Oh, To Fly Away

"Oh, To Fly Away"

11X14, Oil on Panel

Available

Mt. Magazine, the highest point in Arkansas.

St. Peter and Paul Church, Morrison Bluff, Logan County

St. Peter and Paul

11X14, Oil on Panel

Available

I noticed this awesome little bright red church out in the middle of nowhere just across the Arkansas River south of Clarksville.   I really wanted to do a building portrait of it but also I plan to do more paintings showing it in it's landscape.

This painting will be in my upcoming solo show at the Van Buren Center for Arts and Education.

Subiaco Valley, Logan County

Subiaco Valley

18x24, Oil on Panel

SOLD

Here's one I finished a good while ago but never got around to posting.  This is the valley around the Subiaco Monastery in Logan County.

Cameron Bluff #2, Mt. Magazine, Logan County

Cameron Bluff #2

11X14, Oil on Canvas

I hope everyone had a happy holiday season and the upcoming new year brings happiness and health!  I've been on the East Coast so I have some new material to paint.  Those will eventually be shown on my other blog.  

This is a larger version of the plein air painting I did of Cameron Bluff on Mt. Magazine a few months ago.  I was working to emphasize colors I liked in the original while adding more dimensionality.  I see some possibilities for even larger compositions here but that will have to wait.

My New Year's resolution artwise will be to paint 2 paintings per week in the coming year.  Any size counts and I will also take occasional vacation weeks.  I also hope to try to have this project half done by the end of 2011.  I think that is totally feasible but just difficult enough to make it a challenge.

Cameron Bluff, North Rim Mt. Magazine, Logan County

Cameron Bluff, Mt. Magazine

5X7 Oil on Wood



 Yesterday, we took a drive west to Logan County.  There were a few stops I had planned on making.  The view above was the last of the day.  Prior to this we visited Subiaco Academy and Abbey, the town of Paris Arkansas, and Short Mountain north of the Paris.

Mt. Magazine is the tallest peak in the state with a maximum elevation of 3753ft ASL.  It technically sits in the Arkansas River Valley.  Geologically speaking, I'm not sure if Magazine fits more with the Ouachita Mountains or the Ozarks.   It is certainly closer to the Ouachitas physically but to me "feels" more like the Ozarks with more prototypical horizontal rock strata like that in the Ozarks.  Mt. Magazine is part of a complex of mountains that includes Petit Jean and Mt. Nebo, both further to the east.  There are quite a number of species of fauna which are found on Mt. Magazine and nowhere else in the world.  Most of these are small, like insects.

Recently, Stapleton Kearns did a study in near complements, or split complentary color schemes.  I thought I might give this a try upon his encouragement to follow along at home.  So, I uncorked it on Mt. Magazine with shadowed rock faces and the very start of changing leaves.  It was getting later in the afternoon and the eastern facing rocks were shadowed with raking light spilling over onto the trees below.  There was a blush of subtle orange here and there.

Cameron Bluff, Mt. Magazine

I sat up in the shade of a cedar tree, looking through a nice framing hole in the canopy.  Now, I will be totally up front about this, I cheated a fair bit on my color scheme.  I used Cobalt violet, Sap green, and 2 oranges, one a nice russet made with vermillion and yellow ochre, the other a brilliant orange with vermillion and cad yellow.  I did not use a "yellow green" so that was cheat number 1.  Cheat number 2 was allowing myself to brighten the scene considerably with a higher value yellow.