Wednesday Wanderings: Let's Talk about Rocks.

The Four Corners area is full of rock. Much to the dispair of the first pioneers, but much to the joy of artists, rocks dominate the landscape. And to be frank, rocks are just great fun to paint. They provide sharp, crisp shapes against any vegetation and create wonderful shapes and shadows. They are at their essence very simple basic shapes.

Wait--simple, basic shapes are boring, right? Wrong. Simple shapes quickly become very complex in nature. Just add a few variations and simple can become very interesting. Simple shapes are a great anchor to start your paintings on.

One of the basic concepts in painting is defining directional planes. Think of a box, each side of the
box receives different amounts of direct light and environmental bounce light. In almost all cases the light bouncing around the cube, or indeed any object, changes compared to the color of the direct light. If there is any blue in the environment, like the sky in most landscapes, then the bounce light will become cooler or bluer than the direct light. Along with the obvious value changes between direct light and various degrees of shadow, this color shift is how our minds read the various directional planes to define shape. Add that with the base color of the object (red for most of the rocks by me) and you have all the colors you need to describe that box.

The easiest way of demonstrating this color and value shift of each plane is the simple box. And guess what most rocks are? That's right, slightly irregular boxes.

Take a look at this closeup from my painting Canyon Watchman.  Notice the rocks are made up of planes of various colors and values. If you pull back and see the painting as a whole you see the structure of the canyon wall.

Love those rocks . . .