I spent Christmas morning just below town painting this scene of Coon Creek (yes we have an abundance of racoons around here). Coon Creek runs into the Shoshone River right next to the Byron Bridge. After I finished the Prayer Rock project and a couple of other pending things I pulled this canvas back on the easle, finessed it a little bit more and here it is...waiting for the signature. A nice 16x20 Wyoming winter scene. To see the start, just scroll down and you'll see me as I painted it on location.
Sidon Canal at Prayer Rock-1902
A few months ago Steve Hitz and his wife Ginger came into my studio. In my last years of high school in Byron, Wyoming, Steve's Grandpa, Chris Hitz lived next door and Steve and his family lived a couple of hundred yards down the same road. I think Steve was in 4th grade the year I graduated. His older brother Mike and I lived in the same house for a short period of time in college at BYU.
In my studio looking at paintings Steve and Ginger recounted a very short version of their family and business lives. They raised 5 children and built a tremendously successful business. There is much that I don't know (well maybe I should revise that to: there are a FEW things that I don't know) and what their company US REPORTS, INCORPORATED was one of those things. The business has to do with helping insured businesses safety concerns and loss control efforts. They built it into a huge national corporation, sold it and are now involved in mentoring entreprenures by teaching correct principles. Steve, along with James W. Ritchie have written a great book entitled "The Ministry of Business; how correct principles magnify buisness success".
Since Steve and I both grew up with the dramatic Prayer Rock with the Lincoln Head perched near the top, I was very pleased that he and Ginger commissioned me to do this painting.
Scroll down to see how the painting started and the progress it made.
Sears Dixie Invitational Art Show St. George, Utah
These two fine paintings will be displayed at the Dixie State University Art Show in St. George, Utah from February 14 until March 30th. Each painting measures 24 x 12 and each will sell for $2400. As usual, I do my best to research the clothing and in the case of the Soldier his weapons and gear.
500 men of the Mormon Battalion were conscripted to join in the war against Mexico. They sent their pay and alowances for uniforms back to Winter Quarters (Council Bluffs on the Missouri River) where their friends and families were preparing and starting on their journey west to Utah.
Christmas Morning
Christmas Morning I said to Pam; "Do you want me lurking around the kitchen while you prepare the dinner for the family or do you want me to go down to the river and paint a picture?"
Apparently she didn't want me "lurking" so I had a lot of fun doing this piece. I love painting winter scenes!
Prayer Rock-Progression (slowly!)
In the movie (long ago) "The Agony & Ecstacy" starring Charlton Heston as Michaelangelo and Rex Harrison as Pope Julius, Michaelangelo (Chuck) would be up on the scaffold painting the Sistene Chapel ceiling and Pope Rex would come in with his entourage, look up and holler, "When will you be finished?". And Chuck would call down (kindly at first) "when I am done". This was repeated frequently until Chuck had lost his patience and was infuriated. Well, Pope Julius (Rex Harrison) was pretty frustrated as well and was hostile, "WHEN WILL YOU BE FINISHED!!!" he would roar. Michaelangelo (Chuck Heston) would bellow back from above, "WHEN I AM DONE!!!". And then he "accidentally"dropped a hammer from high up on the scaffold that landed near the Pope's feet, to emphasize the point. From then on El Papa would stick his head in the door (the entourage would not enter) to see the progress.
With this project (as with many others in the past) I have been both the Pope and the Painter. In my mind, when I come into the studio I shout, "WHEN WILL YOU BE FINISHED?". And I holler back (in my mind of course), WHEN I AM DONE!". And then I feel like dropping a hammer.
In this painting I have made quite a few changes with people and things in the foreground. You can see that if you compare it to the earlier photos of the painting.
The Prayer Rock Ongoing Project
For me the creative process demands that I continue to be open minded about what is best for the painting. Often I have to destroy a good thing for a better thing. The bottom snapshot shows the painting as it was when I brought it back into the studio from a painting session on the canal bank where the colors of the rock and sky were laid in.
In the middle photo one can see that I have scrubbed in a warm red oxcide underpainting over the lower half of the canvas and I have finished the sky and much of Prayer Rock (as finished as anything gets while there is paint in my brush and the painting is on the easle). The standing couple in the foreground are probably not going to make it and I have replaced the small scraper with a wheeled scraper and a team. In the distance is a wagon and some workers. Even as I work in color I am still pretty loose and sketchy, including the guys on the lower right and the one character pulling the other out of the way of the oncoming water.
Further along as the painting progresses (top picture) there are even more changes. I decided Byron Sessions, the leader of the project, needed to be on horseback and so he replaces the scraper and the team in the lower left corner. That scraper and team are being moved to the other side of the canal (you can barely see them). The wagon in the distance is being replaced by a workman, scraper and horse and the people on the lower right hand side are taking shape. The running children are still little ghosts.
Prayer Rock over the years
I'm crazy about painting rock formations, cliffs and mountains. Prayer Rock is a facinating formation for several reasons and the Mormon Canal building story is just one of them. It faces south, generally, and the sunlight and shadows are always dramatic (even when the sun is behind the clouds).
A bunch of years ago, accompanied by my daughter Heather, we took our paint boxes and each of us had a 24 x 30 canvas and we stood on the canal bank and painted Prayer Rock from this angle looking east. The bottom picture is my location sketch (that's what us "painters" call a painting done on location; the more artsy people call them "plein aire" paintings). Heather Hopkinson Nielsen's painting turned out well also.
The top painting is a 30 x 40 painting completed in my studio from the location sketch. The painting sat in my studio for a period of time. As I was reading journals of pioneers and some family history it occurred to me that my wife Pamela's great grandfather John Cozzens who was an original 1900 Byron Pioneer, crossed the plains as an 18 year old in 1856 pulling one of those handcarts. He and his cousin Martha were in the third handcart company under the direction of a Brother Bunker. They started out few days earlier than the Martin and Willey handcart companies and missed being part of those companies that were stranded on South Pass Wyoming losing over 200 lives.
So, the story I'm sticking to as to why I painted handcart Pioneers in front of Prayer Rock in Northern Wyoming, 250 miles from where the actual events happened was to honor those people who sacrificed so much to bring us to where we are...that, and also to make an exciting painting.
Prayer Rock Project (the saga continues!)
One day last week the light was just right so I took my portable French Easle and my 30 x 40 canvas out to the canal at Prayer Rock and Painted in the colors, lights and shadows of that awesome formation. These cliffs at this place in the canal have always appealed to me and I have painted Prayer Rock and the adjacent cliffs many times. I'll share some of those paintings and sketchs soon.
If you look close, up near the top you can see Lincoln's face.
Prayer Rock Project
Another great project has come my way. About 5 miles west of Byron is a place called Prayer Rock. Some refer to it as Lincoln Head Rock because of a small formation near the peak resembles Lincoln's head on the penny. Anyway, Prayer Rock got it's name from the Mormon Pioneers who settled Byron in 1900 and began digging the Sidon Canal which to this day waters the farms of the North Big Horn Basin. It was and is quite a tremendous engineering project as they used teams pulling scrapers and diggers and wagons loaded with desert sand and rocks. They came to this great rock formation that was in the way and in order to maintain the necessary downward grade they needed to dig under this great overhang...a very dangerous proposition for those workers.
A lot of prayer went into the project asking for protection and safety. On a particular day, Byron Sessions, the ecclesiastical and project leader called all the workers who were working under the overhang to quickly gather up their tools and come up out from under the rock. Within minutes the great formation broke apart and down came hundreds of tons of sandstone and yet everyone was safe. Everyone there felt they had witnessed a miracle and gave thanks to God for His protection. There is also an eyewitness account that said that a day earlier Byron Sessions prophesied that within 24 hours the rock would come down. I think his skeptical son Bynie Sessions, pulled out his watch to see if "the old man" was a true prophet. And he was.
So what I have chosen to depict is not the crashing of the massive rock but the completion of this section of the canal and the first flowing of the water. A few weeks ago I sketched this charcoal drawing on a large canvas. Since Prayer Rock is so close to my studio I go out there frequently and stand on the canal bank making sketches of the lighting on the rocks at different times of day and of different angles.
Lt. Louis Hamblin-Portrait in Progress
Louis Hamblin-World War II Ace
Read MoreShenandoah Art Show at Southern Virginia University
River of Gold is a 30 x 36 painting that sold at an art show put on by Southern Virginia University. The show is put on every year to raise funds for scholarships.
The art will continue being displayed at the University for Visitors as well as Faculty, Staff to view and purchase. You can also see the show on-line at svu.edu/artshow.
The online show will continue through November 30.
FROZEN CROSSING or FINAL FAREWELL
It is always gratifying to find books and publications that use my work to illustrate their pages. A new book is out published by Deseret Books titled "ELIZA-The Life and Faith of Eliza R. Snow". Eliza was a poetess and was the writer of many Church hymns and she was able to express her feelings and beliefs with the written word.
My painting (above) was one of four paintings that were reproduced in the book. Eliza Snow was among the people who left Nauvoo, Illinois to begin the long trek west. As expressive as she usually was of the experience of leaving Nauvoo she simply wrote in her journal on February 13, 1846: "Cross'd the Mississippi and join'd the Camp."
My painting is titled "Frozen Crossing" and sometimes is listed as "Final Farewell" and is being produced as a beautiful limited edition print on canvas, called a giclee and is signed and numbered. Frozen Crossing can be purchased framed for $795 plus shipping.
THE DREAM, THE STRUGGLE, THE VICTORY-cover on a new book
A new publication produced by Covenant Communications has used my painting, "The Dream, The Struggle, The Victory". The title of the book is "History of the Saints" and is a well written depiction of the settlers who came out west. The book also has several other of my paintings along with other artist's works.
Sycamore Creek-The Final Phase (I hope)
Sycamore Creek-A major painting 38x60 (with some additions)
In February of 2013 I bring this painting back onto my easle. I have decided that the large rock that juts into the stream (see picture below) caused too harsh a seperation between the foreground and the upper part of the painting. In other words it didn't give our eyes and smooth enough flow as we gaze at the painting. There is always a risk of decreasing the visual effects of a painting when you start monkeying around, but I am almost finished and this will be the final phase (maybe). It seems to be coming along.
Sycamore Creek-The Next Step
Sycamore Creek-A major painting 48x60
Some twenty years after the sketch (below) painted during the Boy Scout Camping trip I decided to tackle this large painting using the 24x30 sketch and a few snapshots. I started this in September 2012. I finished it and showed it in my studio and a few other places. It turned out really nice...BUT...if a painting is in my studio for too much time I might see some things I want to do to it! So, a few months later I take this painting and see some areas where I might make improvements. See the additions to this painting above.
Progression-Sycamore Creek in Arizona
Sycamore Creek location painting
A few years ago I accompanied my son Todd, and some Boy Scouts on an overnight camping trip at Sycamore Creek in Central Arizona. The weather was warm and while the boys got up and ate breakfast and then took a swim in the creek, I got out a 24x30 canvas and did this sketch. I liked how it turned out.
Honeymoon Trail at the Dixie State College Art Show
HONEYMOON TRAIL 15x30 oil painting
Honeymoon Trail is being shown along with OVER THE MOUNTAIN (below) at the Sears Invitational Art Show at the Dixie State University in St. George, Utah. The show starts at the Sears Gallery on Dixie State Campus on February 15 and runs through March 1.
As the Mormons settled in Utah in the middle of the 19th Century under the direction of Brigham Young they began to disperse north, south, east and west to build colonies of small communities. St. George was the closest place where L.D.S. couples who lived in Arizona or other southern areas could travel to be married in the temple there. In those days the treck would take several weeks and of course they were chaperoned.
Dixie State College Sears Invitational Art Show
OVER THE MOUNTAIN 24x36 oil painting
This painting along with the one above will be on display at the Dixie State University (formerly College) Sears Invitational Art show. The show kicks off with an art preview at 4:00 P.M. February 15 (Friday) and continues on through March 31.
St. George, Utah where Dixie College (University I mean) has a pretty nice climate and to the north are the magnificent Pine Valley Mountain that are snow covered throughout the winter. As I brought my rider and his pack string over the mountain in this painting Pine Valley Mountain was in my mind. I've painted the mountain several times and can't get enough of it. Before I have painted it from a distance and this time I'm representing it up close and personal.
Painting at Heather's Lake
While at my daughter Heather's in Tucson I painted this sketch. My friend Craig Reay was the cinematographer (that's high falutin' movie lingo for camera man) and if you google his name he actually has a filmography. Check it out. He also has a rock band and plays venues down here in southern Arizona. He refuses to get me in the movies and he won't let me be the keyboard guy in his band! Some friend!
Sketch interlude on a long trip
On a recent trip to Tucson, Arizona, I took a break to paint a sketch. I also rushed to Farson 40 miles away to get that big waffle cone (I try to never miss it!).