Zion en Plein Air

Zion Shadows - 8" x 8" - oil study, by Greg Newbold

Yesterday, I showed the first result from last weekend's painting trip to Zion National Park and Southern Utah. As with any painting trip, there are successful paintings and ones that are less so. This trip for me was a breakthrough in that I felt pretty good about every one of my pictures. Some I liked for the paint quality and color (like yesterday's post) and others I liked because of compositional or abstract qualities.

This painting was the last effort of our first day and we had to work quickly to get something down. Late fall sunlight moves quickly in the evening so we tried to keep this study around an hour. It is always a challenge to capture scenery as big as Zion without getting too busy and losing focus. I chose to crop and focus on a certain area of the mountain. I really like how the light and shadow shapes play off of one another and the abstract quality this creates. I think this study is worthy of being worked up into a larger painting.