2019 to Marfa and back to Houston! We were driving between Fort Stockton and Marathon – it was late afternoon, the sun was in our eyes and the lighting was not “impressive” enough for me to take any photos. Then we passed a sign that said: Sierra Madera Astrobleme
As you can tell the lighting was horrible! No respecting artist/photographer would be interested in this area! Not too far from this sign I simply had to stop and take a series of photographs. Yes, the lighting was awful! Yes, the landscape was “boring”! Yet, was it all that bad? In spite of it all I took a series of photos that have inspired my latest series of paintings.
Tony made me 6 stretched canvases that are approximately 6 feet long by 22 inches high. I taped the photos together to form a long panorama and divided the photograph into 6 overlapping sections. It was a conscious decision to make each painting stand alone with the series not designed to be placed end-to-end.
I purchased paint from the “big paint store” to lay in the sky and foreground.
Then I sketched in the mountains (mid-ground):
I spent some time playing with the foreground – some success; some not success.
Now I’m playing with the mountains – flushing them out more!
Got to lighten them up a bit! Or a lot! Time will tell. Not sure how “stylized” I want them to be… time to experiment! I like the general shape of the sky/mountain line.
So close — and yet so much to do! I’m really conflicted about how to tie the base of the mountains with the foreground. The photographs aren’t too helpful – oh darn I’ll have to figure it out on my own! (Insert Happy Face Emoji here!)
Here are the final – revised and revised again pieces!
