Finished

Desert Gems

Original Oil painting

26" X 44"

Thanks for following this piece. It was fun to work with such a unique landscape.

MANITOBA TRIP

I just returned from 2 remote camps in northern Manitoba. A big thank you to Doug and Helen Webber who made this possible.

Helen, Doug, Me, my husband Jim

 Accessible by float plane, we were surrounded by wilderness and the timing coincided to watch the tundra put on her fall colors. Snow joined us both on the tundra and at the second camp in the boreal forest.

We saw lots of the creatures which inhabit this northern clime: polar bears, arctic fox, peregrine falcon, hudsonian godwits, eagles, caribou, moose, snow geese, sandhill cranes, tundra swans, and we had some surprises. 

How about witnessing a hawk take a snow goose out of the air, or a mink by the water's edge looking for northern pike fish scraps after an afternoon of fishing? A spruce grouse (in a spruce tree of course) and a Harris's sparrow were my first sightings of these birds. Barely feeling the below freezing temperatures, we marveled at the displays of northern lights.

Wonderful trip with lots of great memories! 

The Foreground

With the foreground blocked in, I can start on the gemsbok.

More tree

I have moved between the tree and its shadow, refining one, modifying the other, until they work together.

The tree

This is one complicated tree. With my shadow painted, I am in essence backward engineering the tree.

Life

While the dead tree is cool and feels all desert-y, I wanted to include some of the living greenery which is found among these dunes. Each tree is an oasis of life, filled with chattering birds and offering shelter and green morsels for large herbivores.

Orange!

According to NASA Earth Observatory, the Namib Desert is thought to be the world's oldest desert. This age, and the accompanying iron oxidation of the sand, has created dunes which range from dull pink to brilliant orange. I found the color simply fascinating.

The dead-looking tree near the center of the painting was just what I wanted. Its shadows seem to dance on the orange dune.

More Dunes

With these closer dunes I get to liven up the color relative to the most distant dune. At this size, it is difficult to see some of the color subtleties which are needed to have this block feel like sand. Some of the oil paints I used: quinacridone coral, cadmium red, cadmium orange, cadmium yellow, naples yellow, and titanium white. I also worked in some of the lighter purple shadow color from the background dune.