15 in 17 - part six (Canyonlands)

Canyonlands!!!  I realize it sounds like some lame amusement park, but true to the title there are a LOT of Canyons here.  Now at this point in my life I've been to 33 states and 20 (of the 58) national parks...  I've seen a good deal of this country.  Not as many as some for sure, but probably more than most.  I don't say it to brag, but to give credential to the statement when I say:

"This is THE most fantastic landscape in America I've seen."

I would urge the world to make a trip to western Utah and see it for themselves.

One of the unique things about Canyonlands is it's divided into 3 districts.  The Needles, the Island in the Sky, and the Maze.  Some include a 4th referring to the rivers which themselves divide the districts.  I was only able to visit the first 2, because without serious rock-climbing skills it's impossible to get from one district to any other without leaving and re-entering the park somewhere else (and hundreds of miles away).  Crazy right?  In total, the park only gets 430,000 visitors per year, and most of those are likely spill off from the much more popular (and accessible) Arches NP right next door.  Compare to the Grand Canyon which gets almost exactly ten times the number at 4.3 million each year.

Anyway, onto art.  The Needles.

I don't remember exactly, but it's probably close to 50 miles from leaving the main road to the end of the national park's major road in this district.  And what a spectacular drive it is.  You're actually down at the bottom of the canyon driving past rock formations bigger than I thought possible.  Photos describe it better, but even they fail to capture the magnitude of the place.

Just watch out for flash flooding!

The Island in the Sky.  How could you not visit a place with that name?  This place is special enough to get TWO sketches.

Completely different than The Needles, this time the road takes you up on top of plateaus looking out over huge, deep canyons.  The views are utterly breathtaking.

And just a friendly reminder at the park entrance.  Funny thing is, this is the EASIEST district to reach.

Arches next...

15 in 17 - part five (Mesa Verde)

A couple tips if any of you decide to visit Mesa Verde in Southwestern Colorado...  Don't bring a dog, and come with a full tank of gas.  Unfortunately I didn't know either of these, so my trip wasn't as good as it could have been.

It takes a lot of driving to get anywhere in the park because it's all canyon, but it really does have some spectacular views.

The park is most famous for the native american cliff dwellings carved into the rock face.  This was about the best view I could get because dogs aren't allowed on the trails, and people aren't allowed without a tour guide - which takes more time than I was willing to leave the dog alone in the car for. 

Here's a quick study I finally got around to doing yesterday:

Next up, Canyonlands!! (my personal favorite)

15 in 17 - part four (Great Sand Dunes)

For those that have been following (or trying to), I clearly fell off the wagon with this one.  But between spotty internet, no internet (I camped several nights), and keeping up with the hundreds or even thousands of pictures taken each day, I never stood a chance.  Not to mention the pure exhaustion.  Eventually I gave up on trying to catch up and even now, a week after I'm in Washington, I'm still not even half-way through the 15,000 pictures I took.

But allow me to continue where I left off....  After Hot Springs I took a day off to visit some friends, the wonderful Michelle and Vincent Villafranca in northern Texas.  Michelle does some great work with the National Park Service and Vince is a talented SF/F sculptor (who just won a Chesley!!!).

It was here that I got to see my first scorpion (it came in and died and the kitchen) as well as my first Black Widow.  Actually several of them... Vince keeps an eye on their numerous nests scattered around their yard.

After that I was off to Colorado.  The Great Sands were, well, great!!  A very unique place.  The sand is leftover from ancient lakes and stuck in place because of the neighboring mountain range.  Beyond them is a huge plain and a second set of mountains behind that.  I got thunderstorms the whole time, so while it made for great photos and time lapses, I decided it was too dangerous to climb the 700 foot dunes.

The size of the dunes is incredible.  I'd point out the specks resembling people in the photo above except they're too small to see.

It POURED that night, my first in a tent on the trip, but it was worth it for the fantastic sunrise the next morning.

Here's a time lapse:

This was from a separate shoot.  Running the camera, while protecting it from rain isn't easy.  Luckily Fran was able to help by support the umbrella with her a door.

Next up, Mesa Verde!

15 parks in 17 days - part three

Great Smokey Mountains national park - (North Carolina/Tennessee)
Hot Springs national park - (Arkansas)

Yes, I'm still behind, so here's two together since my visit to each was pretty short.

I got up into the mountains pretty early, so they were quite, ahem, smokey.

Exiting of the Tennessee side, there's a weird town at the foot of the mountains called Gatlinburg.  It's one of the most bizarre places I've ever been to.  The highway becomes more or less a 5 mile strip mall, but instead of shops, each side of the road is endless tourist attractions.  Go-karts, roller coasters, water slides, magic shows, mini-golf, and all kinds of things.  And I'm not exaggerating... this goes on for FIVE miles.  The road was largely under construction and Iw as in a bit of a hurry, so I didn't stop to take many pictures, but here's one from the road.

Hot Springs.  This place is a tourist trap, and as a result I didn't care for it much.  It's the smallest national park, and has been essentially swallowed up by the surrounding town.  Not only does the park itself suffer from poor signage, but the baths and hotels in the area trying to advertise their own hotel springs blast you with similar signs, making it difficult to navigate, and frustrating if you're in a hurry.  Which I was.

But, me and the dog took a little time for a break and climbed Hot Springs mountain, which as quite peaceful.  This little water fountain was spitting water continuously.

Stone trenches crawled along the slopes to divert water.

I allowed Rygel to lead me off the path and straight up the trenches a few times.  Bad idea.  We got lost pretty fast because we'd essentially jump from one trail to the next without knowing it.

Eventually we made it to the top.

More soon!  Today on my list, Great Sand Dunes!!!

15 parks in 17 days - part two

Shenandoah national park - (Virginia)

This was actually yesterday and mostly just a stop because it's on the way, but I have to say, Shenandoah was really impressive.  Well done, Virginia!  Of course, I got to my hotel about 3 hours later than expected because I stopped so often to take photos.

I also managed to get in a couple short time lapses (I'd recommend watching in HD):

It was really a great day... perfect 80 degree weather with a slight breeze and low humidity in the mountains.  Visibility was great!  And just a well designed road (Skyline Drive) with some well kept and well-placed lookouts.  I highly recommend it!

To top off the day, a trip down 26-E into Tennessee (which is a fun drive too!)  offered a great sunset:

I'll upload Great Smokey Mountains when I can.

15 parks in 17 days - part one

If it seems like I've been neglecting the blog lately, well, I actually have an excuse this time.  I'm moving to Seattle (from Rhode Island), and there's been a lot of planning to do.  But beyond just moving I'm taking some time to explore the country a bit (again).  After all, what's the point of moving from coast to coast if you can't meander around in the car for a few thousand miles on the way.

To that end, I've got a 6000 mile trip ahead of me spanning 19 days.  Today was the 1st of those and I'm avoiding the VERY humid outdoors of Virginia at the moment by writing this in my hotel room.  But why the 15 parks in 17 days title?

One of my bucket list items is to visit each one of the USA's 58 beautiful National Parks.  I've been to 6 already and this trip will check off 15 new ones.  17 days because it sounds more impressive and there's no parks the first or last day.  Hence the boredom in my hotel ;)

Despite no parks today, I promised to share pictures, so here's what I've got:

Yep, 8 hours of this today.  In my experience, everything east of the Mississippi looks the same.  Hills change size and that's about it.

This is Rygel, my traveling buddy.  He's quite pleased to have the second queen size bed in the room all to himself.

Tomorrow - Shenandoah!

Painting from photos

Long time no see folks.  Honestly I haven't had much to write about lately, but a comment I received on DeviantArt today gave me some inspiration.  I did talk about this briefly before (http://samburleyart.blogspot.com/2012/01/montana-5-study.html), but allow me to elaborate.

So, painting from photos... this can be a contentious issue.  For one, yes it's always going to better to draw/paint/whatever from life.  But much of the time it's not practical.  The sun is in your eyes, or there's bugs getting in the paint, or it's too windy out, etc.  The list is as long as you want it to be whether they're legitimate excuses or not.

But I'm not here to criticize - even as a landscape guy, I do shamefully little plein air paintings, or even sketches.  I justify it to myself by taking millions of pictures on my Canon.  I could drive to twelve different places and take 20 photos of each location in the same time it takes me to spend an hour in ONE place, studying ONE scene.  That's a good trade off in my book.

Anyway, getting to the point... When you ARE painting from those hundreds of millions of photos  (*TANGENT* - Just like it's better to paint from life than photos, it is MUCH better to paint from your OWN photos than Google's or anyone else's) I see two options:

1 - You like the photo so much that you're going to copy it directly.  This is okay, but be careful...  Art-making is about making decisions - whether that be color palette, composition, lighting, or form; by copying a photo directly a lot of those choices are removed from the equation because they've already been solved.  In my opinion you're left with little besides technique and how to mix a  certain color.  Which is fine if that's what you feel you need to work on, but be aware of the drawbacks.

2 - There's an element or elements you like from a photo (or photos) that you want to extrapolate from.  Meaning, "I like the way the shadow comes off that mountain" or "I'm going to stick to this color palette.  Here's an example:

< main photo reference











                 finished study >









If it isn't clear, what I really like about the picture was the big hill on the left.  The way the light hit it, the composition of it's big shadow, and the beautiful greens of the grass.  Obviously I changed a lot, but stack the images and it's quickly apparent how close parts of the two images are:

The composition is largely the same, the color palette is almost a direct copy, and yet some relatively simple changes and additions make for a much more dramatic landscape, without copying the photo directly.

To me is makes for a much better learning experience overall, and a better, more ownable finished product.

Let me know what you guys think and if you'd like some more examples of this.

Time Lapses

Just before this past winter started I bought an intervalometer, a little device that plugs into one's DSLR and allows it to shoot a set number of pictures at set intervals.  It makes shooting time-lapse videos quite easy, but once winter hit I hibernated indoors and didn't get much use out of it last year.

With the introduction of Spring though I started getting out again, and after many, many mistakes, finally came up with a few worth looking at.

This first is a sunrise down in Jamestown, RI from a few weeks ago looking towards the Newport bridge.

This one is a sunset last night at Beavertail State Park (a little southwest of Jamestown).

The Black Opera

I'm happy to present my first book cover for Mary Gentle's 'The Black Opera!'

Although the original was larger and square, I'm very pleased with the circular cropping and the added texture around the border, courtesy of Night Shade Books.

Here's what it looks like without:

It was a great opportunity and great fun to work on, so hopefully more to come!  In the meantime, feel free to go ahead and purchase the novel:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Black-Opera-Mary-Gentle/dp/1597802190/ref=pd_sim_sbs_b_6/185-9108496-8758343

Landscape Study (video)

The photos were taken from just outside Dinosaur National Park on the border of Colorado and Utah.  Most of the park itself was closed and/or under construction and/or  excavating when I passed through, but the landscape was absolutely astounding.

Let me know what you think and if this was at all helpful and I might do more videos

Here's the final for anyone who didn't get a good look in the crappy video.