Balanced Rock, Big Bend National Park, Texas

For colours today, I went for French ultramarine, Winsor red and transparent yellow.  It’s in the key of triadic right.  Triadic keys seem to work out really well for me, so I deliberately chose one of those.  Winsor red and transparent yellow were due for an outing – of my nine primaries it’s now only Prussian blue that hasn’t been used this week.  Also appearing are cadmium yellow (an opaque colour in the flora) and viridian (a little in the sky and a lot with the red in the blackest shadows).

After drawing in some rough outlines, I gave myself a head start on textures by spattering on some masking fluid.  After letting the fluid dry and before doing any painting, I wiped off any blobs that were too big or in the sky or too near the edge or too densely populated or in areas that I expected to be in shadow.  I still ended up with some in the shadow though.

As usual the first paint down was the sky.  I did a bit better today and I think it was because I waited for the paper to start bowing a bit but then settle down before applying any paint.  It could be argued that I put the paint on slightly too thick but I’m starting to think that’s my style.  Anyway, the sky worked.  However the painting turned out, that sky would be a highlight.

Then it was the rocks.  As usual, I started with a neutral colour all over, with bits of the three primaries randomly dropped in where I thought they might work.  After that, a case of working over the underpainting and trying to bring out shapes and shadows.  There were lot of dark shadows using a mix of the red and green, lots of painting hard edges along the tops of rocks and bleeding the paint downwards and lots of dry on dry strokes with the brush held horizontally and skimming along, using the tooth of the paper to create texture.  There was a lot of fiddling about and (touch wood) it looks as if I’m getting better at knowing when to stop.

So anyway I stopped.  Looking at the painting the rocks were generally slightly green tinged but suffering from not looking unified.  It was as if each rock had been painted by a different artist and they’d all been stuck together.  Clearly this was a job for a unifying glaze.  I chose an orange glaze mixed from the red and yellow because orange is a warm colour, it might contrast better with the sky and it would tone down anything that was too green.  I sprinkled some salt on the glaze just for the bell of it and then decided to make things a bit more yellow on any edges facing the sun in the top right.

Finally I rubbed off all the masking fluid spots and added the flora using a Terry Harrison Merlin brush.  I dabbed on cadmium yellow and a bit of French ultramarine, then did a little bit of gentle dragging of the blue to create stems in places.

End result?  Yes, this is OK.  At one point all the foreground rocks were looking terrible but the hard edges that I added along their tops and encouraged to bleed down really worked.  The sky (including the trapped sky shape) is amazing as expected.  The rocks are full of interesting colours. The tall rock on the left has some good salt texture on it and doesn’t look as phallic as I was expecting.  The flora is the weakest aspect but it definitely adds something – not just the colour but also the contrast between the delicate flowers growing in tiny cracks and the heavy, precarious looking rock.  Compositionally, when I turn my back on the painting,  take a few steps away and spin round to look at it cold, I can see some sine wave patterns working their way up from bottom left to top right.  I’ve not yet worked out whether this is a good thing.  Also, the rocks on the right look like a woman leaning back with her elbows on the back of a chair and staring upwards while the big rock rests on her right breast.  That’s definitely a good thing.

Anyway, I count this one as a success and it’s up for sale.