City of Rocks, 8/24/06

Yesterday we went to the City of Rocks State Park. The huge boulders are lava that they think came from a volcano near Albuquerque. They are just plopped down out on the side of a mesa and flat area. I wasn't impressed from the road, but when you get there it is amazing. There is quite a bit of space in between the boulders. You can hike around like a maze. They make shade and there are oak trees (I think) and many flowers, thanks to all the rain. It was great. We spent about 5 hours there. I did the two plein air sketch/paintings. The rocks with the tree was first on Art Spectrum sanded paper, 9 x 12, portrait layout. the paper was a soft blue. I used mostly my new set of Rembrandt pastels with some NuPastels and Daler-Rowney to fill in and blend. I like the feel of that scene. The landscape formatted painting is on white Art Spectrum paper. I brushed on some pastels in contrasting colors and wet them with water to cover the white of the paper. Then painted with the same pastels as the previous day. The mountains in the back appear closer than they were, I assume I made them too dark so that pulled them closer. It was a good practice study but I like the first one the best. Sue is fascinated with the rocks in New Mexico and likes the challenge of sketching and painting them. We painted in the Española area last year. I did remember to take one photo of the first before I put on the lights in the foreground. I may just add some highlights with some soft pastels and frame that one!

The hummingbird stopped by to visit. I got a photo of a squirrel and bird as well.

Gene rode his bike to the park and came back with us. He rode about 25 miles. I may not post again tomorrow as we will be on the road. He will attempt his birthday ride. His idea is to ride his age (65) and put some miles in the bank for the age when he can't ride that far! So he will try for his goal of 100 miles. He did make it last year and it is much flatter here, so I imagine he will do it. Stay tuned.