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

Joe and White Place

I recently spent a day in Abiquiu with artist pal Joe Hall. The village of Abiquiu, 45 minutes northwest of Santa Fe, is best known as the home of artist Georgia O’Keeffe.

We hiked through the White Place, a unique canyon of white rock formations. It also is the location used for the scene of the final battle with aliens in the supremely weird but entertaining movie Cowboys and Aliens. It is best known as the subject of one (or more?) of Georgia O’Keeffe paintings.

After lunch (green chile cheeseburger) at Bode’s General Store we drove to the top of a mesa for another view of the White Place, where I shot an iPhone photo of Joe. Later I used the photo as reference for a charcoal sketch on gray Canson paper. A bit later I scanned the drawing, colorized and antiqued it in Photoshop.

Joe and the White Place
28" x 36"