California High Desert

"The Ditch, Hesperia"

This is an image near Hesperia, California in the high desert. The scene is nothing more than a ditch caused by erosion. I was out hiking around snapping reference photos and found the ditch, which was about 2-3 feet deep, as I walked about. I found it neat that if you changed the scale or background this could be large canyon walls like you'd see in Canyon De Chelly.
the mountain range in the distance is the back of the San Gabriels close to Cajon Pass.

The desert is too cool and awesome in winter. I'd like to go up there and spend a week just tooling around taking pics of it. If you keep heading north of here you'd end up in Death Valley, the lowest piece of ground, below sea level, in the US.

This painting was started around 9 AM and finished later that day in the evening. I'm proud of this one because I just love the way the ditch colors came out and I like the highlighted ground level on top. that really pushes the shadowed ditch walls and wall shadows. I am slowly getting the hang of shadows. To another artist I would say "don't think shadows, think color" If you think shadows you can get very goofed up trying to paint them. The learning curve to painting is hugh compared to pen & ink.