Lunch Time

Creating this piece was more than a bit rewarding. It satisfied my love for drawing with a pencil along with creating a painting.

For many years, I have had difficulty making paintings look the way I see them in my head. I couldn’t get the detail that I was accustomed to with a drawing, and I couldn’t get the colors right. It was very frustrating. Then, way back in 2009, I took a six-week course in a technique called French Wash. It was absolutely illuminating.

French Wash is just a fancy way to say thin layers of paint. The paint is so thin that it’s a bit transparent. So, in the end, a French Wash oil painting really looks like a watercolor. Pretty nifty!

Now, back to Lunch Time. This piece started in Joshua Tree National Forest. How can this be, you ask? Simple my friend. We stopped for lunch by these big sandstone rocks to have lunch. As I ate, I thought to myself, I wonder how much water had to flow over these rocks to shape them the way they are now. With that question in mind, I took a few pictures with my trusty phone then we headed home. Once I got home, I started looking for some more images. Some of trees, another one of a mountain or two, another of a bear. I had most of the pictures; the one I needed and didn’t have I found on Google.

I enjoy mashing up several unrelated pictures and creating a unique version of nature. It’s my version of nature that could be real but really isn’t.