Phantom Painters of the Opera

Went to the Santa Fe parking lot this morning with 5 other TPAPs (Thursday Plein Air Painters). Not one of us actually painted the opera house (The Crosby Theater). Instead we all opted to paint the mountain view looking east from the parking lot.

View from the Opera
Oil on canvas
Digital print 36" x 28"

Variation 1

Winter Morning Stroll

Mysterious woman on a winter morning stroll in Brompton Cemetery, London.

Brompton Cemetery is one of seven huge cemeteries that Parliament established around London in the mid-1800s to cope with a shortage of adequate burial grounds. It contains over 35,000 monuments and covers over 40 acres. 

Winter Morning Stroll

Detail

Yon High Hill

A re-worked watercolor sketch using digital brushes. 

When I saw the morning dew on this hill I thought to myself “But look, the morn, in russet mantle clad, walks o’re the dew of yon high eastward hill.”

Or maybe that was Horatio in Hamlet, Act I, Scene I. 

I sometimes get the two of us confused.

Yon High Hill
30" x 24"

Detail

Great Skellig

Robin and friend Carla contemplate the mystical island of Great Skellig (barely visible on the horizon) in the Atlantic, just off the southwestern shore of Ireland.

A monastery was founded on the barren rock island between the 6th and 8th century. It was continuously occupied until it was abandoned in the late 12th century.

I’ve heard of monastic solitude but, come on!

Digital print
22" x 18"

Robin, detail.

Botanical Garden

The Thursday Plein Air Painters met at the recently opened Santa Fe Botanical Garden for a morning of location painting. I'm getting used to the idea that I don't need to leave the painting location with a finished painting. That's probably a bad attitude, traditionally speaking, but I’m breaking lots of other rules too, so there.

A section of Phase One of the brand new Santa Fe Botanical Garden. Painters are setting up under a portal.

Color sketch of garden rock sculptures, painted on location with acrylic on watercolor pad. 

Later, in the studio, I added a little more detail. 

After reworking more, I took an iPhone photo of the painting, imported it into the computer, repainted the imported version using Corel Painter software, then enlarged the digital painting to 30 x 40 inches (below). 

The final digital version.

Detail.

   

Mermaid Tavern Plaza

Digital watercolor of the Mermaid Tavern Plaza, also known as the front yard.

G’s Studio

Last week, Bob (from my Tuesday night drawing group) and I visited G (also a regular at the drawing group) at her studio in Santa Fe.

Cookies, sparkling water, and freaky massive drawings exploding onto canvases. Experience some of them at her web site.

I shot a few iPhone photos in the studio, including one of Bob that I later used for a digital painting.

Visit to G’s Studio
Digital print
30" x 24"

Detail

I also grabbed a photo of the mysterious G and used it to create another digital painting.

G in Her Studio
Digital print
36" x 32"

Plein Air Chimayo

Three plein air artists and I drove to Chimayo, a cool little village about 45 minutes northeast of Santa Fe and set up our easels outside the humble and historic Catholic church, El Santuario de Chimayo (built in 1816).

Using acrylics on watercolor paper, I decided to paint in a low-stress, enjoy-the-morning, primitive style, also referred to as “crappy drawing” by some more accomplished artists. Later in the studio, I finished the painting, photographed it, then digitally resized it to 40x30 inches for digital output on paper or canvas.

El Santuario de Chimayo
Acrylic on watercolor paper
Print size: 40 x 30 inches

Digital paint version
32 x 24 inches

Poster version
32 x 26 inches

Waterfall 2

Another view of one of the waterfalls at the entrance to Bishop’s Lodge, just north of Santa Fe.

Waterfall 2
Acrylic on watercolor paper

Painting at Valle Caldera

Six of us from the Thursday Santa Fe Plein Air group drove to Valle Caldera, formerly known to most of us as Baca Ranch or Valle Grande. The caldera is a huge valley created by a volcano that collapsed upon itself millions of years ago, located in the mountains just above Los Alamos, New Mexico.

Road & creek in Valle Caldera
Acrylic on watercolor paper