For Artists Who Love the Outdoors

Sometimes I unconsciously paint two pieces that seem to work well together. In my Landscape collection, "Labour Day" and "Upper Kananaskis" seem to work as companions. Both are studio pieces which resulted from a hike around Upper Kananaskis Lake in southern Alberta,  two views which were literally back to back along the trail. That's why there is a strong similarity in composition and mood between them. When they were shown at the Resolution Gallery recently, I was pleased to have people tell me that they looked and felt like a pair. When I told them where they were painted, they went back to them, looking back and forth to compare their respective vantage points. It doesn't happen often, but occasionally one site will call up this kind of dual response.

I sense the same kind of feeling in two plein air pieces which I've done over this last week, "Blevins Trail" and "Weather Forecast". They look out over the same rough patch of desert with the Usery Mountain as a backdrop. The difference in this case is the incoming weather system. In "Blevins Trail" the sun is out and the trail seems optimistic; in "Weather Forecast", there is a change coming and the sun is blinkered by scudding clouds.

Both of them work with the same elemental compositional stuff - horizontals and verticals. In paintings, horizontal lines add calmness and a feeling of stability to the piece, while verticals give the painting power and majesty.  The desert floor provides my stability while the saguaro cactus provide the majesty. I think they do in nature as well, and can see myself doing a closer study of them in future pieces. The diagonal path in each piece is there to add energy and give direction.  I've softened both compositions minimally with smaller cactus and other desert growth, because it's the strong horizontal lines which I hope give the pieces their strength and the saguaro cactus that give them whatever grandeur they possess.  I've deliberately kept the colour range pretty quiet for this pair, but I can feel that a more vivid palette is just around the corner.

Blevins Trail