My Views of the Colorado Plateau

Mystic Passage


I love the Colorado Plateau and it often serves as my muse for my paintings. The following paintings were all created from pictures I took in my travels around various sections of this high mesa area lapping over the states of Colorado, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico.

My subsequent post will feature some of the photographs of landmarks that were used as inspiration for these paintings.

To the left is Mystic Passage which was inspired by Double Arch at Arches National Park in Utah, USA. and one of the most noteworthy and known areas of the Colorado Plateau.

Trail to Arsenic Springs


It is 24 x 18 mixed media on canvas depiction of the Wild Rivers Park on the Rio Grande Gorge in Northern New Mexico; the eastern edge of the Colorado Plateau. And I was practicing stormy skies and a slightly more subdued palate to indicate less than full sunshine. I needed to practice that for the following painting: Escalante After the Rain, which is inspired by my sister's and my house boat trip on Lake Powell. After heavy rains waterfalls formed on the canyon walls and transformed the canyons.



This is the 24 x 36 inch canvas I was so afraid to attempt. I don't think the photograph of this work does it merit because I have put in metallic silver and gold into the waterfalls and a luminescent paint on the slick rock walls of the canyon in the distance.

While I was doing these two paintings I decided to revisit a painting I had done two years ago of Bowtie Arch at Canyonlands Utah. It was taken from a less than successful photograph that I decided to play with on my computer in Photoshop and then print on watercolor paper and add paint to. It sold at its first public viewing and I have sold numerous prints. It is a somber piece. And I was just curious to see if it could be brightened up in keeping with my new style. This is the result.



I call it Coyote Portal II and it is a 14 x 11 mixed media on canvas board.

The Navajos believe that Coyote came up through a hole in the earth and led the people or Dinah to the earth they now inhabit. Looking at this arch in a side area of Canyonlands, Utah I was reminded of this story.

The lands of the Colorado Plateau are indeed magical and inspire a lot of photographers and artists and writers.