Oil Studies

9×12, Hermit Trail Study

16×20, Kaibab Juniper Study

9×12, Kaibab Study

8×10 Cedar Ridge Study (Kaibab Trail)

These are oil studies that became part of my big painting posted earlier on this blog.  They are done from charcoal sketches from photographs I took on two different hikes last winter and spring.  I hiked the Kaibab and Bright Angel Trail the first weekend of March and the Hermit Trail during the first weekend of April.  The charcoal sketches I did served to extract from the photos the essence of the scene, not worrying about every detail.  I will post some of the sketches as part  of my next posting.  I took these sketches into my studio and used them as a direct source for these oil studies.  I made up the colors in these studies, not looking at the photos again.  I wanted to create a painting using more of my imagination, drawing from my experiences when I was hiking and thinking on how I remembered how it looked, not how the photograph looks.  I used a palette knife to paint these.  I painted five different scenes in 8×10, re-worked them in 9×12, and chose two to paint at 16×20 before I began the big painting.