A few years ago I decided to do a series of paintings of canyons and rushing arroyos with sage brushes in bloom during monsoon season based on the ancient Greek concept about the golden rectangle. As usual, I had no idea the number of problems I had created for myself. Nor did I realize the length of time it would take to solve those problems. It took me about four years to figure it out. Most of that time the paintings just hung on the wall of my studio challenging me and demanding to be completed. Moving on.

This is an oil on canvas painting. The beginning started with my making four different sizes of frames with raw canvas tightly stapled to the frames. I then triple primed the canvases with Kiltz white primer mixed with crushed marble. Next was the brush painting of the sky on each painting. That did not take long, just a few weeks to get what I wanted. Then came the pallet knife work for the bluffs. That took a couple of years figuring out how to manipulate the knife to get the stroke and textures I wanted. It took another year to learn how to do the shadows. I wanted a strong light pattern in the background with the darks in the foreground. That is the reverse of the usual landscape painting. Then the pallet knife water for presenting the power of movement. And finally the pallet knife foreground. Like I said, about four years. The most frequent negative critique is that the colors are to brilliant and the knife work is to powerful making it not look like a normal landscape. I can live with that, and very well as it was what I wanted to present.