musings from the studio and beyond ~
dawn chandler’s reflections on art and life. . . .
7.27.13 ~ morning painting at miranda
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| miranda morning ~ by dawn chandler ~ oil on panel (en plein air) ~ 6 x 12 inches ~ copyright dawn chandler 2013 |
“Do you want to go paint in the backcountry?” Philmont’s Museum Director asked me the first day of my art residency.
“Are you kidding me? YES!“
“Where do you want to go?”
And so it was that I ended up last Thursday morning — a day forecast with rain, but which ended up being the most clear and glorious day of the summer — with my plein air paint kit up at Miranda.
Miranda.
Miranda!
In all my years of working at Philmont, in all my years painting, never did I imagine the two passions would meet so…so….so physically! And yet there I was on the edge of my favorite, most beautiful meadow in all of New Mexico at 7:15a.m. watching the long shadows of night time recede from the damp meadow back into the surrounding aspens, my fingers numb with cold mixing colors, the smell of wildflowers and pine trees and coffee awakening my senses.
7.22.13 ~ late morning, urraca mesa
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| late morning ` urraca mesa ~ by dawn chandler ~ oil and mixed media on panel (en plein air) ~ 6 x 12 inches ~ copyright dawn chandler 2013 |
I was so pumped from my early morning painting excursion trying to capture the Tooth and Trail Peak, that when I got back into BaseCamp that morning, I decided to keep at it! Here’s just behind the Philmont Museum, looking south to Urraca Mesa. The clouds can’t seem to decide whether they’re coming or going.
I painted this on one of my “word panels”; a panel on which I’ve glued words and phrases. In this case (as with all the paintings in this series) the words come from Rpbert Service’s poem, The Call of the Wild. If you look carefully, you can just make out some of the words bleeding through
7.21.13 ~ sunrise lights the tooth of time (philmont)
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| sunrise lights the tooth of time (philmont) ~ by dawn chandler ~ oil on panel (en plein air) ~ 6 x 12 inches ~ copyright dawn chandler 2013 |
I admit: It was pretty glorious to be standing before the the Tooth in the first light of morning, breathing in the sparkling clean after-rain air, working my palette knife frantically trying to capture the color and light before it all changed in a moment….
Here, Wednesday morning 17 July 2013.
07.20.13 ~ morning light on trail peak
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| morning light ~ trail peak ~ by dawn chandler ~ oil on panel (en plein air) ~ 8 x 10 inches ~ copyright dawn chandler |
One good thing about rainy weather out here, is that sometimes the clouds break. When that happens in the early morning, you can get some lovely rosy light and interesting tattered shapes in the clouds. I caught this when perched on the Cattle Headqurters’ overlook early Wednesday morning.
Funny, in all my years staring at this mountain, I’ve never climbed it.
How about you Philmont readers? Anyone climb Trail Peak?
7.16.13 ~ of glorious rain and paint
On Monday morning the Ranch awoke to rain. When was the last time that happened? No one could remember. The color of the day was grey, but few of us “old timers” were complaining; after five months of record drought, it was the most gorgeous, wet, shade of grey a person had ever seen.
The rain continued all morning, with only occasional breaks. I headed up to the lookout above Cattle Headquarters during one of them, and attempted to capture the look of Urraca Mesa engulfed in the clouds, my paint box sitting on the hood of my car.
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| rain consuming urraca mesa ~ by dawn chandler ~ oil on panel (en plein air) ~ 9 x 11 inches ~ copyright dawn chandler 2013 |
While up there, a Philmont vehicle pulled over to see what I was doing; it turned out to be Philmont’s Ranch Manager, Bob Rickleffs. Good to catch up and share impressions of the rain. We agreed that “back in the day” (1980s) the rain always seems to move in and settle for at least a few days straight each July. The kind of rain where you’d wake up and fall asleep to rain. But we haven’t seen that kind of rain in years, maybe even decades. Indeed, when I drove through Colfax County just ten days ago, the grass in the plains wasn’t even brown, it was white, parched the pallor of death.
And here now, overnight, the grass had turned green again. A deep, lush, verdant, velvety green. Astounding.
By afternoon the rain had pretty much subsided, though the clouds still threatened, and by evening I was back out painting off the hood of my car, this time on the road in front of the Villa.
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| evening west across the pasture ~ by dawn chandler ~ oil on panel (en plein air) ~ 8 x 10 inches ~ copyright dawn chandler |