Orange Cliffs Escalante

"Orange Cliffs Escalante", 6 x 7 In, Oil, 2022

Southern Utah

Desert Sketch Utah

"Desert Sketch Utah", 8 x 10 In, Oil, 2021
Desert view Utah.
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Broken Clouds Escalanate

"Broken Clouds Escalante", 8 x 10 In, Oil, 2022

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Utah Wash

"Utah Wash", 8 x 10 In, Oil, 2022

Image from one of my trips to Utah in the fall.

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Tree Escalante

"Tree Escalante", 10 x 12 In, Oil, 2018

This is a painting from one of my yearly trips to Utah.


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Escalante Mountains and Sky

"Escalante Mountains and Sky", 4 x 8 In, Oil, 2020

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Clouds Over Escalante

"Clouds Over Escalante", 10 x 12 In, Oil on Museum Board

Please join with me in supporting the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA) to save our National Parks and National Monuments in Utah from oil drilling operations.

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Into the Canyon

"Into the Canyon", 10 x 12 In, Oil on Museum Board

This painting is from the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument in Southern Utah. The area, approximately one million acres of public lands, is called the Grand Staircase because the land rises in geologic steps from the low-lying desert to coniferous forest. The following link describes Escalante and its many wonders.

https://www.blm.gov/programs/national-conservation-lands/utah/grand-staircase-escalante-national-monument

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Toward Escalante

"Toward Escalante", 10 x 12 In, Oil on Museum Board
Every spring I go to Southern Utah to paint out in the desert areas. For someone who grew up in the evergreen forests of the Pacific Northwest at sea level, when I cross the mountains to the eastern side I am ever fascinated by the layers of rock and color, and I especially love the area of the Grand Staircase Escalante. These scrubby pines grow at the higher elevations.

Utah Snow

"Utah Snow", 8 x 12 In, Oil on Museum Board

I've actually been painting a lot in the last three months, but have posted few paintings, maybe because they all feel like an experiment. Sometimes I simply can't remember how I used to do it and the most benevolent interpretation of that is that the universe is trying to tell me something.


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Sky over Utah

"Sky over Utah", 8 x 10 In, Oil on Museum Board

Sometimes when doing a painting, the simpler, the better. And quit while the bandito is still holding out her arm, showing how far it is to the horizon, before that cranky sheriff comes around looking for evidence of wrongdoing. If only I could do that every time. But it means I have to start without the sheriff standing behind me in the first place.

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Utah Color

"Utah Color", 10 x 12 In, Oil on Museum Board
I am continually going back to my photos of Escalante and the backside of Capitol Reef in Utah because of my memories of being there. Unlike Bryce and Zion, there were no tourists--just deserts, mountains, canyons, sunlight and color.

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Utah Light

"Utah Light", 8 x 10 In, Oil on Museum Board
Here in the rain of the Northwest, I am thinking about Utah and the warm colors of Escalante and Capitol Reef which I'm picturing in my April of this year.

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Utah Sky

"Utah Sky", 8 x 10 In, Oil on Museum Board
I'm hoping to go back to Utah in April to paint again. There are so many places to go in Utah, but my favorites are the backside of Capital Reef and the Grand-Staircase Escalante. You definitely need a 4-wheel drive and a good map.

Clouds over Escalante - SOLD

5/17/10 "Clouds over Escalante", 10" x 12", Oil
This is another painting in my cloud series.  Even though the Escalante is pretty colorful, this painting is mainly about trying to create color harmony with subtle warm and cool grays.

On a whim I entered the Daily Painter's Contest and I managed to get into the top 20!  Now it is up to the voting public to narrow the field and finally choose a winner.  I am competing against some good painters, but I think it would be fun to win and I hope you click on the link and vote for me!  Remember that it is not the star rating that counts, but the number of votes compared to the other contestants.

The best part of entering the contest has been meeting new people, both art lovers and other like-minded artists.  Thank you to everybody who has signed up for my blog or has become a "Follower."  I hope we all have a chance to exchange our thoughts about painting!  Contests are fun and networking is good, but the driver is the desire to go into the studio or out into the wild and stand with a brush in hand before nature or a vision and see it to completion with all the dogged persistence of a crazy painter.

Escalante Hillside

5/1/10 "Escalante Hillside", 9" x 9", Oil
This is one of the Escalante cloud painting I did last week in my studio from a photo taken on an October day when clouds covered the big sky of Southeastern Utah.  I was interested in the cool tones of the hillside in the subdued light against the sky.  Right now I'm in Eastern Washington with friends painting in the scab lands of Washington State.  For those of you not from this area, these lands were formed by the massive Missoula Flood that occurred over and over during the ice age as the ice dam holding back a monstrous lake in Montana burst and flooded nearly all of Eastern Washington.  Hopefully I'll get a couple of good paintings and tell you more about the geology of this beautiful area.

Storm Clouds Escalante - SOLD

4/27/10 "Storm Clouds Escalante", 8" x 10", Oil
From a photograph, this is another cloud study and also a quick study--I set the timer for 40 minutes.  Utah is a paradise for outdoor painters--the colors are warm and the skies are big.  Nothing like the cool greens that surround me the Pacific Northwest.

Table Land Escalante

4/26/10 "Table Land Escalante" 10" x 12" Oil
This is another of my cloud painting series done with big brushes from one of my photographs from Utah.

I am still trying to figure out the best way to do a shopping cart on the blog because I've gotten feedback that there is interest in this.  However, since I don't want to litter the blog with Paypal buttons, I've created on the sidebar a drop-down box with the last 10 paintings and some low-key "cart" buttons.  Since Paypal doesn't allow more than 10 items in the list, I will be periodically updating it with more recent work.  If you are interested in any work not in the list, you can always send me email.  Not all the blog paintings are for sale through this site for the "daily painting" rate.

Sky Over Escalante

4/24/10 "Dark Sky over Escalante", 9" x 12", Oil

I like to work in a series--partly because it removes a variable that can be a barrier to the daily process--I don't have to decide what to paint each morning.  But its also because I like to explore different aspects of the same subject.  We went to Utah in October and I painted every afternoon we were there, but I also took many photographs, especially on the "cloud" day.  Painting from a photograph just isn't the same as painting on site, so this painting was really about color--trying to get a depth of color that didn't exist in the photograph.  I think I could have made the color more saturated.

Escalante Outcrop

4/23/10 "Escalante Outcrop", 10" x 12", Oil
To add inspiration to my cloud studies, I painted today with two large brushes--a one inch diameter round bristle and a #16 filbert.  Its a lot harder to clean big brushes because they are loaded with so much more paint.  So I used one for the very light passages and the other for the rest of the painting.