Granite Gap, Peloncillos

The last couple of hikes have taken me to the Peloncillos (little baldies) and Granite Gap. This is a beautiful desert/mountain area with exotic rock formations. Desert Bighorn Sheep have been re-introduced here. I ran into the New Mexico Bighorn Sheep biologist who was radio tracking some sheep and he said he found four babies. I hiked all over hoping to spot them but never did. I did see a Ringtail though, a small cat-like creature with a huge ringed bushy tail. Makes it seem as if I am in another country!

"To inquire into the intricacies of a distant landscape, then, is to provoke thoughts about one's own interior landscape, and the familiar landscapes of memory. The land urges us to come around to an understanding of ourselves."

- Barry Lopez

Folded Earth

11 x 14

oil on canvas

available

The colors and light of the southwest are so different from the cool upper mid-west.  I found myself expanding my usually very limited palette for the southwest work, adding some earth tones - yellow ochre, burnt umber, venetian red, as well as cadmium orange, which I have rarely used but think I will from now on, it's scrumptious.