Eaton Canyon

 Eaton Canyon Sunset

12"x36" Oil on Wood Panel

 

I painted this back in 2012. I felt it was done and set it aside to dry. After a while it had gotten covered up by a few other paintings that were drying but then never framed so there they sat blocking this painting from site.

I liked this scene and wanted a dramatic afternoon sun scene with lots of oranges and pinks but I wanted something else too. I wasn't trying to just capture the landscape or even the color...I wanted to capture the feel of the moment...the atmosphere of it all. Painting atmosphere is a whole other deal in painting. In the progression of things painters tend to paint the scene in front of them but in doing so seem to miss the effects of light and all the stuff floating around in the air that creates atmosphere. It took me a while to see that "stuff" and it took me even longer to learn to paint it well. It's all about painting the right values, not the color, but the light and darkess of the colors. To this day I still prefer to paint atmosphere because it is really a good challenge and to me makes for a better painting. 

I think gallery owners would say no, paint color and pizazz, it catches peoples eyes and gets their attention....it's easy to sell. Those paintings really do all of that and would make a subtle atmospheric painting pale in comparison. I just can't help painting them.   

The detail of the painting above shows my attempt to capture that late afternoon sunlight filtered by the air of the canyon. Getting the light and air in front of that distant mountain ridge and balancing that look against the lower hills in the center of the painting was critical. If that didn't look right to me then there was no sense in painting in the foreground at all. Slightly darkening the tree mass to the left was a way of getting better contrast to the middle area hills....it also balanced the darks of the trees to the left side of the painting. These overlapping planes give the painting depth and adjusting the values in each plane created the illusion of atmosphere. If I continue to work with atmosphere and get it right then I think I'll be turning out some monster paintings. So, you can paint a desert or you can paint a desert in sweltering heat and make your viewers feel the sweat rolling down their forehead and long for a glass of cool water. 

Eaton Canyon Sycamore Painting in Frame

"Eaton Canyon Fall"

20" X 24" Oil on Canvas

Eaton Canyon Painting Preview

Framing a painting before it is ready because you just can't wait to see it all framed up.

This painting isn't completely dry nor is it varnished yet. Everytime I walk into the studio though there it sits leaning against my bookcase drying away and waiting to be varnished and framed. It is one of those paintings that for some strange reason grows on you...well ok, on me. Of all of my sycamore paintings so far this painting I feel has the best work on the trunk. Each time I look at it I like it more and more.. It's becoming an old friend. I just had to see what it would look like once it's framed so I took one of the same size down from my living room and popped this one in it. Ahhhhh! If I was buying my art this is the one I'd buy, hahaha. Of course, artists see paintings differently...the small achievements, the failure....they know the work put into it and the goal to begin with. Only the artist knows how close they have come to their goal with each piece. We just see our paintings in very different ways than the public does. This one is my favorite for now. All of those moons and stars lined up just right and bam, it was done. Looks really cool in the frame and it going to look killer once it is varnished.

Eaton Canyon Fall

"Eaton Canyon Fall"

20"x24" Oil on Canvas

Another scene from my hike through Eaton Canyon on Thanksgiving Day. This old sycamore was up in Coyote Canyon, a small canyon that drains into Eaton Canyon. Great hike that morning. Met some really nice people out for some exersize or just sight seeing and taking in some fresh morning air.

Eaton Canyon Sycamore...more

"A Changing Season"

12" X 16" Oil on Panel

I'm still gettng my share of Fall colors from my trip to Eaton Canyon. This sycamore was on a ridge in Coyote Canyon. The grasses were just fantastic there and from my low vantage point seemed to be reaching for the sycamore. I have been working on painting better grasses and this of course would cover all of the bases...grasses, fall colors, sycamore trunks and twiggy growth off of the sycamore and surrounding branches. Can't ask for more than that so I painted this one today starting around noon, 6 hours, but I took my share of breaks getting coffee, helping bring in the groceries, feeding the horses. I also listening to my music including favorite Christmas songs I've downloaded which is fun this time of year.

Some details of the painting......

San Gabriel Mountains in 2 hours

"Down In The Canyon"

9"x12" Oil on Panel

I had wanted to do some painting before heading down to my parents house for Thanksgiving day so the night before at about 9pm I decided to paint this little Eaton canyon scene. I was trying to get as far as I could that night but in a couple of hours it was done. On Friday it was tacky enough to set into the frame just to see how it would look when it was framed up. I like it. This is a late afternoon scene where the light is still hitting the higher mountains in the background but the canyon bottom is in shadow. You can see some of the warm light still hitting the trees along the top of the walls and heading up to the foothills. This is another painting where I've gone in and just blocked in all of the colors first and then gone back over each area putting in the details....having fun with that method.

A detail of the painting......

Eaton Canyon Sunset

Well, all finished. I wish I could get a better photo of the painting but it is a wide painting and I have to back away to get the wide panel into the viewfinder which then keeps me from getting a good solid image...It's not bad but probably could me much better.

 "Eaton Canyon Sunset"

12" X 36" Oil on birch panel

I'd say it works pretty well as a painting of one of my favorite subjects...the San Gabriel mountains. These are hard mountains to paint and I feel I'm really making progress with them. There are some really nice passages in this painting but seeing them in an online photo doesn't do them justice. One particular area I like a lot is the left side showing the distant trees and far off bluffs along the mountain bottom...

Overall....this one came out well. I'll let it sit and dry and work on getting a frame for it in the meantime.

Henninger Flats Painting

"Fall Below Henninger Flats"

20"X 24" Oil on Canvas

When you are hiking in Eaton Canyon you are below Henninger Flats. Peter Stiel originally owned the property and his friend William Henninger from Virginia began squatting on the land in 1884. Henninger built a home and grew hay, nut and fruit trees up there. Eventually the property was sold by his daughters after his death to various buyers who eventually sold it to the Mt Wilson Toll Road company.
There is a great site with info and photos of the descendants of William Henninger, and his Native American wife Teresa, having a reunion here.
My parents lived almost right below Henninger Flats in Pasadena. Trees are raised there and Henninger Flats is easily spotted from below by the trees at the two campgrounds they have there.

 The trees at Henninger Flats are visible just above the sign on the freeway overpass.

I've hiked there with my Dad and brothers and friends over the years. There is an access road that runs across the front of the mountains and gives great views of the San Gabriel valley below. Whenever I'm in Eaton Canyon I always look up to the trees at Henninger and recall the various times I've been up there. Down in Eaton canyon when fall rolls around the sycamores turn color and and contrast nicely against the blue and greys of the San Gabriels.

    The trees again visible at upper left in this late afternoon shot from Eaton Canyon.

Eaton Canyon Painting

"Eaton Canyon Dusk"

38" X 48" Oil on Canvas

The painting above was painted back in January 2011. It is a large painting,  36"x48", and so it was leaning along the wall here drying...and staring at me. I finally had enough and threw it back up on my easel. It must be an artists curse that if you look at one of your paintings long enough you will undoubtedly see changes you want to make. Sometimes the changes make the painting better and sometimes you should have listened to your first instinct to call it quits. Paintings live and can taunt you, haha. I think the changes I have made on this one were for the better and I'm much happier now with this one...good thing too because it's large and is very hard to ignore here in the studio.
I've gone back in and lowered the contrast of colors in the distant mountains...being subtle speaks volumes. I've also varied the edges of the oak tree shapes, mainly the tops, in the midground. Oooh, much better! I adjusted the colors and detail of the midground bushes that run across the paintings center. I then came to the foreground and added work to the tree, worked more grasses in and worked more on the bush to the right. Some slight work on some rock shadows, the sandy riverbed sand...etc etc etc. Basically I touched up most of the painting and wondered why I had stopped before. Vision! Sometimes it tells you you're finished and sometimes, most of the time, it doesn't really mean it. I don't think there is a painting I have finished that when looking at it later I don't see something I'd change....it's that curse. Really an artist just improves with time and paintings and so it is only natural to see earlier work and want to make changes. Right now, I'm happy with the finish. I'm going to go broke buying a frame for this one, yikes!

Eaton Canyon At Dusk

"Eaton Canyon At Dusk"

36" X 48" Oil on Canvas
A large painting of Eaton Canyon just before sunset. This scene was down in the riverbed in Fall this last year. Being a riverbed in a canyon there were plenty of rocks to paint so I took the liberty of editing many of them out of the scene. This allowed me to add more of the sandy bottom of the streambed and keep things not so busy in the foreground area. Took a few days to paint this one due to the large size but it went pretty smooth. The mountain sides of the canyon are an area I'm still working out to get to the point of feeling comfortable painting them and really loving what I end up with there. I like the progress so far with that part of these canyon paintings because the San Gabriel mountains to me are very hard mountains to paint. Lots of rocks and scrub brush so it is sort of a nightmare to handle for a painter.

Eaton Canyon

"Eaton Canyon Meadow"

22" X 28" Oil on Canvas

It seems everytime I go to Eaton canyon I end up in the meadow. It is just as you cross the water when hiking from the parking lot of the nature center there. There are some giant oaks and sycamores that line the meadow on one side and the bottom of the San Gabriel mountains on the other. This is the kind of trail my brother and I used to love running along playing as kids set free in the mountains. Lots of fun painting this one.

Here is a detail of the painting.....

I had the good fortune to visit the canyon 3 or 4 times this past year and that's pretty cool considering I now live over 130 miles away. When I was a kid we used to ride our bikes up to the canyon...or just walk if someone had a flat tire. They had the coolest pictures of a hiker who had been biten by a local rattlesnake. Our hikes were mostly in summer so it got pretty hot in the canyon by afternoon. Now I like to go there either in early morning or later afternoon to watch the colors of the San Gabriels ignite as the sun falls into the Pacific ocean. Sometimes the mountainsides are the most amazing pinks, reds and peach colors....just awesome to see this at various times of the year.