Sedona Sketch

Before I moved to Arizona I thought the desert was rather monotone and that painting a desert landscape would not lend itself to using a wide variety of colors. But, now I realize there is no limit to the variety of colors  in the landscapes I see.

In more tropical climates the color is obvious. The greens are bright and lush and flowers and plants are vivid with an abundance of color. In the desert, there is often a more subtle palette. I used to think the mountains and mesas were brown on brown, but now I see  shades from white to black, warm reds and golds,  cool sages and olives, plus variations of purples and blues as the mountains recede into the distance.

The desert skies, of course, are boundless and as the days and nights and seasons change I see colors that range from the brightest blues to the softest grays and whites with sunsets and sunrises adding vibrant yellows, oranges and pinks.

Desert plants add another layer of color and depth and again, the seasons play a part with cactus blossoms and wildflowers bursting open in the Spring and cactus fruit in the Summer and Fall.  In the mountains the Autumn leaves run the full gamut of colors from yellow Aspens and Oaks to the oranges,  reds and purples of Maples, Ash and others.

It was a surprise, I think. But, it was also a learning experience, helping me to find the colors in everything around me.

Angel's Trumpet

Watercolor is something of a mystery. The way the paint and water interact is not always predictable. That is part of both the beauty and the frustration of painting with watercolor. You have to be open to the “happy accidents”. I don’t remember who coined that phrase, but it is really appropriate.

It’s often very difficult to get a natural or random look when painting certain  aspects of nature. For example, I have a painting that has a lot of small twigs and branches.  I was struggling with trying to paint a “natural” look for the tiny intertwining twigs when I remembered a suggestion someone once gave me to use a straw and blow the paint around. So I dropped some wet paint onto the paper and took a small straw and blew into the paint with short puffs, moving the straw as the paint ran across the page and branched out into little twigs and branches.

I didn’t have much “control” over how the paint ran, it took off in random directions and the result was closer to nature than anything I could have planned, drawn and painted. I’ve had many “happy accidents” and they are often the favorite part of a painting.