Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Hillside Casa del Sol, Ghost Ranch 20

8 x 8 inches, oil on panel, © Ann Painter 2011

Actually painting "en plein air" is exhilarating and challenging. August in Northern New Mexico is hot. Cloudy skies come and go, the light changes constantly and the gnats and mosquitoes can be maddening. If you find a shady spot to paint from, the sun moves and you are suddenly in the bright sun, or that perfect spot turns out to have cactus thorns or an ant hill right where you are sitting. 

Lots of painters work in their comfortable studio from photographs. Their only "plein air" experience is to go out into the landscape and take the photos they paint from. I noticed some time ago, when I was out doing this kind of non-painting, that the camera distorted the size and relationship of the shapes I was photographing. So if Pedernal appeared large to my eye, it appeared small in the photo I took of the same scene. I realized that if I didn't capture the images as I saw them with my eye, the painting I created would have very little relationship to what inspired me in the first place. So, I slather on bug-off, wrap my neck in a wet scarf, cover my ears with a bandanna, my head with a hat and my arms and legs with long clothing, and sit in the landscape until I have what I want or at least, a good start.

This painting of a hill opposite Casa del Sol, beneath the Puerto del Sol chimney at Ghost Ranch was a challenge for all the reasons noted above and more. I couldn't seem to "get it" and must have wiped the start of a painting off the board 3 times before I decided to slow down and take it piece by piece. I drew with a pencil and then painted, drew again and painted again. The colors were soft and subtle and I decided to stay closer to what I saw than I usually do, and include more of the textural detail. At a certain point, I stopped looking at the actual subject and began painting what I remembered and felt about it. This is my favorite part...the place where I let go of the "out there" to paint the "in here". This painting felt like a turning point and is, to date, one of my favorite paintings in the Ghost Ranch series.