Last fall my husband and I…
… went on a bucket list trip out west. We were gone three weeks and did an extensive tour that included Grand Canyon, Death Valley, Havasu Falls, Monument Valley, Arches National Park, Petrified Forest, Kodachrome Basin, Bryce Canyon, Zion National Park and several stops along the way.
It was a fantastic adventure and truly a chance of a lifetime. I spent everyday surrounded by overwhelming beauty and magnificence. I knew while we were traveling I would want to put all my inspiration to paint.
As soon as I was back in my studio I was trying to decide what places I wanted to draw my inspiration from. The first place we stopped was Death Valley. After going through the photos I took there, I realized that Death Valley itself was such and incredible place that I wanted to start there before moving on.
I began a series of 10 paintings based on my experiences there. My intention was not to recreate the landscapes I had seen, but to relive the feelings I had while I was there and just let the energy from that place flow. It wasn’t important to reproduce, since I could not reproduce nature better than herself, but rather I wanted to let the feelings of beauty, stillness, austerity, texture of that place move through me and into my paintings.
I thought it would be fun to share how the paintings evolved over time. Below are some shots of the beginning phases. I wanted each painting to have it’s own identity, much like the different feelings of the different areas of Death Valley.
