Deep in the Canyon

Utah is home to many amazing national parks. These include Zion, Bryce, Canyonlands, Arches, and Capitol Reef. All of these are located in southern Utah and feature many different geological formation. In addition to the deep red canyons, there are ginormous hoodoos and sandstone arches. Rivers and streams run through the canyons, sometimes dry, sometimes filled with raging torrents, other times calm and serene. Flash floods are something to beware as they can come out of nowhere – storms elsewhere can cause floods miles away.

Here, an imaginary canyon in the autumn, complete with red sandstone and cottonwoods and evergreens. Colors are strongly contrasted when the sun slants into the canyon, bright and dark.

Getting the colors and the contrast “just so” is really challenging. I am playing around here with applying thin washes to tint large areas of the paper and then moving to more highly pigmented paint for deeper and brighter colors. I don’t normally paint like this, and it really makes me think a bit. More practice with this technique is necessary to find that fine balance.

Anyway, Arches 10×14 rough 140# paper; watercolor.